Dreaming of adopting a baby in the United States? This is known as domestic adoption. At Lifetime Adoption, we specialize in helping families navigate this life-changing journey with confidence and compassion.Domestic adoption involves the placement of U.S.-born infants into the loving arms of adoptive families chosen by their birth parents. These brave parents entrust their child to a family they feel is just right.
Ready to learn more? Discover answers to the most commonly asked questions about domestic adoption and its benefits. You’ll also learn the benefits of adopting with Lifetime Adoption, from our comprehensive infant adoption program to our personalized support every step of the way. Let’s explore how we can help make your dream of adoption a reality!
Questions About Domestic Adoption
Many hopeful adoptive parents have questions about the specifics of expanding their family through domestic adoption.
Among many other questions, hopeful parents wonder how much it costs to adopt, what happens if the birth mother changes her mind, and how long the process takes. Here are the most common questions about domestic adoption and answers from Lifetime’s adoption experts!
How much does adoption cost?
The costs of a domestic adoption vary and are based on many different factors.
The average cost of an adoption can range from $5,000 to $70,000, although it can be much less costly. In other words, adoption does not have to be cost-prohibitive; you don’t have to be a wealthy family to adopt a child.
Expenses involved in a domestic adoption may include attorney fees, home study costs, counseling fees, pregnancy-related expenses for your baby’s birth mother, and travel expenses. You can learn more about adoption costs here: Adoption Financing: How to Afford Adoption.
How do birth mothers choose adoptive parents?
Each birth mother has the opportunity to choose the family she feels will raise her child with love and care. Potential birth mothers look at the websites, photos, and videos about adoptive families before they decide. They may talk on the phone or even meet in person to get to know each other.
How do agencies screen hopeful adoptive parents?
Adoption professionals screen families in several ways, but a home study is always involved. A home study consists of a check to ensure your home is safe, as well as a criminal, medical, and financial background check. The screening process also confirms the family is genuinely committed to adoption.
What are the eligibility criteria for domestic adoption?
Most birth parents seek adoptive parents who are nurturing, healthy, and active, capable of creating a supportive environment where their child can flourish. We carefully review applications and will provide an honest evaluation if we believe that age could be a factor in a birth parent’s selection. Lifetime Adoption will only extend a contract to those we are sure we can assist effectively.
In order to adopt through Lifetime Adoption, you must meet the following requirements:
- A resident of the U.S.
- At least 21 years of age
- Good physical and emotional health
- No criminal record or history
- No record of domestic violence
- No history of child abuse or neglect
- Have an income sufficient to provide for a child
You can learn what will disqualify you from adopting a child here.
Can you adopt if you already have children?
Yes! In fact, many adoptive parents already have children when they begin looking into adoption. Some birth mothers even prefer families that already have children so that their baby will have siblings growing up.
What are the types of children available for adoption?
Lifetime Adoption helps both expectant mothers as well as those with children who are already born. Of the children adopted through Lifetime, about 92% are newborns. The rest are children between the ages of 6 months and 7 years old. We see adoptions of babies and children of all races, both genders, and most are considered healthy.
Visit our Birth Parents Seeking Families page, where we have posted many of our current available adoption situations. This page is updated daily. It will let you see the types of children available for adoption as well as the qualities birth mothers are seeking in adoptive parents.
Can an agency guarantee I will adopt a baby?
While an adoption professional cannot guarantee that you will end up with a baby, it can ensure that you will be represented well to potential birth families.
Lifetime guarantees that we will expose our hopeful adoptive parents to more birth parents than most organizations. When you work with Lifetime, you’ll have your own dedicated Adoption Coordinator. Your Coordinator will be your main contact — guiding you through the adoption process and connecting you with the people required to complete it.
In addition, each adoptive couple can expect numerous qualified support staff members working to meet their adoption needs. With our program, there is never a need to wonder if someone is working on your behalf. We have live staff 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for birth parents and emergencies.
What is the required training and education for adoptive families?
We are passionate about ensuring that every family has a strong foundation to not just navigate, but truly thrive in their adoption journey. By putting in the hard work at the beginning, we believe we can pave the way for a smoother and brighter future.
Adoption is not just a one-time event; it’s a beautiful journey that requires dedication, training, and preparation. Our mission is to help you invest in the skills and knowledge needed to parent your adopted child with love and confidence, setting the stage for lasting bonds and unforgettable memories. We require adoption training, which can better prepare adoptive families for the realities of adoption, such as transracial adoption and prenatal exposure.
As a part of your adoption home study, the social worker will assess several mandatory components, one of which is adoption education. Each state has its own specific requirements about the training that adoptive parents must complete to satisfy the education component of the home study. For example, for Florida residents, the Florida Department of Children and Families recommends 21 hours of training on topics that include safety, legal issues, and relationships.
How long does the adoption process take?
Every adoption is different. While some adoptive families and birth parents have had a birth mother choose them within 24 hours of beginning the process, some may be waiting for longer than a year.
With open adoption, the birth mother chooses the adoptive parents for her baby. Various factors affect this, including your adoption preferences and how long it takes to finish your home study and online profile. For this reason, we cannot speculate how long it will take until a birth mother chooses you.
Can we specify what type of child we’d like to adopt?
Couples hoping to adopt are allowed to determine their preferences; however, openness to race, gender, prenatal exposure, and other special needs has some pertinence on acceptance into our adoption program. Generally, the more open and flexible hopeful adoptive parents are, the better fit they are for our program. Hopeful parents are able to specify their preferences in our application process.
For example, some families may have preferences for a boy or girl. However, birth mothers may avoid choosing an adoptive family with gender preferences, arguing that you cannot choose the gender when you have a baby biologically. In addition, many birth mothers do not know the sex of the baby, and even those who do know understand that sonograms are not entirely accurate.
You may experience a much longer wait to be chosen by a birth parent with more specifics you require for your child. We encourage those interested in a specific gender to consider the adoption of a waiting child where the gender is already known.
What if the birth mother changes her mind?
In some cases, a birth mother may change her mind and reclaim her baby. We offer birth families counseling to help prevent heartaches and disappointments, and Lifetime has an unbelievably low reclaim rate of around 3 to 4%.
If adoptive parents experience a fall-through, Lifetime’s adoption professionals will continue to help them find a successful match. While failed adoptions are uncommon at Lifetime, because of how our program supports each side of the adoption match, it’s good to understand why a birth mother might change her mind and what happens if she does.
Benefits of Domestic Adoption
The most important benefit of domestic adoption is that it creates the opportunity for open adoption. With open adoption, you’ll have access to your child’s medical history if needed.
Open adoption also allows birth mothers to have a say in who adopts their baby and the amount of communication they’d like after the adoption. We’ve found that open adoption helps birth mothers become more confident in their decision to place.
After the adoption placement happens, birth parents can get updates on their child through letters, emails, photos, or phone calls. Sometimes, the adoptive parents, birth parents, and the child visit a few times a year. Once you match with a birth mother, you’ll discuss what level of communication works best for all of you.
Most importantly, an open adoption will benefit your child. They’ll know why their birth parents chose adoption. Your child can also rest secure in the knowledge that their adoptive family was hand-picked to provide them stability.
In domestic adoption, there’s no mystery about who your child’s birth parents are and why they chose adoption. This is not always the case with international adoptions. One adoptive mother who adopted her child internationally shares about her experience.
“I wish that I had more information to share with my daughter about her story and her birth mother like adoptive parents do in domestic open adoptions,” she says. “We have very little info, other than her birth mother loved her a lot because she chose to give her life. She hid her pregnancy and fought against having an abortion, which authorities in China would sometimes force women to have.”
The circumstances of this particular adoption are quite dramatic. “Our daughter was found in front of an orphanage gate with a red piece of paper that had her lunar birthday and Western birthday listed,” the adoptive mom shares. “How do we explain it’s a loving choice to abandon your baby? It’s difficult for a child to understand.”
Lifetime’s Experience and Success
Since 1986, Lifetime Adoption has worked with families nationwide. We are at the forefront of adoption services, including the fact that we were the first adoption agency of its kind to launch an online platform to help people adopt.
Long story short: Our adoption program remains highly successful at matching expectant mothers with adoptive families. Our adoption programs result in about 110 adoptions every year.
Choosing adoption and working with the adoption professionals at Lifetime means we will keep you informed at every step with info about the birth family.
Wondering what it’s like to adopt with Lifetime Adoption? Tune into our Adoption Story Webinars and hear from adoptive families who successfully adopted in the U.S., or visit our Success Stories page.
Beyond that, we remain steadfast in our commitment to helping families like yours connect with birth mothers and get started on adoption plans. If you have any questions about the benefits of domestic adoption — or any other questions or concerns — please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
We can assist you and find answers to many common questions about adoption wait times, home studies, adoption laws, and more. We look forward to speaking with you. If you are interested in learning more about our domestic adoption program, please call or text Lifetime Adoption at 727-493-0933.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on October 16, 2017, and has since been updated.
Founder of Lifetime Adoption, adoptive mom, adoption expert, and Certified Open Adoption Practitioner (C.O.A.P).
Since 1986, adoption expert Mardie Caldwell has been dedicated to bringing couples and birth parents together in order to fulfill their dreams.
“Many years ago, I was also searching for a child to adopt. We didn’t know where or how to get started. Through research, determination, and a prayer, our dream of a family became reality. I started with a plan, a notebook, assistance from a caring adoption consultant and a lot of hard work; this was my family I was building. We had a few heartaches along the way, but the pain of not having children was worse!
Within weeks we had three different birth mothers choose us. We were overwhelmed and delighted. Many unsettling events would take place before our adoption would be finalized, many months later. Little did I know that God was training and aligning me for the adoption work I now do today. It is my goal to share with our families the methods and plans which succeed and do not succeed. I believe adoption should be affordable and can be a wonderful “pregnancy” for the adoptive couple.
I have also been on both sides of infertility with the loss of seven pregnancies and then conceiving by new technology, giving birth to a healthy daughter. I have experienced first-hand the emotional pain of infertility and believe my experience allows me to serve your needs better.
It is my hope that for you, the prospective parents, your desire for a child will be fulfilled soon.”
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