[rickntc]

I have 2 daughters from a previous marriage, I had my tubes tied, since then, Ive remarried and my husband cant have kids because of sluggish sperm. We were wanting to adopt an infant boy. I have no clue where to start, I dont know who to talk to, where to turn, etc. I live in KY, what do I do? Please advise

[tobeafamily]

First, head to your local library and check out books on adoption. There's a ton of information out there.

There are three primary ways of adopting: International, domestic parental placement (AKA private) and waiting child (AKA foster care). Each has its' own benefits and risks.

Some things you want to ask yourselves:

1. How important is it that your child share your ethnic heritage?
2. How important is it that your child be a newborn?
3. How willing/able are you to travel with little or no notice?
4. How much are you willing/able to spend in fees and costs?
5. How prepared do you feel parenting a child who may have been exposed to abuse, neglect or institutionalization, known or unknown at time of placement?
6. How comfortable are you sharing your values, beliefs, lifestyle with others whom you don't know well or who are strangers?

Best of luck,

Regina

[rickntc]

We arent looking to travel much further than our state of KY we are only interested in a infant boy, we dont want one over 1yr old. Yes it has to be white, and not addicted to anything, non abused etc.....

[LVTweetHrt]

From the information that I personally have gathered your best bet is to look in your yellow pages under adoption and find a few agencies that are licensed in your state. An agency helps the adoption process from start (i.e. applications, home studies, parent profiles) to finish. Though you say that you are not looking to travel outside of your state, that may not be an option if an infant that matched (the birthmother chooses your family as adoptive parents for her child) is born in another state and you have to pick him up. Also, you will have a little bit more of a wait to be matched because most birthmothers are not sure of their child’s sex and if you are not open to receiving ANY gender or mixed race you will definitely be in for the long haul. Most agencies and facilitators say that if you only are open to Caucasian newborn boys or only open to Caucasian newborn girls the wait is substantial because everyone wants a healthy Caucasian newborn of a specific gender. The birthmother tends to frown upon this when reading your parent profiles. They end up asking that if you were able to have a baby of your own with your partner and you really wanted a boy and had a girl would you love that baby any less? Or state that in life, you would not be able to "choose" the gender of your baby when you get pregnant. I want to add that if you have disposable income and are willing to spend about $20,000 and up, then you can choose the gender of your child without the significant wait. Agencies and facilitators aren't the only ways to go--you can seek out a birthmother on your own that is far along enough to know the gender of her child by advertising in papers or magazines. This type of adoption is called Designated Adoption, but keep in mind that you still need to have your homestudy done before or during your advertising and retain an attorney to finalize the adoption in accordance to the laws of your state. Hope this information helps a little.

Monica

[tobeafamily]

Since you don't wish to travel, international would of course not be an option to you. This leaves domestic parental placement and waiting child adoption.

I am a firm believer that you can adopt a child of any ethnic heritage domestically within one year with costs under $10K. I say this not only because we did it, 10 other families in our adoption playgroup have done it also. In fact, we had probably the longest time between connection & placement, as Ryan's bfamily made their adoption plan very early in his bmom's pregnancy. What does it take? Time to network and search, primarily, and focus.

Domestic parental placement is the same as designated adoption or private adoption. In this method, prospective birth and adoptive families connect and agree on direct placement. This is the most common type of infant adoption. The other method of domestic adoption is agency placement - where bparents give the child to an agency, who then finds adoptive parents. This is 'traditional' adoption and is rarer.

Monica is correct - when you restrict your search to only male children, anyone who is not sure of the baby's sex, sex unknown or definite female child will not consider you. Of course, with ultrasounds, there are mistakes. So you would want to ask yourselves - what if you believed the child would be a boy and wasn't? If the answer is 'we wouldn't accept placement' than domestic parental placement is probably not right for you. This leaves pbparents literally 'in the lurch' - placement plan but no parents to place with and a newborn. This is why many agencies handling domestic parental placement don't allow paparents to specify sex.

In waiting child adoption, you can specify sex, ethnicity and age. However, in almost every case the child has been removed from his biological parents' care due to neglect or abuse. There are some cases (rarer) where a child is abandoned at the hospital or placed with the state at or near birth without any abuse or neglect having occured. I'd suggest you get in touch with your local child services office to discuss adoption and see what they have to say.

I'd suggest you also look for any free seminars from adoption agencies in your area. They can be good information sources.

HTH,

Regina