What is a Private Adoption? [A Guide for Indiana]
Growing your family through adoption is a wonderful decision because it can set you and your family on a lifelong journey of emotional fulfillment, joy and empowerment.
You deserve the best possible adoption process, and we’re here to help you learn everything you can about adoption in order to choose the path that fits your family the best. In this article, we’ll explain one of your options, private adoption, in great detail.
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What is a Private Adoption?
What is the Definition of Private Adoption?
Private Adoption is an adoption arrangement where prospective parents and women experiencing unwanted pregnancies are connected by an adoption agency. Importantly, the birth parent in private adoptions is always a willing participant and has a degree of control over who their child is placed with. Guaranteed birth parent consent is one of the biggest differences between private adoption and other types of adoption.
In a private adoption, both the birth mother and the intended parents have a great amount of control over the process. Typically both parties will fill out questionnaires with information about their lives and what they want for their child’s future.
Then birth parents and adoptive families are matched up based on their shared preferences. This helps make sure that everyone involved has legitimate agency, and a say in shaping their own future and the future of their family.
What is an Open Private Adoption?
Most modern private adoptions are open adoptions, which is a kind of adoption that lets the birth parent or parents retain some kind of contact with the adopted child, which the adoption agency usually helps facilitate.
This can be an extremely rewarding and cathartic experience for everyone involved, including your child, but it’s completely up to you whether or not to be matched with a birth parent seeking an open adoption.
Are Private Adoptions and Domestic Adoptions the Same?
Private adoption goes by many names, including private placement adoption, infant adoption, domestic adoption and others.
The Role of Private Adoption Agencies in Indiana
The primary role of private adoption agencies is to connect intended parents with prospective birth mothers and provide professional assistance at every step of the adoption process. Adoption can be hard, confusing, and time-consuming.
We think you deserve to have an intuitive pathway to expand your family, so we’ve made it our mission to facilitate matches with like-minded birth parents, take care of the legal jargon and protect your finances throughout the entire process.
Purposeful, Values-Based Matching
American Adoptions of Indiana carefully matches adoptive families with compatible birth parents. When applying for adoption, we’ll ask you a series of questions about how you envision your life with your future child, like whether you want an open adoption, or if you’re comfortable with / able to adopt a child with special needs. We only show your profile to expectant birth mothers who meet your criteria.
From there, the birth mother can read everything you’ve put in your profile about you, like your life so far and your dreams for the future. Once a birth mother chooses your family for possible placement, the agency comes back into the picture to help assist your communication.
Risk Protection & Financial Transparency
Most adoption agencies have reoccurring activation fees and keep your money if your adoption falls through – we don’t. It’s common to see agencies set up adoption arrangements where their services “expire,” and families working with them have to pay them over and over again while waiting for adoption.
Even worse, many agencies pocket your fees if you experience a disruption in the adoption process, or roll them over into your next adoption attempt in a non-refundable account, locking you into recurring fees for years.
American Adoptions of Indiana is proud to stand apart from these predatory behaviors. Families working with us are protected by our risk protection program, meaning if your adoption process is disrupted, all your fees and payments are completely protected. We give you the choice to roll these over or to request a full cash refund. And on top of this, we never charge recurring fees.
We Work For You
We’re here to help. We have full-service, licensed, Indiana-based staff ready to guide you through every step of the process. Social workers from your local community are ready to help you with anything you need help with, including understanding the daunting requirements of adoption law. Reach out to us now for support.
How Much Does Private Adoption Cost in Indiana?
In Indiana, private adoptions can cost between $20,000 and $50,000, but your costs will be highly dependent on your specific circumstances. Keep in mind that this is an estimate of the costs for the entire process, including costs of a home study, legal fees and medical care surrounding the child’s gestation and birth.
If someone quotes you a price for private adoption in Indiana drastically different than this, it may be wise to check for hidden fees or reoccurring payments.
Private adoption costs are also dependent on which adoption agency you choose to work with, and what services they offer. Adoption agencies that only perform partial services might end up costing you more than a full-service agency because you’ll have to find a third party to take care of services they can’t cover.
Help Paying For Adoptions
Private adoption costs can be intimidating, but you don’t have to do it alone. There are grants and other financing strategies available to help adoptive families like yours grow your family. Contact our team for a free consultation to go over your financial options when considering a private adoption.
Public Adoption Vs. Private Adoption
In contrast to public adoptions, which are carried out by private adoption agencies, public adoptions are adoptions organized through public government entities, namely child protective services. These are sometimes referred to as foster care adoptions or adoption through foster care.
Foster Care adoptions can be a wonderful and hugely rewarding process. It’s a special experience to be able to help a child who was in a less-than-desirable situation and watch them grow.
However, using foster care as a means of adoption can also be a painful and disappointing process. Adoption is not the end goal of foster care; foster care was designed to eventually reunite children with their rehabilitated biological parents.
Let’s compare the similarities and differences between public and private adoptions.
Is Private Adoption Without an Agency Possible in Indiana?
You may be interested in trying to organize a private adoption without involving an agency or CPS. This is known as an independent adoption. It is a perfectly legal process, but it involves some significant legal, financial and ethical risks. It can be a perfectly valid way forward for you, but it should be carefully considered from all angles first.
What is Independent Adoption?
An independent adoption is an adoption arrangement where the birth parent and the adoptive family find each other without the help of CPS or an adoption agency. The most common example of this is when a child is adopted by another biological relative, like an uncle, aunt, or grandparent. Independent adoptions cover a wide variety of scenarios though, and can happen between godparents, close friends, or complete strangers.
Matching Difficulties
National agencies work with birth moms from across the country and can assist you in getting matched with a birth mom in an average of 12 months. With Independent Adoptions, you’re on your own.
Legal Concerns
It’s important to note that you will have to involve licensed professionals at some point in this process to make the adoption legally binding. Adoption laws vary by state, and without the guidance of an agency, adoptive parents may inadvertently miss important legal steps, which can lead to contested adoptions or even legal revocation of parental rights.
Financial Risks
Independent adoptions might expose adoptive parents to financial fraud. For example, they could face unethical demands for ongoing financial support from birth parents or even encounter scams where birth parents are not serious about placing their child for adoption.
Concerns For Birth Mothers
To assuage ethical concerns, those adopting without an agency are blocked from directly paying birth mothers. Since there is no third party involved to mediate this relationship, independent adoption can often put birth mothers at a severe disadvantage, leaving them responsible for all living and medical expenses while managing an unwanted pregnancy.
Post-Adoption Support: Agencies typically provide ongoing support after the adoption, helping parents navigate any post-placement issues, including finalization and integration into the family. Without this, adoptive parents may feel isolated or unprepared for challenges that arise after the adoption is complete.
Ways to Address These Concerns
There is an option we offer as a middle ground between private and independent adoptions. We wanted a way to address these limitations while facilitating independent adoptions. We call it the Identified Adoption Program.
Essentially, this program helps facilitate your independent adoption by respecting the agreement you’ve come to but adding consulting services, licensed professionals, a case management system and 24/7 live support. With Identified Adoption, you get all the control of Independent adoption with all the support of Private Adoption
The Identified Adoption Program
With Identified Adoption, you can find a birth mother without going through our agency. When the time comes to make it official, we’ll take care of the legal concerns at a reduced cost. The Identified Adoption Program lets your prospective birth parent and you work out the specifics of your family arrangement, and only steps in when needed.
This way, you’re in control of your adoption journey, and we can still provide important support to your prospective birth mother.
With Identified adoption, your birth mother can receive reimbursements for living and medical expenses and has the opportunity to go through counseling and receive scholarships, all legally with ethical guardrails.
Additionally, you can receive legal advice and services, help completing a home study and adoption education and counseling, all while protecting your finances from disruption risk.
Start Your Journey Today
If you’ve decided to grow your family through private adoption, there’s no time like the present to start your process. Sign up for free information and our newsletter, so that when you’re ready for that next step, you have all the resources you need. Prepare for the adoption journey your family deserves today.
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