Maintaining Family Connections

Deciding to place a baby up for adoption is never an easy decision, and making the right choice between the multiple forms of adoption can seem impossible with all the stress sapping your decision making abilities. Aside from deciding if you're willing to deal with adoptive parents from outside the country or determining if you want the option for contact in the future, you'll need to start by picking between public and private adoptions. Find out why public arrangements are better for many new mothers looking for the best way to take care of their baby.

Lower Cost

For the parent placing the baby up for adoption, there are usually no fees for either private or public options. Some private agencies charge fees to the parents surrendering their rights, but most do not. However, you should still be concerned with the overall cost of adopting your baby when it comes to securing them a bright future. Since private adoption agencies tend to charge at least $25,000 for the process and up to $50,000, state-run adoption agencies tend to place more children due to the lower associated costs. You don't want prohibitively high adoption fees to be the only thing standing between your child and a family who wants to give them everything they need.

Potential for Stipends

When families interested in adopting go through the state's agencies instead of choosing a private organization, they have many more opportunities for getting government support to help them raise their newest addition. In states with particularly high numbers of children in need of foster homes, adoptive parents often qualify for monthly stipends to help cover the costs of caring for the child. This can give your baby a guarantee of stability and help them find a home sooner as well. Find out if your state offers these kinds of financial programs before assuming that this benefit will help your child find a permanent home faster.

Involvement Options

The majority of private adoption agencies set requirements for the open or closed status of the adoption, either requiring surrendering parents to stay open to future contact or to sign their rights away as a whole. This makes it even harder to decide what you truly want for yourself, so state agencies set rules on open and closed adoptions by each case instead. Most states allow you to stipulate exactly how much potential for future contact you want at the time of adoption instead of setting a blanket policy for all parents using the adoption system. This is essential in difficult adoptions where you may change your mind later about wanting contact.

Wider Age Range

Private adoption agencies tend to focus on infants because they are the most desirable children to adopt and therefore represent the most profit to the agency if it's run for profit. Since the state adoption agencies handle children of all ages up to 17, parents working with them tend to be open to adopting older children. If you've waited a few months or even years to decide to put your baby up for adoption, your options may already be limited to public adoption alone.

Special Needs

Finally, most special needs children or groups of siblings are only accepted by public agencies and not private adoption organizations. Since these kinds of children need extra care and attention throughout the adoption process, it's best to leave the work up to the state officials rather than trusting it to a private agency. Of course, there are some limited private organizations that specialize in these kinds of adoptions, but not all states allow parents to work with non-local organizations.

If you're trying to decide what would work best for you reach out to a place like http://www.achildsdream.org for more ideas and possible counseling.