Pros and Cons of Independent Adoptions

What Families Should Consider Before Adopting Without an Agency

Aug 15, 2009 Rebecca Ann Anderson

While independent adoptions can offer psychological benefits to the adoptive family, birth mother, and child, they are often riskier than agency-facilitated placements.

In a parental placement adoption, prospective adoptive families and birth mothers make an adoption plan independently, without the intervention of an adoption agency. As parental placement adoption is legal in all but four U.S. states, it is a viable alternative for families who are willing to take the initiative to connect with a birth mother. Nonetheless, prospective adoptive families should carefully consider their family's emotional needs as well as the financial risks involved with parental placement adoptions.

Benefits of Parental Placement Adoptions

Most families who pursue independent adoptions do so for practical reasons. While the average wait time for placement of a healthy Caucasian infant in a traditional agency adoption is between nine and 24 months, in a parental placement adoption, the average wait is generally between two and 12 months.

Many families enjoy taking an active role in the birth mother’s life, accompanying her to her medical appointments, providing her moral support, and even attending the birth. This type of relationship can be emotionally beneficial for both parties. Seeing the birth mother go through the states of pregnancy and ultimately give birth often helps prospective adoptive families feel more connected to the adoption process. When adoptive families feel more in involved in the emotional side, it is often easier for them to bond with their child once he or she is born.

For the birth mother, developing a bond with the adoptive family can reinforce her decision to go through with the adoption plan and trust that the adoptive parents will provide a safe, nurturing home for the child. In directed agency placements, birth mothers often find out little about the adoptive family, leading to feelings of uncertainty.

Adoptive families also benefit by gaining a sense of the birth family’s history that they can share with their child as he or she grows up. For the adopted child, this can help alleviate feelings of uncertainty about her identity as he or she begins to understand the meaning of adoption.

Another benefit for both the child and the adoptive family is the speed of the custody transfer. In independent adoptions, the family is also usually able to take custody as soon as the infant is released from the hospital after birth. In agency adoptions, the baby may have to be placed in foster care for several days while the agency obtains the birth parents’ consent and prepares the custody paperwork for the adoptive family.

Potential Risks for Adoptive Families

Some prospective adoptive parents are reluctant to meet directly with birth parents out of concern for their privacy. Although many adoptive families choose to set up a dedicated phone number for potential birth mothers to call and only give out their first names during meetings, anonymity can be difficult if the parties live in small towns or made contact through a mutual friend.

The risk of a birth mother backing out a private adoption plan is generally greater than in an agency adoption. Sometimes this is due to the birth mother feeling pressure from the prospective adoptive family. In other instances, women may decide to make an adoption plan early in the pregnancy, but later decide to keep to keep the child. In agency adoptions, adoptive families would not have been matched with women who may not be entirely committed to placing their child.

Families considering independent adoption should also screen birth mothers carefully to make sure that they are not being scammed financially. Because most states allow the adoptive family to pay for some of the birth mother’s pregnancy-related expenses, there have been many cases where women contact prospective adoptive families, claim that they want to place their child with the family, bill the adoptive parents for their expenses, and then back out of the adoption plan once the child is born. In these cases, it is rare for the adoptive family to recover the costs.

For families who feel confident in their ability to self-screen birth mothers and who feel comfortable with an open relationship with the birth mother, independent adoptions can be an empowering alternative. Nonetheless, families should look at each situation carefully and not allow themselves to let their emotions cloud the reality of the situation.

The copyright of the article Pros and Cons of Independent Adoptions in Adoption is owned by Rebecca Ann Anderson. Permission to republish Pros and Cons of Independent Adoptions in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Assess Your Options Before Making an Adoption Plan

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