What’s The Right Type Of Adoption For Me?

Who are Tennessee’s Adoptable Children and Their Birth Mothers?

Tennessee’s Adoptable Children

You may wonder, what type of adoption will lead me to the most healthy child to adopt? Though it makes some people uncomfortable, it is appropriate for you to consider the likely challenges of a child you may adopt. You should ask specific questions and gather information about each adoption opportunity and do some soul searching, with your partner if you have one, about what kind of experience will bring out your best as a parent or parents. 

If you know that you or your partner would be a poor parent to a child with serious behavioral problems, from another culture, or whose birth parent wants a great deal of post placement contact, for your sake and the child’s, don’t adopt that child. It is a disservice to a child to adopt them if you don’t really want them. No child should arrive in a family as second best, the result of their parents’ desperate settling or one parent’s arm twisting of the other. 

Children are subject to the risk factors that can be assessed considering the place and time where they were born, the health and habits of their family of origin and their in utero and early life experiences. No one knows that this child, birth or adopted, will be okay and another one will be very ill. But you and your doctor can assess risk factors and consider odds. 

There is some variation between the demographics of children adopted by different methods, though there is little or no discernible difference between children born in Tennessee placed privately, and children born in Tennessee, placed through private agencies. Both groups are most often newborns. 

The Tennessee-born children placed for adoption by all methods are of Caucasian, African American, Hispanic or mixed heritage. Sadly, the opiate epidemic impacts Tennessee’s children, including the children available in all types of adoption. In utero drug exposure is no longer a rarity in Tennessee.  It is difficult to get solid medical prognosis information for these children. And there are better sources of medical information than lawyers.  But certainly children are better off without the insult of drug exposure before birth. 

Children placed through the state agency (DCS) are sometimes newborn, but often older. Sibling groups are primarily available through the state of Tennessee, and far more rare in private or private agency adoption.  Because children in state custody are often removed due to abuse or neglect, after some period of time living with their birth family, they often experience the additional insults of disrupted attachments, trauma, and a higher instance of parental drug abuse and mental illness, than children placed voluntarily at birth. Though all risk factors appear in all populations of adoptable children, as they do in families throughout the world.  

Tennessee’s Birth Mothers

Women placing children for adoption in Tennessee are usually single or separated, around 20-28 years old, most often working poor, but sometimes students, young professionals or unemployed. They are usually no longer in a relationship with the birth father. Sweeping generalizations, of course, but useful to dispel the dated expectation that birth mothers are suburban, high school girls. That does happen, but far more often, birth mothers are self-directed, adult women, and often mothers already.

Domestic Private Agency Adoption

The children available through domestic agency adoption are generally the same as those available through private adoption.  The birth parents are similar as well.  Most agencies base their fees on a sliding scale tied to your income.  Commonly, agency fees of Tennessee agencies range from $12,000 to $18,000 dollars, but very wealthy families can pay significantly more. 

Advantages of a traditional agency adoption are that you can be fairly passive, at least as compared to prospective adoptive parents pursuing private adoption.  You are not required to locate your own birth parents or direct the adoption plan once one is found. The agency takes care of all that. In-person meeting(s) between you and the birth mother are common, often required. 

However, the birth parent – adoptive parent relationship during pregnancy may offer more limits and structure in a private agency case, than in a private adoption. This may decrease the need for you to set appropriate boundaries in that relationship.  

Generally, the financial risk in an agency adoption is more limited, but read the fine print in your agency contract. Risk shifting to prospective adoptive parents is increasingly common.  Traditionally, agencies charge various fees at the onset of the adoption process, but the bulk of the fees are not paid until the child is placed with the family.  

Reputable agencies generally provide good counseling services, both for you and the birth family, and adoption preparation classes may be required for you in addition to the home study. Agencies can maintain physical custody of the child until the child is legally free for adoption, usually with an agency foster family, sometimes called “interim care.”  When this is done, your emotional risk is limited. Birth parent’s mind changing is most common right around the birth.  Obviously, however, if foster care is used, you will not take a newborn home from the hospital.

Disadvantages of domestic agency adoption are that your and the birth parents’ adoption planning is often restricted by or directed by agency policy or the social worker’s judgments.  Termination of parental rights documents are often prepared by social workers and without consultation with an attorney. Medical information presented to the adoptive parents may be summarized rather than provided to you as source documents. 

The waiting time for agency adoptions can vary widely, but is often in excess of one to two years.  Access to agency adoptions is often limited by factors like the adoptive parents age, religion, length of marriage, sexual orientation, whether there are already children in the home, etc.  The quality of an agency adoption experience is largely dependent on the quality of the agency. Tennessee is fortunate to have several good adoption agencies. 

Tennessee State Agency Adoption

In Tennessee, state agency adoption means adopting through the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services.  However, the Department has also contracts with private agencies for placement services for children in the Department’s custody.  And, children in state custody in other states are also often available for adoption by Tennessee residents, as seen on various web pages promoting the adoption of waiting children. 

Some advantages of state agency adoptions are:  

• It is the most fulfilling type of adoption if you feel called to adopt children and offer a home for a child who may not otherwise have one; 
• It is usually free; 
• You will have an opportunity to establish a relationship with the child, sometimes through visits, more often through fostering,  prior to adoption;  
• Federal adoption assistance is often available to you to provide health insurance and financial assistance, and to cover any expenses of the adoption, like legal fees.
• The adoption tax credit provided to most adoptive families is far more generous for those adopting special needs children from the state agency.  

The primary disadvantage of adopting through the state is that most children in state custody have been involuntarily removed.  To come into state custody, the children most often have been neglected or abused.  Therefore, they are often traumatized by early life experiences, and the failure or disruption of early life attachments. Some of the children also suffer from physical challenges from abuse or drug exposure. Some have emotional scars from the foster care system as well.  

Some foster parents have scars from the foster care system as well. Dawn has heard more than once that the child’s special needs were far less of a challenge than dealing with DCS.  It can be tough. You are not a paying customer as you are at a private agency or a law firm. 

Some former foster children are challenging to parent. It does no one a favor to sugar coat it. However, parenting success with these children is particularly rewarding. Dawn has many clients with thriving and happy children that were adopted from Tennessee DCS.  It isn’t for everyone. Maybe you have to be called to it. But when a traumatized child opens his or her heart to trust and love a parent once again, it is an honor to even be a witness.