adoption agency iowa & nebraska

Hi Everyone,
I just wanted to say that I work for an adoption agency, and by no means am I an expert, but if you would like more info on our agency please let me know.

[AnnieBrooke]

I'd be interested in knowing if some things are really true.  An adoption attorney told me a while back that if I wanted to adopt a classic "healthy white infant," I would need to go overseas, she said the ready access to both birth control and abortion has made adoptable babies in that category totally disappear for prospective parents our age (over 40 and over 50, respectively) in the U.S.  She said that the only ones they see are either at risk of fetal alcohol syndrome or have prenatal drug damage, and in the very rare instance an infant comes along, the young mother would look at people our ages as being more like grandparents than parents and would not choose us.  Is this generally true?  We're not wedded to the "white" part, though I would kind of hate to put a child who looks a lot different than us into the position of being stared at and commented about (it would be hard enough having "old" parents, why make the poor kid stick out all the more?) but that was where we started.

[heatherjb]

Not impossible, our agency just placed a caucasian newborn with no drug/alcohol issues.

Age issues, yes there are always things that will limit who would be interested in placing a child with you, but that doesn't mean it's not impossible.   True story, in December we placed a baby with a family, the birth mother's wishes was to place the child with the oldest married couple we had.

Always good to look around and speak to lots of different people involved in the adoption process, everyone has their own experiences and their own views.

It is very possible that you would never be picked, just like it's possible a young married couple wouldn't or a single mom, or a whatever... but it's also possible that you would be picked. What a birth parent(s) want to see in the adoptive parents that they pick varies so much, there is no pattern, there is no sure thing. But if it's something you really want to consider don't make your judgements based on one person's experiences... talk to lots and lots of people.

And when looking to adopt, the more restrictive you get in what you want the less likely you are to be picked. A drug affected baby could range so much, don't rule it out without some research, a lot of our adoptive families after looking into it will say they prefer healthy but will consider mild drug affected... doesn't commit them to anything but the option to think about it.

Also a LOT of babies placed are mixed race, and if you are hoping for a caucasian baby due to wanting the child not to feel out of place... I would look around and talk to other families, so many families are combinations of different races and it works great for them. I guess all I am saying is to talk to lots of people, get lots of information before you rule anything out.


Hope this helps.

[AnnieBrooke]

Cheerful news about someone wanting to place a child with the oldest married couple on the list.  lol

We're not wedded to the notion of the child being Caucasian any more than we are wedded to adopting only one child.  I do think that if we adopted a child of a different race, we would probably try for a sibling pair for the reason of them having someone else at home that looks like them.  (My nephew recently cried when his mother permed her hair, because now he was the only one in the family who had straight hair and he felt left out.)  Of course, now that I say that, it also wouldn't surprise me if (should we adopt a mixed-race child) we would also move, so we don't live in such a lily-white place.

Frankly, I'm more worried about fetal alcohol syndrome than drug addictions, as far as what they do to a baby.

[MRadopt]

How many adoptions did you have in 2011? Also what is your fee.