What type of adoptive match do you want? There are numerous decisions to be considered and made. Once you narrow those decisions down, learn what adoption's emotional issues are, and whether you are ready to address them. Then make sure the legal steps you will take honor everyone involved.
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What Sort of Match Is Right for You?
Decide what type of adoption you want --- domestic or international; infant or older child; healthy or special needs child; cross-racial or not; agency or independent; etc. There are too many of these kinds of decisions to discuss them all in depth, but the key point here is this: Don't worry that you don't feel ready to address a particular area of neediness. Being willing to adopt at all is answering a need. Let other adoptive parents answer the needs you don't feel qualified to address.
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Learn What Adoption's Emotional Issues Are, and Whether You Are Ready for Them
Adoption may seem like a well-defined process, with a beginning and an end, but for an adopted child, it lasts a lifetime. Pre-adoptive parents need to recognize that they will have to face adoption's emotional issues during the child's life. They should also be ready to pay due respect to the birth parents who gave them the gift of parenthood. Birth parents are too frequently shunned and mistreated. Granted, if they misbehave in their dealings with their adoptive family, they may deserve to be shunned, but adoptive parents should give them reasonable chances to participate in the child's life in appropriate ways. (And birth parents must ALWAYS reinforce the adoptive parents as the child's ONLY parents.)
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Learn about the Necessary Legal Steps
Adoption transfers legal parenthood. The law, and judges, take that transfer very seriously. It is not a "goal" or "result" that can be bought like an oil change. Every case is different, and each step of every case usually has to be taken one step at a time. As noted above, the legal process is just the beginning, but everyone involved will have to live the rest of their lives knowing how that beginning was pursued. Make sure everyone involved in your adoption can look back on its beginnings with as much satisfaction as possible under the circumstances.
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