If you’ve educated yourself about adoption and parenting, explored parenting resources, and now have ultimately decided that adoption is the best choice for your situation, you now may begin to search for a family for your baby. Over the next few days, we will explore some of the issues involved in selecting an adoptive family for your child.

Choosing a family can be overwhelming and confusing at times. Before you begin the process of choosing a family for your baby it is helpful to think about what type of characteristics you would like the family to have and you can even make a list of what characteristics you would like for them to have.

Typically (especially if you are working with an adoption agency) you will first be given some profiles of hopeful couples. These profiles include a letter from the adoptive parents to you the reader, photos, general information about them, etc... And will give you a glimpse as to what type of people they are. When you are ready you can meet some of the prospective adoptive parents whose profiles you liked.
A few things to think about when choosing a family:

• Do you want a two parent family? Keep in mind a two parent family isn’t necessary to raise a baby and just because you choose a two parent family doesn’t mean that they will always remain a two parent family.



• Do you prefer a stay at home parent? Again, keep in mind that just because you choose a family where there is a stay at home parent, doesn’t mean that there will always be a stay at home parent in the home.



• Is religion important to you?



• Do you want the family to have other children?



• Are the ages of the parents important to you?



• Do you and the prospective adoptive family have the same vision for an adoption plan?

--
Related Resources:
A Birthmother’s Advice on Choosing Adoptive Parents
How to Know when Adoptive Parents might not be Ethical