Selecting An Adoptive Family

After you have determined that adoption is the best decision for you and for your baby, you will want to focus on choosing the best adoptive family for your child. Many of our birth parents have found the following checklist to be helpful as they determined those attributes which were most important to them in an adoptive family:

1. Religious Preference: Of course, if you wish for your child to be raised in a
particular faith, this requirement should be clearly communicated to your
social worker.

2. Two Parent Family: You may want your child to be raised in a traditional,
2 parent home. Our agency requires that couples be married for a minimum
of 3 years before beginning the adoption process. Further, these couples
complete a rigorous homestudy process which further enables us to assess the
stability of their marriage.

3. Childless or Siblings: You may want your child to be the first child in a family
or, you may want to be certain that your child will have siblings. We have
many wonderful waiting families in each of these categories. The choice is
up to you.

4. Stay At Home Parent: Some birth parents want to know that one parent will
be at home full time with the baby. This may or may not be important to you.
The choice is yours to make.

5. Hobbies/Talents/Interests: If you or the other birth parent has a particular
talent, such as a musical or artistic gift or if one or both birth parents are gifted
athletically, you may want to insure that the family you select has similar
talents and/or gifts so that your child will grow up in a home where these
abilities are recognized and developed to their fullest potential. This is the
beauty of matching birth parents with the right adoptive family!