• Families are concerned about waiting times.
• Clients don’t want to endure many, or any, emotional or financial disappointments from adoptions that don’t work out.
• Families want to set a budget for their adoption and don’t want to have a bunch of variable, hidden or at-risk expenses.
• Every family wants to pay as little as possible, without sacrificing safety, time or service.
• Most clients want a healthy child with no special needs.
• Most families have race, age and/or gender preferences.
• Some clients want to help children overseas.
• Most families are concerned about birth parents changing their minds or countries closing their operations.
• Most want to work with an experienced professional who can guide and protect them through the adoption process.
• All families want to join an organization that is reliable, safe and stable. 

Read testimonials from families who realized their dreams of parenthood through American Adoptions.

The following is a general overview of how to start the adoption process with American Adoptions. If you have any questions about the information listed below, please contact our staff at 1-800-ADOPTION.

Below is an itemization of possible expenses for many adoptions. There is much more involved with the adoption process than many people initially realize. This is provided as a breakdown to give couples an understanding of the services involved and costs accumulated for adoption services.

Learn how to choose the adoption professional that is right for you.

• Good law firms provide for safe and solid legal work, making the adoption more secure. 

• The advertising mediums available to individual families are much less effective than those available to adoption agencies. (Keep in mind the largest national agencies who buy advertisements at a discount, track carefully their marketing success, have qualified counselors talking to birth mothers, and have major networking contacts still average spending $8,000 to $10,000 in advertising for each successful adoption. Therefore you should expect to pay more in advertising through a law firm especially if the ad is placed on your own)
• Placing ads individually puts more money at risk if a birth mother is not located.
• Families should expect their advertisments to be far less effective and many prospective adoptive families complain their ads did not yield any inquiries.
• Law firms often bill hourly, meaning their fees are at-risk if the adoption doesn’t work out.
• Most law firm’s cost estimates are the best-case scenario and rarely reflects that their clients often experience several disruptions and therefore can lose thousands of dollars before an adoption succeeds, meaning those losses will be added to the fees for a successful adoption.

Many adoptive families and birth mothers wonder why adoption counseling and case management is necessary. Adoption is an emotionally involved decision, not only for birth parents, but also for adoptive families. Too often, suppressed emotions surface during the emotionally-involved process of adoption and adoptive families and birth parents may need support during the adoption.

Each year millions of couples face difficulty in conceiving a child. While some are able to succeed with the aid of infertility treatments, others find themselves wondering if becoming a parent simply isn't in their destiny.

The truth is, infertility is found across the world, in every country, state and city. According to the National Women's Health Resource Center (NWHRC), approximately 6.1 million couples in the United States - or 10 percent of all couples of childbearing age - have had difficulty conceiving.

For many couples, infertility is an invisible loss - one that is very personal and oftentimes is not understood by friends and family. All too often, couples merely hide their sorrow, pushing it out of their thoughts, going on with their normal day-to-day routine. However, it is important that couples do not minimize or overlook their feelings. Feelings of anger, hurt, disappointment and loss are normal emotional reactions to infertility, and should not be dismissed.

“Without adoption, I wouldn’t be where I am. I probably wouldn’t even be here today.”
       - Ted, adoptive father

A countless number of people feel exactly the same way as Ted. They feel life is meaningless without the gift of becoming a parent.

For that reason, thousands of people every year choose to adopt a child. And like Ted, without adoption, many of these people would be lost; their lives would be unfulfilled because of infertility.

The joy that new parents feel after adopting a baby is just as great, if not more, as giving birth to a baby.

For example, speak with any adoptive couple about adopting a baby and you will hear the same sentiments time and time again: “We didn’t know we could love something this much”; “Our dreams have finally come true”; “We don’t know why we waited so long to adopt our baby.”

Those same people had dreamed their whole lives of becoming parents, yet struggles with infertility made it impossible for them. Some spent thousands of dollars, months and even years on infertility treatments, trying to make their dreams of parenthood come true.
 

Foster parents are very special people that provide a tremendous service for children in need. Couples must understand that being foster parents can be a lot of work and can be a very emotional journey because of the unpredictability of the fate of the foster child.

This is why it is recommended that couples entering into the foster care system are doing so because they want to become foster parents, and not just adoptive parents.