Minimizing Adoption Wait Times

Family is forever, but your adoption wait time doesn’t have to be. If you are excited about starting an adoption journey, we know you can’t wait to hold your baby for the first time. And we know that you may have held this dream for years.

You deserve the lowest adoption wait times possible, which is what you will find with our agency. Currently, our average wait is 9-12 months.

You can contact our professional staff at 1-800-ADOPTION or by clicking here to start your adoption journey today.

If you're a prospective birth mother searching for information on the adoption process and how long it takes to get started, fill out this free contact form to connect with one of our professionals and start your adoption journey today!

Understanding the Average Time to Adopt a Child

Adoption wait times are different for each family. There are several key factors in determining yours: the type of adoption and the agency you work with. While other things, like your personal preparedness for the process, will also contribute to your wait time, these two stand above the rest.

The type of adoption you choose can cause your wait to be shorter or longer. For example, most international adoptions take longer, in some cases three or more years, and involve more than one trip to the child’s country of origin.

It’s also important to research your adoption agency. Adoption wait times can be drastically different between agencies. In 2015 an Adoptive Families survey found that 63% of families in U.S. newborn adoptions were matched within a year. For 37%of families, the wait was longer than 12 months. However, this changed dramatically because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Across adoption professionals, many families were waiting two years or more to adopt. The impact of the pandemic on adoption was drastic and, to this day, is still unfolding.

While many adoption professionals increased wait times, closed their lists, or shut down altogether, we doubled our efforts to make sure we would be prepared to serve all of our clients for the long haul. The result: You can expect an average adoption wait time of 9-12 months with our agency.

There are several areas where we go above and beyond to keep your adoption wait time low.

How American Adoptions Minimizes Adoption Wait Times

Our staff works tirelessly to help you find the right adoption opportunity within your estimated wait time through the following:

• Advertising – American Adoptions extensively markets our agency to women considering adoption. If you search for common adoption questions online, you will usually find us at the top of your search results. To get the same exposure elsewhere, you would need to join the waiting list at 25 other agencies at the same time. We also advertise in crisis pregnancy centers, Yellow Pages, hospitals, social media and other adoption websites, just to name a few. This helps more prospective birth mothers find our agency, which creates more adoption opportunities and therefore shortens the average time to adopt a child for our families.
• Networking – We network with hundreds of other adoption professionals throughout the United States. For example, if a Florida adoption attorney has a birth mother but needs a family, he or she may contact our agency to find an appropriate family for the birth mother.
• National Exposure – While most adoption professionals only work with pregnant mothers within their state or region, American Adoptions is a national adoption agency that works with pregnant mothers across the country. This helps keep American Adoptions’ wait time for families lower.
• Balance – We monitor the number of adoptions we complete and the number of adoptive families that join our agency to ensure accurate wait time estimates. Some adoption professionals take on too many families at once, lengthening adoption wait times for them all. Because we are licensed, our wait times are checked by state authorities. Unlicensed professionals, on the other hand, are able to promise false adoption wait times — and there is no one to hold them accountable.
• 24/7 Availability – When a woman considering adoption calls our agency, we always answer the phone. Our adoption specialists are on call 24/7, meaning a woman will never receive a voice mail and contact another agency.

The scope of our work and the quality of services we offer are unique in the world of adoption. We’ve been serving families for more than 30 years, and during that time we have seen what it takes to consistently create the shortest adoption time frames. We work hard to get you quickly to placement.

How Adoptive Families Can Minimize Adoption Wait Times

One of the biggest factors in determining the length of your domestic adoption timeline will be the flexibility in your adoption plan. By being more flexible to certain adoption situations in regards to race, budget, contact with birth parents, medical history and substance usage, your adoptive family profile will be seen by more prospective birth mothers.

The best way to have the shortest adoption wait times is to be as flexible as possible when setting your adoption plan. This allows your adoptive family profile and video profile to be sent to more prospective birth mothers.

For example, if you are only open to adopting a Caucasian child, your exposure will be limited to prospective birth mothers who are only giving birth to that race. However, if you are open to Caucasian, Caucasian/Hispanic and Hispanic backgrounds, you will theoretically have a shorter estimated adoption timeline. Similarly, if you are willing to accept an adoption situation in which the prospective birth mother has a history or drug or alcohol use, your chance of shortening the average time to adopt a baby in the U.S. goes up.

With that being said, it’s also important to be completely honest. We want you to have the shortest adoption wait time, but not at the expense of accepting an adoption situation you are not actually prepared for. We’ll work with you to help you find the sweet spot between being open and honest.

What to do During the Time it Takes to Adopt

Your experience during the adoption wait can be good or bad; it all depends on how you approach it. As difficult as it may seem, we recommend doing everything possible to go about your life in a normal way. The clock moves slower when you stare at it, and sitting around by the phone won’t help speed up the domestic adoption time frame.

Keep going about your work and hobbies. Go out with friends and visit family. Do what you want to do during this time — you’re going to have a whole lot of new responsibility soon! Enjoy the wait for adoption, even though it seems hard to do.

Learn More About Minimizing Domestic Adoption Wait Times Today

To learn more about how American Adoptions minimizes our private adoption time frame through advertising and networking, or to learn more about how you can limit your domestic infant adoption wait time, call 1-800-ADOPTION or click here for more free adoption information.

Disclaimer
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