Breaking Down Different Types of Adoption

There are many types of adoption available for parents and children.

Choosing the one that fits your family is important.

Let’s look at some of the most common types of adoption.

Adoption Within the Family

• Step-Parent Adoption– Step-parent adoptions are one of the most common types of adoption.  When a parent gets remarried, their spouse can legally adopt the children.  The hardest part of this type of adoption is that the other parent will need to sign their parental rights away.  This can be tricky depending on the relationship between the parents and how involved the other parent wants to be with their children.
• Grandparent Adoption– Today many grandparents are the “parents” of their grandchildren for a variety of reasons.  Most of the reasons include the death of both parents, or the parents are unable to care for the children due to being in jail or abusing drugs.  In most cases, South Carolina law provides a method to make this emotional relationship legal.
• Other Family Member – Another common type of adoption is that of another family member. The adoption can be done by an Aunt and Uncle, Cousin, Sister, Brother, etc.  Again this is done because both parents have died or are unable to care for their children.

Adoption Outside of the Family

• Domestic Foreign – One of the first things to look at is where your child is from. If you choose foreign adoption, you’ll need to work through potential immigration issues in addition to the adoption process. If you’re looking to adopt a domestic born infant, you may have to be on a long waiting list. There are, of course, many factors to consider when choosing where your child will be from. With either type of adoption, you can either do an independent adoption or use an agency that will place you with a child.
• Infant vs. Older Child– Another important area of consideration is the age of the child. Infants are typically more ‘in demand,’ which can result in a lengthy delay. Adopting older children may have other legal difficulties such as working with an existing family, or the foster care system.
• Single or Multiple Children– Are you looking to adopt a single child, or would you consider adopting siblings that need parents? If you choose to adopt a single child that has siblings being adopted by someone else, you may also have to work with their adoptive parents to keep the siblings in contact with each other.
• Open or Closed Adoption– A closed adoption is one in which the biological parents will not have any information about who adopted their child.  This also means that unless you choose to later, there will be no contact between the biological parents and the child you adopt.  A growing number of people are adopting children with a legal agreement that the biological mother (and possibly father) will be able to have certain rights. This could be as simple as getting occasional updates from the adoptive parents or setting up a visitation schedule of some type. This is considered an open adoption.

We Will Help You Figure This Out

No matter what type of adoption you choose, or need, we will help you sort out all of the legal parts. 

Contact us today to set up a consultation.