Hoping to adopt
If you have found your way to this page, chances are it hasn’t happened without great sadness and heartache. At Transitions Adoption Agency we want to restore your hope on your journey to parenthood. The largest difference between infertility treatment and the adoption process is it is not a matter of IF you will have a child, it becomes a matter of WHEN. If you are truly committed to the adoption journey, dig deep, and stick with it, ultimately almost everyone who does that successfully becomes a parent. We cannot tell you when that will happen, but we want you to start trusting that it will. Our caring staff can help you understand the process and the risks involved, but will also restore your hope while still giving you realistic expectations.
The Adoption Process
The adoption process starts with you asking questions and gathering information. There is no one agency that is right for every person, and choosing an agency will be the first step. You’ll want to know how an agency works as each agency functions slightly differently. We suggest you call the agencies that you are interested in working with and talk with them over the phone or meet with them in person to get a feel if they are good fit for you.
After choosing an agency, the next step will be to initiate the home study process. Transitions Adoption Agency completes home studies for families who are using our agency for the full adoption process and also for families using an out of state agency for their placing agency. The placing agency is considered the agency that will in fact be placing you with a child. The home study agency can be the same as your placing agency if you are working with an in-state agency. However, it is very common for families to work with a placing agency outside of their home study. If that is the case, the family will also choose a home study agency to conduct their home study and post placement services. To learn more about the home study visit our home study page.
Once you have been screened and approved to adopt through the home study process, you’ll work on your adoption profile. This is where you’ll tell your story in pictures and short paragraphs. We guide you with what to share. When this is finished you will have created a short booklet about yourself that can be shown to a birth family if they are interested in learning more about you. At Transitions, we show families one at a time to a birth family so has not to overwhelm them or make them feel that they have to reject someone. Some birth families do not wish to see a family’s profiles, and for others this brings a great deal of comfort so that they can imagine what their child’s life will be like. Since we are an agency that focuses on personal touches, we do not post our families on our website. Rather we only use paper copies of a family’s profile. In doing so we also can respect the privacy of our waiting families and take some of the pressure from the matching process.
The home study and the profile are the two main items that will be completed before you can be an active waiting family at Transitions Adoption Agency. The staff at Transitions Adoption Agency will walk you through each of these steps so that when you are active you are fully prepared for a match at any time.
The most difficult part of the adoption process for most families is the waiting. This is because there is little you have control over once you have completed the home study and profile. There is little required to do while you wait. We can suggest some great ideas of things you can do while you wait.
Just when you least expect it, you’ll receive a call that you have been matched with a birth mother that matched your profile. We will explain the situation and give you the details. In many cases, you will have little time to prepare and some of our babies are already born when you receive that call. Once the baby is born, you will have a placement meeting with Transitions Adoption Agency staff. This is joyous day that you will meet your new baby. After taking your new baby home, you’ll be waiting for the PA adoption laws to run their course. After the risk period has expired, when court hearings have taken place and you have completed your post placement reports, then you will go before a judge to finalize your adoption. This usually happens 9 to 12 months after the birth of the baby. In some situations, it may take longer. Our agency attorney Debra Fox handles all the legal work for the termination of the parental rights, and you have the choice of also using her to finalize your adoption in PA. If you live in PA, in most cases it makes sense to use Debra Fox for finalization because she is already familiar with the details of the case.
You’ll find helpful resources for adoptive families on our resources page.
You’ll find key information in the Frequently Asked Questions For Adoptive Parents page.