Legacy offers a step-by-step guide to the domestic adoption process

The first step of the domestic adoption process is deciding whether it is right for you. We recommend learning as much as you can before committing to adoption. Getting together with other families who have adopted, attending a conference or speaking with an adoption counselor at our Texas adoption agency can all be helpful.

The first steps of the domestic adoption process

Our Texas adoption agency has counselors on staff who regularly speak with couples interested in adoption. We walk them through domestic adoption, step by step. Here, we will lay this process out for you. We walk them through each step of the domestic adoption process. Here, we will lay this process out for you.

Fill out an agency’s initial application. This may seem like the easy part of the adoption process, but agencies take their applications very seriously. During this phase, the agency determines whether the couple is committed to adoption. They want to be fair to you, other waiting families and expectant parents. Some of the questions you’ll answer may include the following:

• How did you decide on adoption?
• What are your hopes and expectations?
• How open are you in terms of your child’s needs, race and gender?
• How can the agency best support you?

Complete the home study. Everyone pursuing the domestic adoption process must complete a state home study. Contrary to its name, most of the study does not actually involve the home. It is the state’s way of evaluating how stable and committed a family is. Once you officially join an adoption agency, the team will help you find a social worker to complete your home study. This state agent will help you obtain all the necessary components of the study.

Showcase yourself and the reasons you want to adopt. Your agency will help you put together a profile of yourself. This may include photographs, written components and perhaps a video. Most agencies will compile both print and online materials about their waiting families.

Our adoption agency personally shows profiles to expectant parents and makes the online profiles of our families open to the public. This is helpful because most expectant parents spend a great deal of time browsing the internet, looking for the family they dream of for their child.

Taking the next steps to adopt a child

After completing the first steps of the adoption process, our Texas adoption agency will guide you until you legally adopt your baby.

Matching. The next step in the domestic adoption process happens when an expectant mother chooses you to parent her child. This is an exciting development for families! During this phase, you will be able to get to know a very brave and selfless woman. You can start making plans, including the hospital stay and post-placement communication.

This phase is also tender. It is important to remember that until the expectant mother relinquishes parental rights, the child is still legally hers.

Birth and temporary custody. The expectant mother will have determined her hospital plan with her adoption counselor prior to delivery. Once the child is born, the adoptive parents can be as involved as the new birth mother wants them to be.

In Texas, the birth mother must wait 48 hours before relinquishing her rights. Once she does so, our Texas adoption agency becomes the managing conservator. The new parents then become the care providers during the six-month period of supervision before finalization.

Adoption and finalization. The final step of the adoption process is finalization. In Texas, this process takes six months to complete and includes post-placement visits from your social worker. He or she will begin writing a report to the state court. This report will recommend that you become the permanent and legal parents of your new baby.

Many courts have celebratory adoption days, in which they grant multiple finalizations at once. Your child is now legally yours “as if he or she were born to you.”

If you have other questions about Texas adoption, call or text our counselors at (817) 799-6834.