The wait is typically between two and seven years for a healthy infant. Children with special needs can often be adopted quickly, within a few months, if the prospective family has a completed home study. Agencies recognize that many different kinds of people can be loving, effective parents. It is important that people considering adoption be stable and sensitive and be able to give a child love, understanding and patience. Agencies usually ask for proof of marriage, divorce or death of a spouse, and applicants are generally asked to have a physical examination to document that their health permits them to care for a child.
Foreign adoptions are costly, as well.
It is not costly to adopt a child with special needs. Often the agency has a sliding fee scale, and frequently there is little or no cost. Following the adoption, the children may receive subsidies to cover the medical and other necessary expenses, although the family is still likely to incur costs for the child s on-going care. Kids who are no longer babies come with histories, fully formed personalities, and intense anger over what they ve lost. For an adopted child, forming a healthy identity requires incorporating two family legacies into his or her self-definition.