Hoping To Adopt

At Abrazo, we advocate for full-disclosure open adoptions, meaning our adopting parents and prospective birthfamilies voluntarily exchange identifying information (ie., last names and addresses), engage in direct communication (phone calls, correspondence) and continue contact (including visits) throughout the child’s life span. Abrazo only places children with adoptive parents who are committed to openness and prepared to enter into lifelong relationships with birthfamilies, to ensure that the children placed within this agency always have honest, age-appropriate information about their adoption and their families of origin, from Placement Day onwards.

Adopting parents pay a pre-adoption fee upon admission, to cover the agency’s costs of providing preplacement casework services to prospective birthparents and adopting parents, and a post-adoption fee on Placement Day, to help offset the agency’s costs of agency services and post-adoption support after placement has occurred. Adopting parents also, by law, reimburse the agency’s expenses on behalf of any case with which they are matched, pay for the processing costs of the admissions process and the in-agency expenses of out-of-state homestudy audits and Interstate Compact services and finalization paperwork preparation. (See this link for additional detail.)

Childless couples at Abrazo generally wait 6-12 months or less for placement, while the average adoptive couples already parenting usually find the wait to be 12 months or more. The majority of birthparents with whom Abrazo works hope to place with couples who do not already have children, to ensure that the baby they place will be the family’s firstborn.

Abrazo places with adopting families from all states except New York (existing NY laws don’t permit out-of-state agencies to place in their state without maintaining an in-state office). Couples from out-of-state need to budget for 3-4 trips to Texas, in the course of Abrazo’s adoptions (for orientation, meeting prospective birthparents upon matching, placement, and finalization). Additional costs include having a Texas-approved out-of-state homestudy and post-placement reports done by a licensed agency within your state, FBI clearances, and travel, of course.

The agency fee covers the agency’s casework and in-office staff counseling for each expectant parent and adopting couple from the point of admission through file closure, however, case expenses are additional and vary depending on case needs and available resources. In the event of a failed adoption plan, the adopting couple may lose any expense money already spent but they do not pay another pre-adoption education/training fee; this is applicable until placement occurs or the couple withdraws or otherwise becomes ineligible for services.