Types of Adoption: Which Path to Parenthood is Right for You?
What if there was a way to build your family that reflects your values, goals, and vision for the future? Choosing the right type of adoption isn’t just a practical decision—it’s a deeply emotional one, too. Each adoption path comes with its own expectations, timelines, legal considerations, and relationship dynamics. The route you take can influence not only the process itself but also the kind of connection you build with your child and their birth family.
That’s why it’s so important to be informed, thoughtful, and supported as you move forward. With the right resources and guidance, you can take your next steps with clarity and purpose. In this guide, we’ll walk through the most common types of adoption, helping you understand the nuances of each and decide which one might be the best fit for your future family.
Types of Adoption in Michigan
When starting your adoption journey, it's important to understand the three primary types of adoption: domestic infant adoption, foster care adoption, and international adoption. Each offers distinct pathways to parenthood—and each comes with unique benefits and challenges that may or may not align with your values and goals.
In the sections below, we’ll dive deeper into Private, Foster Care, and International Adoptions to help you find the path that feels right for your family’s future.
Domestic Infant Adoption (Private Adoption)
Adopting a Baby through a Licensed Private Agency
Private domestic infant adoption is a process in which birth parents voluntarily place their newborn with an adoptive family through a licensed adoption agency. This form of adoption allows birth parents to have a say in choosing the family they believe will provide the best future for their baby. Prospective adoptive parents typically create a profile to help birth parents get to know them and make an informed decision.
Working with a reputable, licensed agency ensures comprehensive legal, emotional, and logistical support throughout the adoption process. These agencies are often involved in coordinating communication preferences between the birth and adoptive families, with most adoptions today involving some degree of openness. This can create a more transparent, respectful, and emotionally supportive experience for everyone involved—especially the child.
Benefits:
- Adopt a newborn
- Greater control over openness and preferences
- Predictable support through a licensed, full-service agency
- Financial aid like grants and scholarships are available
- The chance to support a birth mother in crisis
- Honest wait times and nationwide outreach
Challenges:
Private adoption provides a clear, stable path to adopt a newborn with full support, financial protection, and personal legal guidance.
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Foster Care Adoption (State Adoption)
Understanding Adoption through the Foster Care System
The primary goal of the foster care system is reunification—helping birth parents address challenges so they can safely and successfully care for their children again. Adoption is considered only when reunification is no longer possible and parental rights have been legally terminated.
This process can leave foster families unsure of their ability to adopt their foster child for years at a time; the average time to complete a foster care adoption is 5 years. In these cases, foster care adoption may offer children a permanent home, often after a period of fostering. Children available for adoption through foster care are typically older, part of a sibling group, or may have experienced trauma.
Benefits:
- Low cost
- Financial support and assistance available
- Training and post-placement services sometimes included
Challenges:
- Reunification goals may cause prevent adoption
- Less control over age and background
- Potential trauma history and emotional needs
If you feel called to provide stability and love to a child who’s been through hardship, foster care may be for you. However, if you're looking for a permanent addition to your family, you may want to further investigate the differences between foster care and adoption.
International Adoption
The Complex Realities of International Adoption
International adoption involves adopting a child from another country—a process that is often far more complicated, less secure, and in some cases, ethically questionable. While some families pursue this path with good intentions, international adoption can expose both children and adoptive parents to significant legal and emotional risks.
From ambiguous medical histories and unreliable documentation to inconsistent regulations and potential corruption, this route demands serious scrutiny. Additionally, the legality and ethics of cross-border adoption are increasingly being challenged by advocates who argue that it should never be the first or preferred option for creating a family.
Benefits:
- Opportunities to adopt children in urgent need
- Possibility to adopt sibling groups or children with special needs
- International focus may align with your family’s values and vision
Challenges:
- Can involve longer, less predictable timelines
- Limited access to medical or family history
- Must navigate cultural and adjustment challenges
- Subject to foreign policy changes and country-specific rules
Curious about how domestic adoption compares to international adoption? Understanding the risks, benefits, and ethical implications of both options can help you make the most informed and compassionate decision for your future family. Read our guide on Domestic vs. International Adoption to explore what path aligns best with your values and goals.
Other Types of Adoption
Expanding the Definition of Adoption
Step-Parent and Kinship Adoption
This type of adoption involves legally formalizing the parental role for a child you already have a close relationship with—such as a spouse’s child, grandchild, niece or nephew, or other relative.
While often simpler than other forms of adoption, it still requires important legal steps like a home study, background checks, and final approval from the court. These adoptions help ensure long-term stability and legal clarity for both the child and adoptive parent, especially in cases where the parental role has already been assumed informally.
Adult Adoption
Adult adoption is used to legally formalize an emotional bond between an adult and an existing parental figure.
This type of adoption can serve many purposes, such as solidifying long-standing familial roles, ensuring inheritance rights, or simply creating a legal acknowledgment of a deeply meaningful relationship. It's often symbolic but can also provide tangible legal and emotional benefits for both parties involved.
Embryo Adoption
Embryo adoption is a unique option that blends assisted reproduction with adoption. It allows hopeful parents to experience pregnancy and childbirth using donated embryos from another family who have completed their IVF journey.
Though the child is not genetically related to the adoptive parents, this process gives individuals or couples the opportunity to begin their parenting journey from conception, while also providing a loving home to embryos that would otherwise go unused. This is only required in some states.
Adoption Factors That Apply Across All Types
Embracing Diversity and Inclusion across Every Type of Adoption
Open vs. Closed Adoption
Open adoption allows for ongoing, direct contact between adoptive families and birth parents—through letters, photos, video calls, or in-person visits—depending on what both parties are comfortable with. This transparency can provide lasting emotional benefits and clarity for everyone involved, especially the child.
Closed adoption, in contrast, involves no contact between birth and adoptive families after placement. Identities remain confidential, and all communication and records are sealed.
A semi-open adoption falls somewhere in between: communication occurs through the adoption agency or a mediator, allowing for updates and limited interaction without direct contact or shared personal information.
Transracial Adoption
Transracial adoption occurs when adoptive parents are of a different racial or ethnic background than the child they are adopting. This path requires a lifelong, intentional commitment to affirming the child’s cultural heritage and racial identity.
It often involves ongoing education, proactive engagement with diverse communities, and a willingness to confront racial bias within and outside the family. Adoptive parents must be prepared to support their child in navigating identity, belonging, and representation with care, respect, and cultural humility.
LGBTQ+ and Single-Parent Adoption
Most states and agencies today support adoptions by LGBTQ+ individuals and single parents. Even if a certain state doesn't support your family type, chances are you're relatively close to one that does.
A benefit of working with a nation-wide adoption agency is that you can look at different states for different legal mechanisms that best fit your situation. This may be harder to do with international adoption.
Understand What’s Possible on Your Adoption Journey
Choosing the Right Adoption Path
Adoption offers a range of paths to parenthood, each with unique benefits, challenges, and opportunities.
There's no "right" way to do adoption, as long as it's safe and ethical for you, your birth mother, and your future child. Whether you choose private domestic adoption for its newborn match and comprehensive support, foster care adoption for its accessibility and impact, or international adoption for its global outreach, there is a way forward that fits your values and hopes.
Wherever you are in your journey, the key is support. With a licensed agency, you can get honest wait times, financial protection, and expert guidance. Begin your journey by contacting us today for a free consultation.
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