How to Adopt a Child With AIDS
Celebrity adoptions of healthy children have made media headlines of late, but the hardest-to-place kids--those suffering from HIV or full blown AIDS--are as difficult to place as ever. It takes a rare person to take an infected child into their home knowing that their adoptive child has an illness for which there is currently no cure. Fortunately, medical science is moving forward at lightening speed to unearth drug regimens that are successful at staving off the progress of AIDS, and a cure gets closer every day. If your heart is big enough to invite an AIDS-infected child into your life via adoption, you couldn't be pursuing this route at a better time. Cures will come, but for the moment, your love could start the healing, so use the information in this article to find the perfect addition to your family.
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Instructions
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Choose a domestic public agency over a private or overseas adoption. This type of adoption costs less, offers the largest population of special needs children from which to choose, and is the most likely to offer adoptive parents long-term financial help in the form of subsidies, SSI payments and Medicare coverage (see Resources below).
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Investigate your state's adoption laws before you proceed. Every state has enacted adoption legislation that covers the process within the state. Additional sanctions apply if you cross state lines to complete the adoption. Be certain you and your attorney have thoroughly examined laws applying to your area of the United States.
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Expect to spend a lot of money. Typical costs include agency and application fees, administrative costs, medical tests, psychological evaluations, attorney's fees, document preparation costs, counseling and other fees. This may sound daunting, but using a public agency means you will pay from a fifth to a third of the costs you would have incurred had you chosen a private or overseas adoption.
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File a petition for adoption. Whether you're married, single, a parent or not, criteria for adopting an AIDS-infected child are stringent but flexible. As long as one is able to care for the child, even disabled applicants can qualify as long as they can prove they're able to offer a child a safe, stable, loving environment.
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Submit to home visits and inspections. Anticipate background checks into your personal life. Home visits by court-appointed or agency-licensed personnel verify that you have the physical room, financial stability and emotional temperament for parenting a special needs child. Background checks are made to unearth facts that may disqualify you from the process.
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Prepare for the possibility that the biological parent(s) of the child you seek to adopt may petition to regain custody. Even if parental rights have been severed by the courts, judges do not take ending biological parents' rights lightly. Only the final adoption hearing can end a biological parent's custody challenge.
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Attend several hearings, at which time a judge will hear reports from social workers, case managers, mental health professionals and other involved parties about their discoveries. Counseling and education efforts plus observation and evaluation reports will keep the court appraised of your progress as the process of adoption approval moves forward.
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Appear in court to receive final adoption approval. The following people may attend this hearing: your attorney, the agency's attorney, the child, legal advocates for the child, case workers and anyone with a vested interest in the adoption. The judge may question attendees about any matters related to the proceedings. Though infrequent, this is also a birth parent's last chance to challenge the adoption.
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Celebrate the happy occasion once your petition for adoption is approved. A decree will be issued in your child's new name. The court will also provide you with an amended birth certificate naming you as the parent and replacing the child's former last name with yours. Your child's original birth certificate will be sealed and may only be opened if legal steps are taken to retrieve it.
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Tips & Warnings
Ask the agency you choose to recommend an inexpensive lawyer who specializes in adoptions to speed the process along. Research shows that singles are ideal adoption candidates for children who have witnessed repeated domestic abuse. Changes in privacy laws have made it easier for birth parents and children to find each other. Seriously consider telling your child about her adoption when she is old enough to understand how much you wanted her.
Resources
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Comments
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kgob
May 27, 2009
To "choose a domestic public agency over a private or overseas adoption" for an HIV adoption would almost guarantee a family to never receive a placement. There are almost no HIV children available for adoption in developed countries due to the level of care pregnant women receive that prevents the transmission from mother to child. Also, a child's HIV status is not public information so it would be difficult to impossible to seek out an HIV positive child within the foster care system. It would be possible with a private domestic adoption, but still very uncommon. If people truely desire to adopt an HIV child they should go where the need is - which is in the developing world.
