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There are many children who are in foster care and need a good home. To start the process, you'll need to find a local agency to work with. You might even want to begin by being a foster parent yourself, and if you connect with the child you could then decide to move forward with adoption. In the U.S., you can contact a local agency which will help you start the process. Other countries will likely have similar programs. You can also start by checking with your local government.  One of the benefits of adopting a child in care is that it costs very little or nothing. A negative is that it can be a very lengthy and frustrating process. Consider adopting an older child. Most people want to adopt infants, and there are more prospective parents than there are babies. The process might move more quickly if you’re open to an older child. This path is also known as public agency adoption. Another option is pursuing a private adoption. In this situation, birth parents release their legal rights to the child to a licensed agency. The agency then works to match the child with prospective parents. This path costs more than public adoption and be quite expensive.  One of the benefits of private adoption is that you may be able to choose to have an open adoption. This means that you will get an opportunity to meet and spend time with the birth parents. You can all decide together whether the birth parents will play a role in the child’s life. You should know that birth parents do not actually relinquish their legal rights until after birth. This means that they could change their minds about placing the child up for adoption. You will need to work with an attorney to begin the process of an independent adoption. In most cases, you, the prospective parent, will have identified a birth parent that you would like to work with. Sometimes, an attorney might be helping a birth parent find an appropriate person to adopt their child. Each state and country have different laws for this process. To get started, contact an attorney who has experience in this area. No matter where you live, adopting a child from another country is typically a more complicated process than a domestic adoption. You will need to follow the laws from both your home country and the country where the child is from. In many cases, you will not receive much information on the child’s background or medical history. You’ll want to work with a pediatrician who has a lot of experience evaluating the health of kids coming from an unknown background.  Remember that when you adopt a child from another country, you’ll need to take into account possible differences in language and culture. You may or may not decide to visit the country where the child comes from before you take the child home. One of the benefits of domestic adoption is that you will be much more likely to be able to access information about the medical background of the child. Health care systems vary from country to country. It will be much easier to access information when you are already familiar with the system of your own country. You might also want to pursue a domestic adoption if you strongly prefer an infant to an older child. The domestic process makes it more likely that an infant will be placed with you.
Choose to adopt a child in care if you would like a less expensive process. Look into licensed private agency adoption if you might want an open adoption. Pursue an independent adoption if you know a potential birth parent. Research inter-country adoption if you are open to a child from a different background. Pursue domestic adoption if you are concerned about the child's medical background.