Disruptions

Learn more about having an adoptable child in your arms one day and taken away the next.  We cannot express enough that taking short cuts is risky and that the best way to increase your chances for success, while limiting your risks, is to work with a licensed child adoption agency.

Disruption is the euphemism for a horrible emotional experience.  It is used when the adoption process ends after a child has been placed into an adoptive family home but must be returned to the birth parent, foster care agency or other adoption agency before the adoption has been finalized.

In every domestic adoption the birth parents cannot end their parental rights until some time after the baby has been born.  In some cases the birth mother and birth father may be able to end their parental rights as soon as 24 hours after the baby's birth while in other cases it may take up to 6 months or more to end their parental rights. However, until the birth parents rights have been ended they are the parents and, if the child has been placed for adoption, they can refuse to participate in an adoption and ask for the baby to be returned.

A disruption can also occur if, prior to the finalization of the adoption, the adopting parents do not want to proceed with the adoption. This kind of adoption disruption is most commonly found in state foster care adoption programs.

Dissolution is the term used when an adoption ends after it has been finalized, resulting in the child's return to foster care or placement with new adoptive parents.

Disruptions occur most commonly with domestic child adoption while dissolutions are more common with international adoption and foster care adoption.  Disruption or dissolution, they are both nightmares for everyone involved.  But they can and do happen so it is best you think about them ahead of time.

The existing statistics on the actual number of disruptions and dissolutions are not reliable.  However, in general it appears that in the disruption rate in the U.S. is approximately 10%-25% and adoption dissolutions occur somewhere between 1%-10% with the higher percentages being related to adoptions that have involved special needs children and children from a foster care system.

One of the best ways to reduce your risks is to work with a licensed adoption agency who in turn works with an attorney that specializes in adoption. For a list of child adoption agencies visit the links domestic child adoption agencies and international child adoption agencies and selecting an adoption agency.

You may find the Child Welfare Information Gateway article Adoption Disruption and Dissolution: Numbers and Trends interesting.

For additional information please visit the link adoption disruption, and for help with an adoption please visit AdoptionServices.org. You may also want to contact Dr Berger and ask about his help as an Adoption Consultant.