Types of Adoption: The 7 Kinds, and How Open Each Can Be

A pregnant woman, or a mother with a newborn, chooses to place her baby with a family she selects, and a licensed agency handles everything around that choice: options counseling, matching with waiting families, the hospital plan, legal consent, and support for both families after placement. It is the most common way a baby is adopted in the United States and the only type of adoption A Act of Love Adoptions provides.

If you are pregnant, start with our guide to giving a baby up for adoption. If you hope to adopt, the adoptive families hub walks through the home study, matching, and placement.

In a private adoption the birth mother and adoptive family find each other on their own, often through friends, family, or a mutual contact, and an attorney handles the legal work: consent, notice to the birth father, the home study referral, and finalization. There is no agency matching, and counseling for the birth mother is not automatic unless the state requires it.

Private adoption is legal in most states, including Utah, and many families combine it with agency services for the pieces an attorney does not cover. Our private adoption page compares the two paths in detail.

Children in foster care become eligible for adoption when a court has terminated their parents' rights and no relative can take them. Families adopt through the state agency (in Utah, the Division of Child and Family Services) or a contracted foster agency, usually after fostering the child first. Costs are low or covered, and many children qualify for ongoing adoption assistance. A Act of Love does not place children from foster care; families interested in this path can start with the state program or AdoptUSKids.

International adoption places a child from another country with a family in the United States. It runs under the Hague Adoption Convention and U.S. immigration law, so the agency must be Hague accredited and the family needs both a home study and approval from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Each sending country sets its own eligibility rules for parents' age, marriage, health, and income, and the number of international adoptions has fallen sharply over the past two decades as countries have changed their programs.

A stepparent adoption makes a spouse the legal parent of their partner's child. The child's other legal parent must consent, or have their rights terminated by the court for abandonment or failure to support. Because the child already lives in the home, many states shorten or waive the home study. Utah's courts publish self-help forms for stepparent adoptions, and most families use a family law attorney for the filing.

A grandparent, aunt, uncle, or adult sibling adopts a child who is already family. Kinship adoptions often begin as an informal or court-ordered placement when a parent cannot care for the child, and move to adoption when permanence is needed for school, medical, and legal decisions. Birth parents must consent or have their rights terminated, and the court still confirms the home is safe, though many states adapt the home study for relatives.

An adult can be adopted by another adult, most often a stepparent or former foster parent making a lifelong relationship legal, or to establish inheritance rights. Only the adoptee's consent is needed, and there is no home study. It is a short court process in most states. Age rules for every type, including adult adoption, are in how old you have to be to adopt.