Relative Adoption

Relative Adoption occurs when you would like to adopt a child that is one of your relatives. This means the child would biologically be related to you as your grandchild, great-grandchild, sister, brother, niece, nephew, or cousin. Adoption Services can provide the birthparent services, adoptive homestudy, and court reports for this type of adoption. The expectant cost would be between $1,000 - $2,000.

Common Q & A  

Relative adoptions can seem a little more complicated than the traditional domestic adoption. Basically if you have a sister or a daughter, or a brother or a son who has a pregnant partner, you can adopt the child in a relative adoption. Relative adoptions follow the same procedures and regulations as an independent adoption. The only difference is the child is staying in their birthfamily and the birthmother will most likely be readily involved.

State statue 48.022 (15) defines family as the grandparent, great-grandparent, step-parent, brother, sister, first cousin, nephew, niece, uncle, or aunt. In adoption, these relations must be directly with the child being adopted .

If you are a cousin of a birthmother or birthfather, you would be a second cousin to the child. If your cousin would like to place her child with you, it can be done, but we would have to consider it an independent adoption. Relative adoptions can be confusing to determine; just keep in mind they are determined by the relation to the child himself, and not relation to the birthparents.

Adoption Services feels that it is always best for the child to know about adoption. In a relative adoption there is often more opportunity for the child to know because the birthparents would typically be more involved. It is likely that the child would be seeing their birthparent throughout the years at family gatherings. We strongly encourage adoptive parents to talk to their child about the adoption and their birthparents.

As with all adoptions, you should tell the child (in an age appropriate manner) as soon as they start talking and relating to the idea of family. Children are very smart and often know more than we give them credit for. This honesty, at an early age, will help your child to develop trust with you, and allow them to feel comfortable talking to you about adoption in the future. It is also important to remember that a child directly reflects a parent's feelings about adoption. In other words, your child will feel as good about adoption, and where they come from, as you do. To help you with this, check out our Support Services to see the events and support groups that deal with these issues.