APQ

When you’re going through the planning portion of the adoption process, you must fill out an Adoption Planning Questionnaire (APQ). This tool is a comprehensive questionnaire that prospective adoptive families fill out to clarify preferences, values and expectations for the adoption process. It serves as the foundation for building an adoption plan that aligns with both the adoptive family’s and birth parents’ desires.

It goes into different adoption scenarios, openness levels and medical backgrounds. Here are some of the key sections:

1. Child Preferences

   • Race/ethnicity of the child

   • Gender preference (if any)

   • Age range (typically infants for domestic adoption)

   • Special needs or medical conditions the family is open to

2. Openness to Contact

   • Preferences for open, semi-open, or closed adoption

   • Willingness to exchange letters, photos, phone calls, or have in-person visits

   • Comfort level with ongoing relationships with the birth family

3. Birth Parent History

   • Comfort with birth parent medical or mental health history

   • Substance use during pregnancy (alcohol, tobacco, drugs)

   • Criminal background

4. Adoption Situations

   • Preferences around last-minute adoptions or hospital calls

   • Willingness to adopt a baby exposed to prenatal substance use

   • Openness to legal risks (e.g., birth father rights not yet terminated)

5. Family Background

   • Lifestyle, values, and cultural background

   • Reasons for adopting

   • Parenting philosophy and experience

The APQ is critical for creating a matching profile to help identify appropriate adoption opportunities and only share your profile with birth parents whose profile aligns. It also allows prospective adoptive parents to reflect on their boundaries and prepare emotionally and practically for their future child.

When you’re not personally in control of pre-natal care or other components of a pregnancy, it’s really important to understand your comfort level in regard to different situations. For us, we were open to any gender and race, we were less open to situations involving substance abuse and legal risks. With the APQ complete and all other components solidified, our profile went live.

At that point, our adoption specialist was very clear about what level of communication we could expect from them. They would reach out if there was an adoption opportunity of course, otherwise we’d hear from them at the end of the month with an overview of how many times our profile was shared, as well as any feedback. This was helpful because it can be easy to want to check in every few days to see if there has been any information. After the first few months our adoption specialist would let us know that our profile was being shared with half a dozen or so birth parents, but not much else. After I think three or four months, she asked us if we would possibly be open to amending our APQ a bit. We agreed, but still within a space where we felt comfortable, and then suddenly, we were starting to be shown to 10-15 or so birth parents per month. Still, most months came and went with no real update.

The waiting was torture. As more months went by, people often asked me if I was preparing for the baby in any way like buying things and starting the nursery – something that I was adamant about not doing. For some people that brings a sense of comfort, knowing that they are preparing for a future child, but for me, I knew that if I decorated a room that I had to walk past every day not knowing when it would be filled with the giggles and coos of a baby, was only going to fuel the growing ache in my chest. So instead, we continued to focus on other things and in the spring, we started making travel plans for later that summer. We planned a long European adventure, but made sure we could cancel if we needed to, something our adoption specialist said was always a good idea because you just never know when a match might happen. And lucky for us, that cancellation policy came in handy.

I can’t wait to share more about the day we did get our call for a match, but in the meantime, how are these posts going? Do you like the format? Anything you’re curious about? As always, thanks for coming along for the journey.

Honestly,

Theresa