What to Do If You’re Considering Adoption

If you have an unplanned pregnancy, you have three options: abortion, parenting, or adoption. All three are decisions that you’ll want to consider seriously. Many women who realize they don’t feel right about getting an abortion and aren’t in a place to raise a child feel led to choose adoption. If you’re considering adoption, Lifetime’s caring adoption professionals are here to help you as you move through the adoption process.
 

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Learn About the Types of Adoption

When considering adoption, know that it is a choice you can make with your child’s life and your future in mind. Learning all you can about adoption can help you make the best decisions throughout your pregnancy.
 
As you learn, be sure to contact Lifetime Adoption if you have questions. Our experienced and kind Adoption Coordinators can answer any of your questions and provide you with videos, websites, or podcasts with more information. Here are three types of adoptions you should know about as you consider adoption.
 
Open Adoption
The most common type of adoption today is called open adoption. With modern, open adoption, you can choose the adoptive parents for your child. Plus, you can stay in touch with your child through their growing years. You’ll work out the details of how you want to communicate in the future with the adoptive family. This contact could come in many forms, such as:

• Emails
• Phone calls
• Texts
• Zoom or Skype
• Letters
• In-person visits
• Social media posts

Kinship Adoption
In this type of adoption, an adult family member who, in general, is blood-related adopts your child. There are pros and cons to kinship adoption.
 
Make sure everyone is on the same page, understands boundaries, and knows they will be your child’s parents. The adoption is permanent.
 
Closed Adoption
There aren’t many closed adoptions today. This type of adoption means that the adoption agency selects the baby’s adoptive family, not the birth parents.
 
After the adoption occurs, there is no contact between the birth parents and the adoptive family. As a result, birth mothers in closed adoptions do not receive updates on their children and have no idea how they’re doing.
 

Choosing an Adoptive Family

Lifetime’s Adoption Coordinators are here to help you find just what you’re looking for in adoptive parents for your baby. All Lifetime’s hopeful adoptive parents have online profiles that include lots of information about themselves. These online profiles are available for you to look at when you want.
 
On an adoptive family’s website, you’ll see pictures of the family members, their home, their hobbies, and the activities they enjoy doing. They also include information about why they want to adopt, their faith, occupations, and their promises to you, their future child’s birth mother.
 
Once you find an adoptive couple you like, your Adoption Coordinator will arrange a meeting for you. When you speak with the couple on the phone, you can ask them questions to decide if they are the right family to raise your child. Here are some questions you could ask to make the most of your first conversation.
 

How Things Will Go at the Hospital

Your Adoption Coordinator can help you create your adoption hospital plan while you’re considering adoption. An adoption hospital plan includes things like who you want at the hospital with you during delivery, if you’d like to spend time with your baby after delivery, and if you’d like to leave the hospital before or after the adoptive family and your baby.
 
You can make this plan as specific as you want. You are in control of what happens before, during, and after the delivery of your baby. To get started, you might ask yourself a few questions, like:

• Am I OK with the adoptive family I chose being present in the delivery room? Or, should they stay in the waiting room?
• Do I want the adoptive family to take part in the birth process, and if so, how?
• Do I want to be admitted to the hospital confidentially?
• Who will care for my other child(ren) while I’m in the hospital?
• Do I want any of my family members, close friends, or other people in my support system to be with me at the hospital?

One Woman Shares Her Adoption Experience

Through Lifetime, you can receive access to different support systems, including one made up of birth mothers with first-hand experience. Hearing from a birth mother can give you insight from somebody who has been in your shoes before.
 
One birth mother, Kasey, said she chose open adoption because, as she puts it, “I didn’t want there to be any awkwardness as (my daughter) got older and was like, ‘Where’s my birth mom?'”
 
Kasey has developed a life-long relationship with her daughter and her daughter’s adoptive parents. She continues to be in her daughter’s life through letters, emails, and visits. Kasey encourages birth mothers to be open about their cares and concerns with the adoptive parents.
 
Kasey’s story is just one of the many you can read about and watch. When you’re considering adoption, it can help to hear from other mothers who have been through what you’re going through. You can read and watch their unique adoption stories here.
 

Considering Adoption? Lifetime is Here for You

You can chat, email, text, or chat with Lifetime Adoption any time of the day or night with your questions about adoption. Deciding if adoption is right for you isn’t easy, but Lifetime Adoption is here to give you personalized, unbiased support.
 
Just call or text Lifetime at 1-800-923-6784. Or, if you’d rather have adoption info emailed to you, you can fill out this short form.

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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on June 20, 2017, and has since been updated. 

Written by Heather Featherston

As Vice President of Lifetime Adoption, Heather Featherston holds an MBA and is passionate about working with those facing adoption, pregnancy, and parenting issues. Heather has conducted training for birth parent advocates, spoken to professional groups, and has appeared on television and radio to discuss the multiple aspects of adoption. She has provided one-on-one support to women and hopeful adoptive parents working through adoption decisions.

Since 2002, she has been helping pregnant women and others in crisis to learn more about adoption. Heather also trains and speaks nationwide to pregnancy clinics to effectively meet the needs of women who want to explore adoption for their child. Today, she continues to address the concerns women have about adoption and supports the needs of women who choose adoption for their child.

As a published author of the book Called to Adoption, Featherston loves to see God’s hand at work every day as she helps children and families come together through adoption.

Read more about Heather Featherston