Understanding Adoption

Your Choices and Rights With Modern Adoption

There was a time not so long ago that birth parents had virtually no options when it came to the future of their child. Far too often, placement with an adoptive family was made without even the birth mother’s consent and without sharing with her any information about the child’s future family.

Thankfully, with hard work and advocacy of adoption specialists and others, modern open adoption provides expectant mothers with a number of adoption choices.

If you’re considering adoption, it’s good to know what your rights and choices are.  This is especially true if you are wanting an open adoption, including choosing the parents for your child and planning for future contact.

The Adoptive Family

When you work with Lifetime Adoption, you’ll receive profiles of families wishing to adopt. You can review these profiles and get to know about the families. This should help you choose the couple that you feel is the best for your child. 

As the birth mother, you can have any number of requirements or requests when it comes to adoptive parents. You might want a stay-at-home parent to provide full-time care. You might want an adoptive family who can offer a strong religious upbringing or a heavy emphasis on education. You might even base your decision on whether or not the adoptive parents share the same race as your child, such as hoping for African American parents.

It is entirely your right in a modern adoption to choose your baby’s parents based on whatever criteria you decide is right for you.

Once you have narrowed down your choices for potential adoptive families, you can talk to them on the phone, by text or email, and even, in person. This is another excellent way to help decide which adoptive parents are the right parents for your child.

The Birth Experience

Childbirth is an experience so personal that no one other than the birth mother should dictate in any way how it goes. Giving birth is personal, emotional, and physical. This is one of the reasons why Lifetime helps you create a birth plan, letting you decide where and how you’ll give birth. You can also choose who can be in attendance at the birth itself.

The open adoption process even makes room for birth moms to request the presence of the adoptive parents at the hospital during the birth. You may grow close to them over the course of your pregnancy and decide you want them to be with you when you give birth. You may also see this as a time for the adoptive parents to begin bonding with the baby.

On the other hand, you might prefer to be alone with your baby until you sign adoption paperwork. This is totally normal and natural, and you have the absolute freedom to make that choice.

Along with the birth itself, your adoption choices allow you to include adoptive parents at doctor’s appointments or ultrasounds if you wish to do so. This is a time to continue any discussions you may have already had with them about family health or medical issues that may have an impact on the child’s future.

The Ongoing Relationship

Numerous studies have shown that birth moms and adopted children lead happier, more satisfying lives when they have an ongoing relationship. An open adoption or a semi-open adoption allows birth mothers to communicate with their child and his or her family with phone calls, emails, social media, or even face-to-face visits.

You can choose what type of contact as well as how much contact you wish to have with your child as they grow up. You might want to see your child a few times per year. You may wish to spend holidays and birthdays with your child. Or you might be more comfortable with less frequent interactions or a more distant relationship with no person-to-person contact.

The type, length, and frequency of the relationship is entirely up to you. However, this is definitely something that you will want to discuss with the adoptive couple.

There are many different types of adoption. Lifetime can help arrange these important conversations regarding future contact, and it’s very important that these discussions take place prior to adoption placement. This allows both you and the adoptive family to plan for the future together.

Get Info — And Get Started — Now

If you think you’re ready to take the next step in your adoption story, get in touch with Lifetime Adoption today. We will not pressure you; we are here to help you and to answer any questions you may have.

All of our services are free to expectant mothers, whether they choose to follow through with an adoption with Lifetime or not.

Here’s how to get started:

1. Call or text us at 1-800-923-6784. You’ll be connected with an experienced and caring adoption coordinator. Usually, the first step is to chat for a little while about your plans and expectations for your adopted child’s future.

2. We’ll ask that you complete our online confidential adoption questionnaire. We will also send you links to waiting adoptive families that are open and ready to adopt your baby.

3. We can then begin to put together an adoption plan just for you. You can speak with your chosen family and begin looking ahead, planning for the future.

Please know that throughout the process, you are never under any obligation to continue with us. We want to make sure that we’re the right fit for you and your baby.

If you’d like to learn more, fill out the brief form below or call/text us anytime at 800-923-6784.  We’re here for you anytime, day or night.