Adoption

Step 2. Decide On Your Plan

APO offers Open Adoption plans which allow you to choose the adoptive family that seems right to you. Open adoption allows birth parents to know and have ongoing contact with the adoptive parents and their child.

Ask yourself these questions.

• • Do I want to have a say in who will raise my child?

• • Do I want to know my child is safe and healthy?

• • Do I want to watch my child grow up through photos or visits and receive through phone calls, email, texts, or letters?

• • Do I want to be able to tell my child about his or her family background or other important information in the future?

• • Do I want my child to know his extended family members, including his or her siblings I am currently parenting or will have in the future?

• • Do I want my child to know, for example, if he or she looks or acts like someone else in my family?

If your answer is “yes” to any of these questions, open adoption may be the best choice for you and your baby

Step 3. Choosing Your Family

APO offers Open Adoption plans which allow you to choose the adoptive family that seems right to you. Open adoption allows birth parents to know and have ongoing contact with the adoptive parents and their child. You will view the Life Books of our adoptive families and meet the one(s) that you like the best. Meeting the couple in person really helps you know if they are the right one for you and your child. Once you are sure about a family, we call that a “match!”

Step 4. Spending time with the Family

The time from matching with a family until the baby is born is a great opportunity for you and the prospective adoptive couple to get to know one another better. Your adoption counselor will be with you all along the way.

Step 5. The birth of your baby

Your hospital stay is a very emotional time. Your counselor will be with you just as much (or as little) as you want. After delivery, you can see your baby, hold your baby, name your baby, etc. You are the mother! That sounds so obvious, but it’s just a reminder that although you have made an adoption plan, it is only a plan until you make a final decision for adoption. That decision cannot be made until the baby is at least 48 hours old.

Step 6. Sign Documents

Any time after the baby is 48 hours old, you can sign the legal adoption papers called Termination of Parental Rights. If you are to be discharged from the hospital before you sign final adoption papers, temporary paperwork can be signed giving the adoptive family permission to care for your child if you like.

Step 7. Placing Your Baby With The Adoptive Family

Although it’s an emotional time, this is also a special time as you entrust your child to the care of his or her new family. We use the term “placing” your baby for adoption and not “giving up” your baby. Words are powerful. Parents provide for their children. By placing your baby in an adoptive family, you are providing for your baby by giving him/her a two-parent family.

Step 8. An Entrustment Ceremony

An Entrustment Ceremony is to commemorate this sacred event. While this is totally optional, the birth families who have done this in the past look back on the time with sweet memories. The “ceremony” can be as simple as exchanging some heartfelt words with the family about your hopes and dreams for your child. You can choose to have a very small, informal gathering in the privacy of your hospital room, or you can invite family and friends to join you in a chapel, at APO, or anywhere that is meaningful to you.

Step 9. Continued Support After Adoption

At APO, we know birth parents need continued support after placing their child for adoption. Our counselors provide one-on-one counseling through the years. APO also provides a regular support group in a confidential, emotionally safe environment for birth moms to gather, share their stories, and encourage one another through life’s ups and downs.