Learn About Modern Adoption
Modern Adoption for Expectant Parents
Pregnant women (or those parenting young children who are considering adoption) have many choices in adoption today. They make the decisions for their adoption. They call the shots. They decide what the adoption plan for their child looks like. They also decide how they want to learn and make their adoption plan.
The choice of adoptive parents is nothing particularly new, however the wide variety of parents available gives mothers more choices than ever before. They can choose from families in a geographical area, or a certain race or religion, and even one with special interests. They can email, talk on the phone, and meet in person before deciding if they wish to match with the family.
In the past, women were not given the opportunity to look at families until they had decided they wished to make an adoption plan. Today, understanding what a potential adoptive family can look like is part of making the decision for adoption.
Future contact is much more open if a woman desires to keep in touch with her child and adoptive parents. This means that other members of her family may participate in this contact. Today, this contact can be much more than just letters and pictures or visits. It can include phone calls and texts, video chat, connecting on social media, and much more.
The contact is up to the birth mother to decide upon, and discuss with the family she chooses prior to adoption, so they can create an agreement with understood expectations.
Part of the Modern Adoption Plan is deciding what the hospital plan might look like. Today, a mother can see and hold her baby, spending the time she needs saying hello so she is prepared to say goodbye. She can decide who is in the delivery room, who cuts the cord, and even choose the baby’s name that will be on the original birth certificate.
To get started, most women today are searching for adoption on the internet. They are finding qualified, licensed adoption professionals to help them out. They are looking at waiting adoptive parents online, learning about their home and family through photos, words, and videos! This gives them a wide variety of options to find the best fit for them.
Modern Adoption for Adoptive Parents
Once families learn about the benefits of open adoption, they are usually ready to embrace not just their child, but also their child’s birth mother and birth family.
Because the choices that expectant mothers have are so great when it comes to Modern Adoption, it means that for families, their child may be born anywhere in the country. For example, a couple living in Florida may find themselves chosen by a mother in Washington. The result is that couples waiting to adopt have more opportunities to be chosen.
As the child grows up, the adoptive parents have access to the birth family for questions that may arise in regards to health history or other information. This can be so valuable when you need it!
Modern Adoption for Adoptees
It is recommended as part of Modern Adoption that children today know they were adopted from day one. This means that they have always known their story. There is never a time when they learn they aren’t who they thought they were.
This means there are board books, children’s books, even young adult books that help explain and describe adoption. There are journals and baby books specifically for open adoption that help families capture everything they know and learn for posterity.
And as the child grows up, they have that connection to their biological family to ask questions and get answers about any number of things, including “Why did you choose adoption for me?” This ability and openness lets adoptees live in the truth of their lives and adoption.
For some adoptees, they may go through stages, particularly in teen or young adult years that they want less contact with their birth families. Certainly, that is their right. And that the basis of Modern Adoption – choice.
Each member of the adoption triad has choices in Modern Adoption. And each adoption is unique. The contact may ebb and flow over the years, but the connection is always there. And truly, this is what makes adoption so special today – that everyone is truly coming together for what they believe, at that point in time, is the best interest of the child.
Modern, Open Adoption is truly rooted in love – it is more people to love your child.