the adoption option
Unpublished post, originally written 11/22/08 for my now defunct state of sex education blog on gURL.
What would you do if you found out you were pregnant? Would you choose to end the pregnancy with an abortion? Would you consider having the baby and being a parent? Or would you think about adoption?
Back when it wasn’t considered socially acceptable for a teen to be a mother, and before abortion was legal, adoption was often the only option for pregnant teens. Luckily, modern women have more choices. But even with additional options, adoption shouldn’t be discounted. In a lot of cases, it really still is the best choice for a girl experiencing an unplanned pregnancy.
One of the reasons some girls are wary of adoption is that they have an old fashioned idea about what the process is like. But things have changed and gone are the days when a woman who was doing an adoption didn’t even get to hold her baby in the hospital before it was whisked away, never to be seen again.
Today more and more women choose to do what are called open adoptions. Though there is no rule book for how they will be done, there are usually some common elements. For example, in an open adoption, a girl can usually help choose the adoptive parents and meet them before making a decision. And prior to the adoption going through, the birth mother and the adoptive parents may choose to draw up a plan for the future. This can include agreements to:
- Have the adoptive parents send the birth mother regular updates and pictures of the child.
- Allow the child to meet the birth mother, (often when he or she is 18, and sometimes before).
- Keep each others’ contact information current.
If you do choose to do an open adoption, there are some good organizations that can help you. Two good ones are the Oregon based, Open Adoption & Family Services and the New York based, Friends in Adoption.
Does anyone out there have an experience with open adoption that they’d like to share? If so, let us know about it in the comments!
