BIRTH MOTHER SERVICES

We also help mothers who find themselves in the situation where the State has removed the child from their custody, placed the child in foster care and require a case plan to be completed in one year or else risk having parental rights terminated. Most folks are able to comply with the case plan and are reunited with their children. But some are facing financial hardships, addiction issues, criminal complication, lack of support and other issues that make the case plan impossible to complete. In those cases, a mom can contact us to explore the Intervention Option. The mother selects a family of her choice (as if she were pregnant) through our process and the selected couple intervenes in the State case and, if there are no issues, the case proceeds as a private adoption instead of a State placement. It is always best to do this early in the State case to minimize the effects of moving a child too many times. If your child has been removed by the State and you do not have family stepping in to help out AND you know that it is likely that you cannot complete the case plan, it is better to immediately look into the Intervention Option. Interventions do not provide for the payment of maternity related living expenses, but it does allow you to pick a family and establish a post-adoption communication plan not available in State foster-to-adopt adoptions.

We are committed to having you make all the critical decisions about who you select to adopt your child. You tell us who are looking for: age, race, marital status, number of children, religion, employment, education, location, and family structure, and we will find you that family. Ultimately, you have to be 100% confident that you have selected the perfect family. Typically, we determine who you are looking for and then we search for families all across the United States to find families meeting your criteria looking to adopt. We then present to you a number of families that are very interested in adopting with you and you select them from their applications. A face-to-face meeting is set up and you decide if you made the right choice and they decide if they made the right choice. If everyone is on the same page, it is a match and the adoption plan is initiated. Typically, you will become pretty close to the adopting family while waiting for your due date and texting seems to be the choice of communication these days. You can make the decision by yourself but can certainly include your friends and family in the process. If the father is involved, he can join in the process, if that is your preference.

We provide counseling, at no cost to you, from a licensed mental health counselor before and after the birth of the child. We have learned that no matter how “ready” you think you are to handle an adoption plan, it is always a great benefit to meet with a counselor before and after to help you address some of the feelings and emotions that arise during the adoption process.

The amount of communication between you and the adopting family before, during and after the birth of the child is up to you. Some want distance and others want be to close. You tell us what you want and that is part of the process in selecting a family. If you want a closed adoption (no contact after the baby is born), we only look for families that are interested in closed adoption. If you want a semi-open adoption (update letters and pictures), we only look for families that are interested in semi-open adoptions. If you want to place the child with a family that is willing to maintain a private internet link with you (like a secure Facebook page), we will find families interested in that. Bottom line, we takes steps to predetermine what makes you comfortable and only locate families interested in that level of communication. When you can’t decide, we always say, “letters and pictures every three months for the first five years and then annually after that.”