For some women experiencing a crisis pregnancy, finding options to help, may seem like yet another hurdle to overcome. A woman may have a child they are already parenting, or a soon to be newborn baby, or all of the above, and may be feeling without a ton of options for a variety of reasons. Sometimes a mother may just need a safe place for her child to be cared for, while she locates resources, and fully considers all her parenting options.

There is currently a real need for the kind of place that keeps a child safely cared for, while a mother considers her plans for... more

“She won’t always be 16, but she will always be Austin’s mother.”

I was half paying attention to an old Judging Amy re-run on television the other day, when I heard one of the characters, Maxine (who is a social worker) say the above quote. I really hadn’t been paying too much attention to the show but the quote caught my attention. The quote was said by Maxine to the judge on the behalf of a young mother who I can only assume was on the verge... more

Below are a few things to think about and consider during the process of choosing an adoptive family.

Don’t rush. While you may prefer to find a family during your pregnancy so you can start getting to know them before the birth of your baby, there is no rule that says they must be found and chosen before the birth of the baby. You can still choose a family afterwards so don’t let a near by due date rush you into a quick decision. Consider choosing an adoptive family that already has one (or more) adopted children in open adoptions. Ask to speak to their child’s... more

You may find it helpful to come up with a list of questions for prospective adoptive parents. Some of these questions could possibly be answered in their adoption profile; other questions may have to be directly asked.

Below is a list of possible questions you may want to ask potential adoptive parents.

Why do the prospective adoptive parents wish to adopt? What kind of adoption are the prospective adoptive parents looking for? (open, semi open, etc) What if any compromises are the prospective adoptive parents willing to make? How do the prospective... more

If you’ve educated yourself about adoption and parenting, explored parenting resources, and now have ultimately decided that adoption is the best choice for your situation, you now may begin to search for a family for your baby. Over the next few days, we will explore some of the issues involved in selecting an adoptive family for your child.

Choosing a family... more

As I’ve mentioned before, making an informed decision is important and in order to make an informed decision you must educate yourself about parenting and adoption. I’ve already talked about how to educate yourself about adoption, so today we will talk about how to educate yourself about parenting.

1. Seek out other mothers like you. If you will... more

Okay, so you’ve clearly stated the decision to be made, developed objectives, classified your musts and wants, and weighed the relative importance of each. You’ve also listed your alternatives (making sure you’ve uncovered them all!) and you’ve compared them against the musts and wants. You’ve also identified potential risks, so that you’re going into this with eyes wide open.

Now you’re ready to start deciding. Notice I said “start” deciding, not firmly decide. You cannot fully decide to let your baby go until her or she has arrived. You must experience your own motherhood in order to freely give it up. You have to know what you are going to lose before you can be informed enough... more

When all of your objectives and alternatives are laid out before you, it’s time to assess the risks. If you’ve ever read any of my posts, you know that I spend 90% of my time talking about the risks involved in adoption. The reason I give so much time and attention to this area is because very few adoption professionals are completely open and honest about the pitfalls of surrendering. If I harp on the risks, it’s because there continue to be women who were never told about them. They made their "decision" based on bad information, and were held to it with... more

The next step is to evaluate the alternatives. It’s important to note here that while there are only three choices at the big-picture level (abortion, adoption, parenting) there are many varieties of both adoption and parenting, and so there are many possibilities. Taking adoption as an example, you can seek closed adoption, open adoption, semi-open adoption, kinship adoption, and many shades in between. (And often, what you choose is not what you will actually get.)

Here are the steps to evaluate the alternatives.

1. Generate your... more

Recently the members of my department took a class in decision-making, where we learned to use an effective system for arriving at an answer. It’s called the Kepner Tregoe method. Although it may seem cold to apply a business framework to an emotional life decision, a system that works is a system that works. There are four parts to this decision-making approach: clarify your purpose, evaluate the alternatives, assess the risks, and make the decision. I’ll go through those four and explain how they could be applied to the decision of what to do about an unplanned... more