At any given time, most people have a pretty good idea of what their priorities in life are. Going to school, getting a better job, getting married, having kids…all of these rise to the top of our lists depending on where we are in our lives.

It's always a good idea to set priorities, but never more so than when you are facing a crisis pregnancy. Then, there’s no getting around it—you have to make some pretty big calls about what’s most important, and you think you have to make them fast (but this time pressure isn’t always real—more on that in a minute).

If you’re thinking of adoption, you may be doing so precisely because being a parent seems to conflict with another priority, such as finishing college, treating an illness, or finding someone to marry. The problem is that what can seem most important while you are pregnant and struggling to make your decision often decreases in importance once you have your baby, and he or she becomes a reality to you. If you make your decision based on current priorities, and those priorities change, you could feel an enormous amount of regret. This is why I constantly harp on the need to leave yourself room to remake your decision once your child is born.

What was important to you before the birth of your child might seem less important or even meaningless once you're looking into the eyes of your child.

Here's an example. Imagine a pregnant woman, Ashley--a young professional who wants to go to grad school and also has a strong desire to travel the world. She always envisioned herself being married before having her first child. But now she’s unexpectedly pregnant, and has to decide what to do.

If she makes her decision to keep or surrender based solely on her current priorities (school, travel, and marriage), her baby probably won’t be staying with her. But if she allows herself space for the possibility that motherhood might be something she discovers she loves, then the need for an adoption becomes less pressing.

Let’s say she pursues an adoption, and meets potential parents who won’t support her "backing out" of the plan. She has her baby, falls in love with her child and the idea of motherhood, and realizes that traveling the world no longer has the same importance it once did. In fact, she’d stay in the same five-mile radius forever if it meant she could keep her baby. And the graduate degree could wait. But now it’s too late. Now there are people who desperately want her child, and she doesn’t feel free to disappoint them.

Of course, if you’re thinking of adoption for more solid, practical reasons (poverty, homelessness, addiction, illness) this kind of shift might not apply. But if your reasons for considering adoption are less concrete (uncertainty about wanting to be a mother, not sure if single parenthood is good enough for your baby) then you should definitely leave yourself time and space to rethink things once your baby has arrived.

Here’s the thing. You can always find parents for your baby after you deliver. There is no rush to find them now.

In my next post I’ll talk about the competing priorities of education and parenting.