If you are facing an unplanned pregnancy and are considering adoption, you probably have some questions. What kind of adoptions are there? Are you able to maintain a relationship with your child? How do open and closed adoptions work?
In order to understand all of your options regarding how to proceed with an unplanned pregnancy, it’s important to have all the details. This article discusses some of the answers to the questions above about adoption choices, including navigating which one may be the best path for your personal circumstances.
CLOSED ADOPTIONS
Adoption sometimes gets an unfairly poor reputation because of the common practice of fully closed adoptions in previous generations. However, modern adoptions are very different, even if they are closed. In a closed adoption, as the birth mother, you choose the adoptive family and the extent to which you want to limit contact with your child during and after the process. Gone are the days of putting your child up for adoption without any knowledge of where and with whom they go.
There are several reasons why closed adoption might be appealing to you, including more privacy and confidentiality, protecting your child from any unsafe environments, and more. However, there are cons to closed adoptions that you need to consider as well. With a closed adoption, you don’t have access to your child as they grow, which can impact your ability to grieve and heal and even your child’s sense of identity later on.
OPEN ADOPTIONS
In today’s modern climate, open adoptions are by far the most popular type of adoption. In this model, birth mothers choose the adoptive parents and continue to stay in contact even after the adoption is finalized. This means that you can have a role in your child’s life. In many cases, you are able to be present for important milestones and establish a special relationship with your child, despite not parenting them yourself. Relationships between birth parents and adoptive families do sometimes exist, though, and as with closed adoptions, it’s important to research the open adoption process thoroughly to determine if it is good fit for you.
SEMI-OPEN ADOPTIONS
Semi-open adoptions give you the opportunity to have contact with your child while also keeping your identity private. An adoption agency manages communication and contact between the birth mother and adoptive family. This may be beneficial if you wish to keep your adoption confidential and provides a way to be involved in your child’s life without some of the more public aspects of open adoption. For many birth mothers and adoptive families, semi-open adoptions provide a healthy middle ground between the other two alternatives.
HAVE MORE QUESTIONS?
If you want to learn more about adoption and the different choices available to you, schedule an appointment with us today! We can help provide further clarity on adoption choices and, if needed, refer you to other helpful and informative resources.