As a birth mother placing a child for adoption, you are faced with many important decisions:
- Do you want an open, semi-open or closed adoption?
- Do you want to choose the adoptive family?
- What type of family are you looking for?
- Which family do you ultimately choose?
There is, however, one decision that might be your most important: the decision to choose a national adoption agency to “give up a child”.
If you’re trying to choose from several adoption agencies, birth mothers often pick national adoptions agencies because they:
- Work with families from across the country. This means that you’ll never face a shortage of adoptive family couples to look through, ensuring that you find the perfect family for your baby
- Offer 24/7 support. Unlike smaller, local agencies, you’ll never be left waiting on getting the support and help you need
- Ensure that you are in charge every step of the way. As the birth mother, you get to decide how the adoption will go.
There are a ton of other great benefits that come with national pregnant adoption agencies that aren’t on this list. To learn more about them today, you can fill out our free information form to be contacted by a professional.
Until them, keep reading to learn more about national adoption agencies to put a baby up for adoption.
Your Choice of Adoption Professional [Why Choose a National Adoption Agency?]
For almost all birth mothers, national adoption agencies are the ideal adoption professionals because they provide all of the services important to a successful and healthy adoption. Additionally, national adoption agencies are licensed in multiple states, meaning the state’s government regulates, reviews and monitors the national agency’s compliance with state laws and regulations. This gives you the benefit of knowing that the agency is ran legally and ethically in every state.
National adoption agencies feature more services than any other adoption professional, yet there are five services unique to national adoption agencies that you will find essential to your adoption plan:
1. Counseling
Most national pregnant adoption agencies are equipped with a large, qualified and trained social service department with years of experience working with birth mothers exactly like you. You will be provided with your own social worker, whom you can often contact 24 hours per day, seven days per week.
When Erika, a birth mother, remembers her adoption experience, she remembers the incredible amount of support she received from the staff:
“I could not have asked for a better set of people in my life,” she said. “They made the whole process amazing… I never went back and forth with my decision, but it was still a tough decision. “I don’t know how I would have done it without Shannon [her adoption specialist],” she adds.
Not all birth mothers understand the value of counseling from adoption agencies for pregnant women at first. But, years later, almost every birth mother who seeks counseling is glad she did. The power of counseling should not be under appreciated, particularly in such an emotional time in your life.
You will experience the emotions of grief and loss, and you will be thankful you have your social worker and counselor to talk with. A good support system involving family and friends is valuable, but a licensed counselor’s experience is essential in getting you through this difficult stage of your life. This service should not be underestimated.
2. Number of Adoptive Families
You may have already envisioned the family and the lifestyle you want for your child, or maybe you are entering the adoptive family selection process with an open mind. Either way, the more adoptive families presented to you, the better.
For example, if you live in Kansas, but you envision your child living by the beach, you may want to seek out families from the West or East Coast. National adoption agencies provide more adoptive families than any other adoption professional, giving you many more options.
By choosing another adoption professional, you may only have a few adoptive families who live by the beach; by choosing a national agency, you may have dozens to choose from, or more.
In this example, you would not only be able to select a family who lives by the beach, but also who meets several of your other needs because of the sheer number of families provided by a national adoption agency. As you look for places to put a child up for adoption, make sure to work with a professional who has plenty of families to choose from.
3. Enforcement of Adoption Agreement
Today, most adoptions are semi-open or open adoptions, which simply means that the adoptive family agrees to send letters and pictures to the birth mother once or twice per year for the next several years. But what happens if Christmas and your child’s birthday comes and goes, yet you didn’t receive pictures or letters?
By choosing a national agency to “give up” a child, you can call your social worker and she will handle the situation. A national agency has enough employees to investigate the problem and fix it.
4. The Birthmother Is in Charge
With a national adoption agency, you, the birth mother, create the adoption plan, and you will incur no cost, whatsoever. You choose the family and the type of adoption (closed, semi-open, open), and years later you can even change the parameters of the openness of the relationship.
This is just one of the many reasons for why national adoption agencies are the preferred places to give up a child for adoption.
Some adoption professionals require completely open adoptions, or require the birth mother and adoptive family to practice a certain religion. National agencies are very flexible and adhere to the birth mother’s requirements. Quite simply, you are in charge of the adoption when placing with a national adoption agency.
5. Guaranteed Living Expenses
As a birth mother, you are entitled to receive living expenses from the adoptive family because you should not have to worry about finances while pregnant. By placing your baby for adoption with a national adoption center to “give up” a child , you will not experience any problems receiving living expenses.
However, with other adoptive professionals, you may encounter problems if they are not well versed in matching birth mothers and adoptive families from separate states. Each state law is different and allows for different amounts of living expenses. That, compounded with a smaller pool of families, could complicate this process.
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National Pregnant Adoption Agencies vs. Other Professionals
Local or regional adoption agencies maintain many of the services of national adoption agencies for pregnant women, but they still lack a few of their essential services.
Because local agencies possess a smaller staff, they, like law firms, law centers, facilitators , are difficult to contact outside of normal business hours.
Many national agencies will be able to take your phone call at any time on any day because they understand that sometimes a phone call simply can’t wait for the following morning or for the weekend to end. This availability provided by national adoption agencies is a huge comfort to many birth mothers.
As indicated earlier, a local agency’s list of adoptive families simply can’t compare to that of a national adoption agency. Once again, more choices of families mean you have a higher chance of finding the family that perfectly matches your adoption plan. National adoption agencies to give up a child allow you get super specific, which means you can decide on a family based on:
- Age
- Occupation
- Race or ethnicity
- Where they live
- How many children they have
- How many pets they have
- And so much more
Living expenses are another aspect to consider when deciding which adoption professional to place with.
For example, if you live in Ohio and decide to work with a local agency, you will have to adhere to Ohio state laws because more than likely the only families represented by the agency are from Ohio. Ohio only allows for $2,500 in living expenses, so in this instance, by placing with a local adoption agency to “give up” a child, you would be stuck receiving less living expenses than you may require.
National adoption agencies are recommended over other adoption professionals for many reasons, but one of the biggest reasons is that almost all of their services are conducted in-house, lessening any complications of the adoption.
With other adoption professionals, you may have to seek outside legal help, counseling, adoptive families and case managers. National adoption agencies usually employ or contract out all of the necessary pieces of the adoption, leading to greater communication and organization in the process.
It is important to understand that not all national pregnant adoption agencies are created equal. If you decide a national adoption agency is the best choice for your adoption plan, make sure to choose one that offers all of the services and features that are important to you, such as:
- Counseling
- 24/7 assistance
- Large, experienced, empathetic staff
- Case managers on staff
- A history of successful adoptions
- Legal work
- Experience matching adoptive families and birth mothers from every state
- Comprehensive list of families from every state, race and background
- Ability to assist you after the adoption is complete, at no cost to you
- Enforce adoption agreement, at no cost to you
- Objective staff who won’t force you into adoption if you are just seeking information
- No strict religious ideology
- No strict adoption philosophy (closed vs. open adoptions)
Be sure to research all giving your child up for adoption agencies and choose the one that works best for you. If you already have a family chosen and a counselor paid for, you may only need the legal work completed, in which case a law firm may be acceptable.
However, for most birth mothers who are stepping into adoption for the first time, national adoption agencies are the safest way to ensure that your child will be placed with a loving and safe family, and that you will be provided every possible service to comfort you during and after the adoption.
If you have been considering adoption and want more information, please contact us here.