Answers to the most asked questions...

Many women who find themselves in a crisis pregnancy situation are unprepared emotionally and financially to parent a child. The choice of adoption is a positive alternative to parenting before you are ready. Adoption doesn't work for everyone; however, it can be a viable solution for many women. If you are still thinking about your options, we can help you by discussing the choices available to you and helping you decide what will be best for you and your child given your situation. We will also prepare you for the feelings and emotions involved in adoption and assist you in working those through both before and after the placement.

Your Adoption Network of Colorado counselor will provide individualized, sensitive, and supportive counseling at no cost to you. The decision to choose adoption is not an easy one to make on your own. It is often a difficult and painful choice. However, there are ways to lessen the pain when your feelings are dealt with in a supportive and positive environment.

Prospective adoptive parents are carefully screened and are required to provide a great deal of information about themselves. They are visited in their home by a social worker, background checks are conducted, and personal references are checked. They are taught about the special nature of adoptive parenting before the adoption takes place. By the time our agency has approved adoptive parents for placement of a child, we have gotten to know them very well, and feel confident they would make good parents. This does not promise that they will be perfect parents, but they are usually decent people who are experiencing infertility and really want to care for children.

Yes! You can choose the family for your baby by selecting from the parents screened by our agency staff. The family creates a profile book (similar to a scrapbook) telling about their lives and backgrounds. You will read "Dear Birthmother" letters and view photographs of the family's home, pets, travel, jobs, etc. Or you may choose someone who has been recommended to you by someone you trust, like a relative, friend, pastor, doctor, etc. We will represent you, as well as your needs and wishes, to the family you select. If the family you choose lives outside of the state, we will arrange with an agency in their state to cooperate with us in making the placement go smoothly.

Several factors are important when choosing the best family for your child. You must consider what kind of parents you visualize for your child and what kind of life style you wish for him/her. Here are some questions to consider.

Yes, you can meet the adoptive family before placement and talk to them by phone throughout your pregnancy. If you wish, they also might be able to be present at doctors' visits and at the hospital during delivery. We will help you arrange a mutually acceptable schedule for the exchange of letters and pictures after the placement.

Our agency offers continual support to you before and after you place your baby with the family you select. Talking with others who have experienced many of the same feelings that you have can be beneficial. We will be happy to put you in touch with someone who has already made an adoption plan.

Yes. You have many choices available to you during your hospital stay. Your counselor will assist you in making a written plan about how you would like things to go at the hospital. It includes letting the hospital know how much contact you would like with the baby, who you want to visit with you and/or the baby, how much involvement you would like the adoptive parents to have, requesting a private room on or off the maternity floor, etc. This written plan will help things go smoothly and alert the staff about how to best serve you during your stay.

Usually, it is possible for your baby to go directly to the adoptive family from the hospital, if you are sure of your decision and there is no other legal or medical reason to prevent it. In some cases the baby will go to a cradle care family (transitional care) until the legal relinquishment procedures are completed.

Your baby can stay with a loving cradle care family if you are unsure of your decision or until the legal release procedures are completed if this is your wish. Cradle care parents are extensively interviewed and specifically chosen by Adoption Network of Colorado. They are stable two-parent families and have extensive experience in infant care. Cradle care mothers are not employed outside the home, so the baby is always cared for by one primary caregiver. Your baby will usually be the only child in the home placed by any agency. These special people will get your baby off to a good start!

We will obtain social and medical background information that will be provided to the adoptive couple. They can then be prepared to give informed medical care and accurate information about you to the child. We also prepare the adoptive family on how to share the adoption story with the child.

We will need any information that you have regarding the birthfather. If we know who the birthfather is, and we can locate him, he does have the right to know about the adoption. Our agency will guide him through the process if he chooses to be involved. We can also contact him for you if you so choose. Our attorney will be available to advise him of his rights and responsibilities and to execute the necessary paperwork. If the birthfather cannot be located, our attorney will take care of the legal issues as well.

Most states allow for some help with living expenses during your pregnancy and for your recovery time after birth. We will help you apply for benefits to cover your medical expenses as provided by Medicaid and/or private medical insurance. If no such support is available, the agency may help you with medical expenses. All legal fees for the adoption are covered by Adoption Network of Colorado of Colorado of Colorado. Counseling services are also provided at not cost to you.

Talk to your counselor about the amount of openness that is best for you. Confidential adoptions, in which the birth parents and the adoptive parents don't meet before the placement, or stay in touch after the placement, are an option for you. However, many birth parents desire to have some level of open adoption so that they can stay in contact with the adoptive parents and the child over the years. Here are the different levels of openness:

Probably. But adoption now is a lot different from what it was when you were growing up. Most adopted adults understand that their birth parents placed them for adoption out of love, and because they had a vision of the kind of life they wanted for their child. Hopefully, your child will come to realize that many of his or her wonderful traits come from you. And if you have an open adoption, it is likely you will be able to explain to the child why you chose adoption. With open adoption you are able to play an important role in your child's life.

You will always be an important person to your child, no matter what level of openness you have decided upon. Your child will know who you are and will know about the love and care that went into your decision. The friendship and relationship you build with the adoptive parents makes it easy to stay in touch.

If your answer is because it is what you and your partner think is best, then it is a good decision. Now is the time to move in a positive direction and feel good about it without guilt!