Most open adoption placements today occur after a baby’s birth directly at the hospital.
However, the final decision will be up to you.
If you have doubts about whether you want to go through with your adoption plan or want to spend more time with your baby, you have the right to bring your baby home and begin parenting or to place him in foster care while you re-consider your decision.
Carrying a baby for nine months and then placing him into another person’s arms is probably the hardest thing that a woman can do.
So it’s important to bring a family member or friend to the hospital with you so that you don’t go home alone.
Many birthmothers say the first days after the placement are the hardest. It’s a time when you will struggle with your decision.
Prior to your child’s, adoption is a plan, an idea, something abstract. But afterwards, it becomes real.
Depending on where you live, you will have a grace period in which you can change your mind and keep your child.
Although some people think they can move on with their lives as if nothing happened, that’s a myth.
Placing a baby for adoption involves loss, and it’s important that you grieve that loss in ways that work for you.
Some birthmothers recommend writing their child a letter that explains their decision. Others say keeping a keepsake — your baby’s blanket or an article of clothing — is useful.
Although the pain will never go away, many birthmothers says it gets easier with time.
Prior to your baby’s birth, make arrangements to get post-placement counselling, even if you don’t think you need it.
You never know how you’re going to feel after the placement occurs.
Another thing that can ease the pain is creating a post-adoption plan regarding contact with the adoptive parents and your baby.
How will you keep in touch? Through what means? How often? Who will contact who? These are all questions you’ll need to consider before the placement.
Like any relationship, it will take time and work. And it will change and evolve as your lives change and evolve.
No matter how comfortable you feel with your decision or how close you are to the adoptive parents, this will be a difficult time for you. So it’s important to create a framework that you and they can build on in order to get through the rough spots and get your relationship off to a good start.
