Choosing to place your baby for adoption is the beginning of a journey for you as a birth parent. You are about to help one family grow, not only in number, but in love. While you’re sure of your decision, you feel overwhelmed thinking about the hoops you’ll soon be jumping through, and you have one question plaguing your mind day and night: Where do I start?
Don’t worry! The process of adoption is strenuous, and it’s okay to admit that you’re at a loss for what to do next. But remember this: Rome wasn’t built in a day, so take it one step at a time. An important first step is choosing an adoption agency. Just like the adoption process varies from family to family, every agency differs from one another. Choosing the right agency is important, for it will place your baby with his or her future family.
Here at Adoption Choices of Colorado, we know how important it is for you to feel comfortable. In our experience, asking questions will help you better determine if an agency is experienced, ethical, and a right fit for you and your family. Here is a list of potential questions to ask when choosing an agency:
What Kind of Experience Does the Agency Have?
The more experience the agency has collectively, the better equipped they are to help you through the adoption process, accurately match you with adoptive families, and support you from pregnancy to post adoption. You want to know that the agency’s team has been through every imaginable situation and helped as many other birth parents as possible. Don’t be afraid to ask this question. It’s not rude. In fact, it’s important!
How Will You Be Matched with Potential Adoptive Families?
One of the biggest unknowns for you as a birth parent may be how your child will grow up. Will your child be placed with a good family? Will he or she be happy, healthy, and live a good life? Will the adoptive family raise your child as you would? There are so many questions that routinely come up about the adoptive family and how to know that you’re making the right decision for your baby. The process of matching you with potential adoptive families cannot be one that is taken lightly. There needs to be a real connection between your beliefs, views, and values and your adoptive family. You both need to be on the same page. So, learn as much as you possibly can. Not only about the adoptive families that you could be matched with, but also the process in which the adoption agency goes through in order to match you with them.
How Many Placements Does the Agency Have Per Year? What Is the Average Wait Time of Your Program of Choice?
This information will tell you how efficient your adoption professionals are when it comes to actually completing the adoption process with their families. The more information you have the better judgement you’ll have when choosing an agency!
What Kind of Support Does the Agency Offer During Pregnancy?
Each agency typically manages the support of the birth mother’s living expenses during the adoption process. But support should be offered to you in more ways than money can offer, such as counseling, legal advice, understanding your pregnancy, medical assistance, and routine guidance. Ask your caseworker what the process looks like!
Do They Offer Assistance to Birth Parents Post Adoption?
While the adoption process can be consuming, it’s also fleeting. Placing your child for adoption was the right decision for you, but that doesn’t mean you won’t mourn the loss of your child. You have every right to! So, make sure your agency offers support post-adoption. Your well-being post birth is vital.
Does the Agency Help with Post Adoption Contact?
There are three types of contact that you can have with your child’s adoptive family post adoption – closed, semi-open, and open. In a closed adoption, birth parents have zero contact with the adoptive family or child post adoption. A semi-open adoption is when the adoptive family and the birth parents are in contact, typically through an adoption agency, to give the birth parents updates on their child using photographs. Open adoption is when the birth parents and adoptive family have regular contact, to varying degrees, and potential contact with the child. It’s very important to consider how you’d like to interact with your child is his or her adoptive family post adoption. Make sure your needs are met by both the adoption agency and the adoptive family!
There are many, many more questions that you’ll have for your adoption agency, but these are the ones we think are most important. Don’t be afraid to ask every single question that comes to mind!
Choosing an Adoption Agency
Adoption Choices of Colorado knows that you need to be wholeheartedly comfortable with the agency that will be going on this journey with you. Though the process of adoption can be emotional, it should be as straight-forward as possible. Let us guide you through the entire process so you can focus on your healthy pregnancy. We’ll take care of you! Don’t settle for an agency that doesn’t meet all your needs. You are important, and our experienced caseworkers want to shower you with the love and understanding you deserve.
Adoption Choices of Colorado
For more information on adoption please contact Adoption Choices of Colorado. We can be reached via our website or phone 303-670-4401.
Support Adoption Choices
Adoption Choices, Inc. is partnering with Crowdrise, a fundraising website for nonprofits, to help our adoptive parents and birth parents with much needed financial assistance. We understand that expenses keep clients from fulfilling their dreams. Both with birth parents making a plan for adoption, and with adoptive parents growing their family. It is our mission to provide financial assistance through grants and scholarships, awarded annually in November, in honor of National Adoption Month. Funds assist adoptive parents with matching and placements, adoption finalization and helping birth mothers improve their lives through higher education — and much more.
However, we can’t do it alone. Please read up on our programs and donate money where you are able. Your donation will make a huge impact.
About the Author
Patience Bramlett, a University of Southern Mississippi news editorial graduate, is a seasoned and award-winning freelance writer. She is also a passionate reader, whose only wish is to live life without fear of the unknown. Her motivation and inspiration to live her best life stems from the words of John Lennon:
“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy.’ They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”
This year, she’s joining Adoption Choices Inc. as an Editorial Intern. Fueled by her love of family, she hopes to educate those looking to grow their families through adoption.
When Patience is not exploring Colorado with her husband, she’s drinking coffee, forever figuring out how to tame her hair, growing her library, and trying to break into the publishing career.
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Bibliography
“7 Essential Questions to Ask Before Choosing an Adoption Professional: Agencies, Attorneys, or Facilitators.” AdoptTogether, adopttogether.org/8-essential-questions-to-ask-before-choosing-an-adoption-professional-agencies-attorneys-or-facilitators/.
Brown-Zimmerman, Maya. “22 Questions to Ask Adoption Agencies Before Choosing.” Adoption.com, 12 Jan. 2016, adoption.com/22-questions-to-ask-an-adoption-agency-before-choosing-them.
“Is the Adoption Agency Considering My Best Interests?: Adoption Choices.” Adoption Choices of Colorado, 15 May 2018, www.adoptionchoices.org/is-the-adoption-agency-considering-my-best-interests/.
“Questions to Ask Adoption Agencies Before Beginning.” Adoptive Families, 14 Mar. 2017, www.adoptivefamilies.com/adoption-process/questions-to-ask-adoption-agencies/.
Stephanie joined the Adoption Choices family in 2014 as the Child Placement Supervisor. Her love for adoption began in first grade when she made friends with twins adopted from Vietnam. Her heart grew strong over the years for adopted children and ultimately led her to graduate school where she continued her focus to her dream of working in the adoption field. Stephanie earned a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Denver in 2001. Over the past 15 years, Stephanie has worked as a pregnancy counselor and as an adoptive parent counselor for foster care, international adoption and domestic adoption, writing hundreds of home studies for families, and helping build their forever families. Stephanie is married and has three boys ages 12, 9, and 5. Together with her family she enjoys riding bike, playing games, watching her three sons compete in their various sporting and musical activities and go on vacations.
Christy Ikeler, is our Executive Director and Birth Parent Director. Christy has been with Adoption Choices Team for 18 years, since opening the doors in 2002! Christy has a true passion for what she does and her true love is working with and helping each birth parent. Whether she is up all night on the phone talking with them, taking them to doctors appointments, out for their favorite treat, providing counseling or at the hospital during labor and delivery, Christy is very involved every step of the way. She has a contagious laugh and a spunky personality that our birth moms all can bond with and relate to. As an adoptive parent herself, adoption holds a very special place in her heart and she can relate on every level with both birth parents and adoptive parents. In her free time Christy loves spending time with her daughter, gardening, baking and taking vacations with her family. Christy is an excellent leader for our team at Adoption Choices and is truly one of a kind!! As Executive Director, Christy spends time with the staff, birth parents and adoptive families in order to ensure that the agency is running smoothly. She has placed a huge emphasis on community outreach and programs for birth parents. Christy loves the opportunity to lead the agency into a brighter future.
Ms. Mackenzie has built a successful counseling career over the past 20 years, supporting mothers and families, people of all ages and genders, students, community professionals and fellow clinicians. Liv values a diverse professional focus, including the entrepreneurial life of a sole proprietor, the evaluative process of certifying foster/adoptive homes, the insightful and mindful one-on-one one work with enthusiastic clients, and serving as an advocate for underserved populations. Liv is a Licensed Professional Counselor and holds a BA in Pre-Law and Economics from American University, an MA in Counseling from Adams University and a certificate in Human Resource Management from Villanova University. Away from work you will find Liv spending time in nature, biking to the farmer’s market and adventuring with her family.
Catherine A. Madsen, joined the Adoption Choices family as legal counsel in 2013. Catherine is responsible for providing legal guidance to the Agency, training and updating staff on developments in adoption law and legislation, and program development. Catherine
Virginia Frank is an adoption attorney accredited since 1991 with the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys. Ms. Frank is a leader in the field of private adoption and has completed over 4,000 adoptions in her career. Ms. Frank has a law degree from Oklahoma City University and a BA in both Political Science and Communications from the University of Oklahoma.
Cassidie has been with Adoption Choices since 2015, she has her bachelors in Interdisciplinary Affairs with concentrations in both Sociology and Business Management. Cassidie has additional training in Victim Advocacy, foster care and has been working in women’s services for over 10 years. Cassidie has always had a heart for adoption and it was her career dream to work in adoption. She started off doing volunteer work for advocacy programs, adoption organizations and worked in High Risk Maternal Fetal Medicine through the University of Colorado Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Colorado. Cassidie is also blessed to have personally experienced an adoption of her own in 2012, completing her family of five! Cassidie loves what she does as a case worker from initial phone calls, meetings, doctor appointments, interaction with the adoptive families to delivery and counseling. Cassidie has a passion for those in need and strives to help make a difference in the lives of the people she meets. She is a firm believer in being kind, compassionate and open minded in all situations. “Unless you’ve walked in their shoes, there’s no place for judgment. A kind word or compliment can go a long way!” The bittersweet moments in adoption reminds Cassidie each and every time, why she loves what she does!