No matter the options you are considering for your pregnancy, you can reach out to us. Social workers at Adoptions Together, a program of Paths for Families, can provide you with free all-options counseling, a service that we provide as part of our mission to help build healthy families. If you explore adoption options and decide it is not right for you, then we will support you in finding resources to best meet your needs.

You are not legally required to tell your parents about your pregnancy or adoption plan, even if you are under 18. They have no legal right to make this decision for you, nor do they have the right to assume legal guardianship of your child if that is not what you want. If you are a pregnant teenager considering adoption, you can always send us a text or chat with us online to learn more about placing a baby for adoption without revealing too much information about yourself. Should you continue with a plan of adoption for your child, Adoptions Together will hire an attorney to represent you to ensure you understand all of your rights related to the adoption.

We are legally required to tell the biological father about the adoption. We understand that this may be difficult and painful for you, and we are here to help. If we are unable to find and contact them, other legal means can be used to complete the adoption. This is part of the adoption planning process, and your adoption counselor will help you through this. If you do not know who they are, we can talk with you about any of the information you have to ensure the adoption process is conducted legally.

We will provide you with multiple profiles of families, all of whom have had a thorough home study and background check, and you can choose — and meet — the family if you want to. If you aren’t ready to begin this process with an adoption counselor, you can look through our waiting adoptive families page to get to know some of the families we work with who are ready to adopt. If you don’t want to choose, we will carefully select a family for you from our diverse pool of waiting adoptive families who is a match with you, racially and otherwise, and is the longest waiting family.

Waiting Families

We will find a loving family who is able to handle any special needs your baby may have. We have never been unable to find a home for a child. We work with pregnant people considering adoption who have all types of medical histories, and yours will not prevent you from making an adoption plan.

It’s important to remember that making an adoption plan is a voluntary choice. No agency should ever offer to pay you to make an adoption plan. After acquiring a note from a doctor, our agency can cover the cost of basic living expenses, necessities like food, clothing, healthcare, travel to and from medical appointments, insurance expenses, and legal costs during your pregnancy. If you are concerned about the cost of raising your baby, we can help you with resources that can help you to raise your baby in a safe, more financially stable environment.

The choice is completely yours. Some birth parents choose to spend a short amount of time with the baby or to have no contact at all, while others choose to spend every minute with the baby while in the hospital. Your adoption counselor will work with you and the hospital staff to ensure that you feel comfortable no matter what you decide.

Not if you don’t want to. Most birth parents with whom we work prefer the adoptive family or interim care family to take the baby home from the hospital. Your adoption counselor can talk to you about the pros and cons of both options and discuss this further with you.

People who plan for adoption are making a careful choice to ensure that their child’s needs are met, and it is a decision made from deep love for that child. Pregnancy decisions are private and personal, and you do not owe anyone an explanation. If you feel comfortable responding to someone who asks you this question, you can say, “I did not give up my baby. I placed my baby into the arms of a loving family who could take care of them since parenting wasn’t the right choice for me at that time.” No matter how you decide to handle comments like these, remember that your feelings about your pregnancy matter more than any other individual’s feelings about it.

You will not be asked to sign any legal paperwork until after you give birth. Once you do sign, you have 7-30 days to change your mind (depending on where you live and what state laws are used). We can place your baby with a loving temporary family during this time if you still need to process your feelings and evaluate your decision before the adoption becomes final.

No. We talk to everyone about making an open adoption plan because it has been shown to help birth parents work through the grief and loss that accompany the adoption placement process, but we also understand that each birth parent is different. You are in charge of your adoption placement process, and we will keep your last name and contact information as confidential as possible, if that is what you prefer.

Open Adoption

It is normal to feel very sad after placing a baby for adoption, even if you believe this is the right option for you. It is important to make sure you have the support you need for this difficult time. Birth parents who participate in finding a family for their child and who have open adoptions tend to process their feelings of grief and loss more smoothly and quickly than those with closed adoptions, because it gives them the opportunity to see how well their child is doing. You will probably have some bad days and some good days, some where you may feel regretful and others where you feel relieved and hopeful. No matter how you are feeling on any given day during your healing process, we will be here for you with support and counseling for as long as you need us.

Counseling & Support

Research has shown that adopted children are just as well-adjusted as children raised by their birth parents. Also, if you have an open adoption, you will be able to explain your adoption decision to your child yourself when the time is right.

Yes! Many parents who choose to place a baby for adoption are not US citizens. Additionally, if you are an undocumented immigrant, nothing prevents you from having the same type of open adoption as US citizens or documented immigrants.

Your pregnancy counselor will not volunteer any information about your immigration status to the hospital. Additionally, hospitals and healthcare facilities do not report information to ICE. Keep in mind that just like us, the hospital may ask for a form of identification and insurance. This is for billing purposes, not to report to authorities.