Choosing Adoption for Your Baby
ADVANTAGES:
An open, independent adoption provides your child immediately with a stable home with two mature parents who are financially and emotionally ready to undertake the full weight of parental responsibilities, including the day to day 24/7 care, the medical and surgical decisions and expenses that may arise, the educational training, the religious decisions, the decisions regarding participation in extra curricular activities, and the accompanying costs.
An open, independent adoption provides the right to the birth parents to on-going contact of the degree you and the adoptive parents agree because you personally select the family who will rear your child. Together you will decide how often you want pictures and developmental letters, and even if there will be future physical contact. Many adoptive families today include the birth parents as part of the family, much like an aunt or uncle. According to a Harvard study done in the 1980s, adopted children are often more well adjusted than biological children, feeling loved and provided for by both the birth parents and the adoptive parents. They show less need “ to find themselves,” as they already know who they are.
Detailed records are maintained by the State, so that medical information is readily available. If the adoptive parents agree, they may be contacted directly for medical reasons or if you agree, you may be contacted by the child, after reaching age 18, if your are not already in contact.
You would have no legal financial obligation for your child. Being spared this heavy burden can be a tremendous gift to you in the years to come both for yourself and for your husband and other children that may come at a later time.
DISADVANTAGES:
The birth parents do not make the routine or emergency decisions in the child’s life or participate in the day-to-day care. The life long relationship may be as close as extended family or no contact at all.