Pregnancy

If you're experiencing an unplanned pregnancy and are considering adoption as an alternative to terminating the pregnancy or raising the child yourself, there are four ways to approach the adoption process.

A pregnant woman wanting to place a child independently can create and look through ads on adoption websites and in classified sections of newspapers. This would be considered an independent adoption, through which neither the adopter nor the pregnant woman is facilitated by an agency.

The other choice a pregnant woman has is to work through an agency. With an agency, a woman can choose to partake in a closed, semi-open and open adoption process. A woman who does not want to be involved in the adoption nor to know anything about the adoptive family will choose a closed adoption. A semi-open adoption allows the pregnant woman and adopters to be on a first-name basis and the pregnant woman has the choice to look through the adoption profiles and choose the family she wants to place her child with after the birth. An open adoption is one in which the adopter and pregnant woman build a relationship and know the other triad members' full names.

Pregnancy is a nine-month commitment at the end of which many pregnant women want to know means a child they couldn’t raise themselves will be reared in a loving household with a lifestyle that aligns with what they would want to see for the child. For this reason, semi-open and open adoptions are usually preferred by pregnant women because they are more comfortable with their decision to place the child with people who do not feel like complete strangers.