Open Adoption

Open Adoption: How Birthparents Choose a Family for Their Baby
By Martha Osborne

The pain of giving up a child for adoption can be lessened with open adoption. In open adoption, the birth mother can interview prospective parents and decide who the birth parents will be. The birth parent can be just a single mother or it can include the father in the decision-making. Either way, their one concern is that the baby be placed in an adoptive home where it will be well cared for and have the best chances for its future.

The tools birth parents use to evaluate prospective adoptive parents:

• Resume
• Photos
• Phone Call
• Interview

The Resume

Unlike a job resume the adoptive resume consists less of vital statistics and more of the personal attributes and view of life of the adoptive parents. In it there should be a letter, which should begin "Dear Birth Mother" and indicate why the parents are seeking adoption and their views on open adoption. It should include personal information like the type of neighborhood, hobbies, relatives, education and home life. This gives the birth mother a good idea of how committed the family is to adoption and what types of resources her child will have growing up.

Photos

As corny as the old adage is, a picture is still worth a thousand words. Close-up photos of the birth parent are important, but so too are the pictures of siblings, pets, household, neighborhood, and special occasions. Here a prospective adoptive couple can get very creative in conveying just how wonderful their life is and how they have much to offer an adopted child. The birth mother will want to be able to picture her child in the happy, loving home of its adoptive parents.