How to Place a Baby for Adoption in Missouri

If you are faced with an unplanned pregnancy, you may feel alone. You may be wondering how to “give a baby up” for adoption in Missouri, but you may not know how to start the adoption process. American Adoptions can help you start the adoption process when you are ready.

We know how adoption works because we have helped parents successfully place their newborns with adoptive parents for over 30 years. American Adoptions has created this guide to help you understand the steps for adoption.

If you would like to speak with an adoption specialist about adoption about how to “give a baby up” for adoption in Missouri, you can call 1-800-ADOPTION today. For free information, you can contact us online at any time.

How Does Adoption Work in Missouri?

There are seven steps in the adoption process:

Step 1: Know that adoption is right for you and your baby.

Step 2: Contact an adoption agency, like American Adoptions, to create your adoption plan.

Step 3: Find the perfect family for your baby.

Step 4: Communicate with the prospective adoptive family of your choice.

Step 5: Create a hospital plan for labor and delivery.

Step 6: Give birth and complete the adoption paperwork.

Step 7: Establish a post-placement plan with the adoptive family.

There can be a lot of uncertainly when you find yourself with an unexpected pregnancy. There are adoption specialists at American Adoptions who can help you “give your child up” for adoption. Our team includes birth mothers, adoptive parents and adoptees – we know adoption professionally and personally. This means that our specialists can guide you through our well-developed and time-tested adoption process.

American Adoptions has created this checklist for learning how to “give a newborn up” for adoption in Missouri.

“Giving a Baby Up” for Adoption [What it Really Means]

Before we get into the steps of how adoption works in Missouri, there’s one thing you need to know: You may think that women are “giving a baby up” for adoption, but they are actually placing a baby with loving adoptive parents.

“Giving up” is associated with not trying or not caring, but choosing adoption means doing the exact opposite. Adoption means that a prospective birth mother loves and cares about her baby enough to give them a wonderful future. She took the time to learn how adoption works and why it was best for her family, and she made a difficult but courageous choice.

Children deserve to have a loving and safe home. If you decide to choose adoption for your baby, adoption is a loving and brave act. This does not mean that placing a baby with a hopeful family will be easy. You can read birth parent testimonials about how to “give a child up” for adoption in Missouri.

The choice for adoption can be deep and complex or it could be as simple as not wanting to be a parent. Whatever the reason for choosing adoption for a baby, the bottom line is that babies deserve a life full of love and opportunities.

Now, let’s explore how adoption works in Missouri.

How to Start the Adoption Process [In Seven Steps]

You can have an experience with the adoption process that improves your present situation and creates a better future.

If you work with a full-service adoption agency, like American Adoptions, we will provide the specialists you need at each step of the adoption process. Our agency staff includes birth mothers, adoptive parents and adoptees who have been personally involved with how adoption works. We will guide prospective birth mothers and provide counseling and education along the way.

All adoptions are unique, but this is how the adoption process in Missouri may look from beginning to end.

Step 1: How Do You Know that Adoption Is Right for You and Your Baby?

You can assess your current situation and decide if you can raise a child, if you can provide for a child and if you believe in adoption. Adoption may be right for you if parenting is not possible right now, and you want your baby to have a loving family.

Step 2: What is an Adoption Plan? [What it Means for You and Your Baby]

An adoption plan is a list of what the prospective birth mother may want when she chooses to start the adoption process in Missouri. If you contact an adoption agency, like American Adoptions, our adoption specialists will help you create an adoption plan. Your adoption specialist will ask you questions about what types of things you want for your baby, for example:

• Do you want your baby to live in Missouri or in another state?

• What do you want your hospital experience to include?

• How would you like to communicate with the parents that you choose for your baby?

You can contact us at any time during your pregnancy to get help creating your adoption plan. When you are ready, you can call American Adoptions at 1-800-ADOPTION, or you can get free adoption information online at any time.

Step 3: How Do You Find The Perfect Family To Adopt a Baby?

How do you know if there is a hopeful couple in your city, county or state wanting to adopt a baby? American Adoptions can help you find the right family for your baby.

American Adoptions provides family videos for all of our prospective families in addition to family profiles so that you can get a personal look at each family’s life. You can view these profiles so that you can choose prospective adoptive parents for your child.

You should also know how you can “give your baby up” for adoption to hopeful parents in another state. Because American Adoptions is a national agency, working with hundreds of potential adoptive families across the country at once, you can be connected with hopeful families in Missouri and across the nation.

If you would like to know more about our waiting families, or if you have chosen a family, you can learn how to start the adoption process by calling us at 1-800-ADOPTION today. You can also view family profiles and watch family videos online at any time. American Adoptions offers free information online as well.

Step 4: Communicate with Your Prospective Adoptive Parents [Through Open Adoption]

Open adoption means that the prospective birth parents and the hopeful parents can get to know one another. Adoption specialists can help families contact one another by phone, email and even in-person visits. American Adoptions values communication because we know how adoption works better for everyone with open communication.

The most common type of adoption is an open adoption because many families have a need to communicate throughout their adoption process. Open communication can help the prospective birth mother feel confident in her choice of parents for her baby. Prospective adoptive parents can learn about what their prospective birth mom likes to do for fun and other facts about her.

With an open adoption, many birth parents and adoptive families choose to tell the child about their adoption when they are toddlers and young children. Research shows that an adoptee can have very high levels of self-confidence and social performance when they know how adoption works.

If you are considering adoption and you would like the possibility of contacting our prospective parents through American Adoptions, you can call us at 1-800-ADOPTION. You can also contact us for free information on our website at any time.

Step 5: How Do You Create a Hospital Plan for Labor and Delivery?

An adoption specialist can help prospective birth mothers create a birth plan. Birth plans include who can be in the delivery room and who spends time with the newborn afterward. Having a plan for labor and delivery is one of the most important steps in the adoption process.

If this is your first pregnancy, you may have a lot of questions about the birthing process. At American Adoptions you can ask one of our staff members who is also a birth mother, Michelle, questions about birth and becoming a birth mother.

It is normal to feel confused and have many questions about your unexpected pregnancy. If you want to know how adoption works you can call us at American Adoptions at any time, 1-800-ADOPTION, and you can contact us online free information today.

Step 6: Complete the Adoption Paperwork

The last step of your adoption starts at the hospital with the birth mother’s consent to adoption. This is another one of the key steps in the adoption process. If you are considering adoption in Missouri, you can learn the legal process of adoption for the state.

Once the baby is born, the birth mother must wait 48 hours before she can sign her paperwork. This is where the hospital plan will come in handy. There can be time for birth mother and hopeful parents to bond with the newborn, or the birth mom can decide if she wants the family to bond with the baby in their own way. This can be a difficult step in the process of how adoption works in Missouri, and your adoption specialist will be there to provide support.

You can call American Adoptions today at 1-800-ADOPTION if you are ready to speak with a specialist. You may also contact us online for free information at any time.

Step 7: Post-Adoption Contact [Your Life After Adoption]

There are still important things to know about how adoption works, even after the adoption process is complete. You can specify details about your desired post-adoption contact in your adoption plan. This section outlines the type and frequency of contact between you and your baby’s adoptive parents after the adoption process in Missouri is complete. This is usually a simple agreement of trust.

Post-adoption communication allows you to stay connected with your baby and your baby’s parents. If you choose to receive pictures and letters, you can see how you have helped a family develop while moving on with your own life. This communication after adoption could help you move past grief, knowing that your baby is experiencing the love of a family that you chose for him or her.

We encourage open adoption because we know the importance of how adoption works after placement. The end of your adoption process is just as important as the beginning.

If you are ready to learn how to “give your baby up” for adoption in Missouri today, you can call American Adoptions at 1-800-ADOPTION to speak with a specialist. You can also get free adoption information by contacting us online at any time.

What Are the Benefits of Adoption?

Studies have shown that adoption has many positive benefits for children. This is how adoption works for adoptees:

• Adoptees are likely to be in very good health because they are more likely to have health insurance.

• Adoptees are more likely to perform very well in reading and language arts because they are more likely to be read to by their adoptive parents.

• Adoptees are very likely to participate in extracurricular activities like sports and academic clubs.

American Adoptions is an adoption agency with a team of staff that includes birth mothers, adoptees and adoptive parents. We want eligible families to adopt because we have seen the positive power of adoption for over 30 years.

If you want to know more about how to “give a child up” for adoption in Missouri, you can call 1-800-ADOPTION to speak with an adoption specialist today. You can also get free adoption information by contacting us online at any time.

Disclaimer
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