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Hundreds of unplanned pregnancies happen or are discovered each day. Young women, who do not have the
capacity or the money to raise a child, are left with a very big and real problem. At the same time, there are
individuals, couples, or families, who would like to share their love and blessings by opening their lives and
homes to an infant through the adoption process. An independent adoption center - a non-profit,
full-service adoption agency – brings together these two parties and helps them in the process of creating a home
for a new life which will be brought into the world.
The agency promotes completely open adoptions – adoptions that include birth and adoptive parents meeting one
another, sharing information, and having direct access or contact over the years. In this type of adoption,
birthparents and adopting parents chose each other; they have control over all important decisions with regard to
the adoption. Compared to closed adoption, wherein all the decisions about who adopts which baby are made by
others, studies show that the open adoption process is healthier for everyone involved.
In an open adoption, the birthparents are just as important as the adoptive parents since they will both take
part in determining or shaping the future of the child. The child gets to live a healthy and comfortable life with
a family who can better take care of him or her and, at the same time, can get to know his or her birthparents.
This being said, an independent adoption center is essentially committed to three parties – the
birthparents, the adoptive parents, and the child. It is the agency’s goal to facilitate open adoption placement
and counseling to birth and adoptive families to ensure that the child given up for adoption grows up feeling
loved.
The agency provides free birthparent services including non-directive pregnancy options counseling,
comprehensive lifetime counseling support, needs assessment, and referral to appropriate services. These are
services much needed by young teenagers who do not have the money to pay for them.
An independent adoption center also helps the adoptive parents through the grueling adoption process, and
at the same time makes sure that the home that the child will be placed is safe and secure through its adoption home study services. A home study, wherein a representative from the
adoption center visits the home of prospective parent, is part of the adoption process to make sure that it is
conducive for a child to grow up in. It is one of the few adoption agencies in the United States that has never had
any exclusionary policies for adoptive parents, including age, sexual orientation, marital status, religion, ethnic
background, color, or race.
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