I’m 21 and my girlfriend is 22, and we’re having a baby. We are just getting out of college and don’t have jobs. She wants to give the baby up for adoption or get married and raise the baby together. If I had never gotten her pregnant I think I would have married her eventually, but I’m not ready. I have always wanted to be a father, and the thought of giving my son up for adoption and never seeing him again when there is such love between my girlfriend and me seems insane. I could get a job pretty easily, so how can I even think about throwing away my son when I know I can provide for him? I know that we were idiots for not being more careful. She is six weeks along and I don’t know what to do.
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“Adoption has changed considerably in the last 15 years,” says Shari Levine, executive director of Open Adoption & Family Services, an agency based in Portland, Oregon. OA&FS was founded in 1985 by a group of people determined to create a new adoption model, one that didn’t ask birth parents to disappear or treat adopted children like livestock. In an open adoption, the biological parents–you and the girlfriend–get to choose the family their child is placed with. Then, working with the couple they’ve selected, the birth parents come to an agreement about ongoing contact. In other words, they get visitation rights.
“Deciding what to do isn’t just about being able to provide. It’s about being ready to become parents,” says Levine. “He’s savvy enough to admit that he’s not ready, but committed enough to know that he wants an ongoing relationship with this child. Through open adoption, you can create a lifelong friendship with your child’s adoptive parents, and play a significant role in your child’s life. And when a birth parent can see that the child is happy and well cared for, that can help a birth parent work through the grief. There’s still grieving to do, but it can take six months or a year, not a lifetime.”
And now my full-disclosure tap dance: my boyfriend and I adopted our two-year-old son through OA&FS. I can personally vouch for everything Shari Levine says and encourage anyone who’s thinking about adoption–getting a kid or placing a kid–to learn more about open adoption. I’ll even go out on a limb and make a value judgment: the more you learn about open adoption, the clearer it becomes that closed adoptions are cruel, unfair, and unnecessary.
Even if your girlfriend’s mind is made up, there are some things you might wanna hash out with a shrink. For instance, is there something about your behavior that made her afraid to tell you the truth? And does she want to keep the baby? Maybe she would consider adoption. If neither of you are ready for parenthood, you can move to Oregon, do an open adoption, avoid the responsibilities that come with parenthood (like child-support payments), and still get to watch your kid grow up.
