Adoption is a wonderful way to grow your family. It’s a beautiful, selfless choice for a woman to make for her child. Even so, the adoption journey can be an emotional roller coaster. There are a lot of feelings involved, on a lot of different aspects of the process. One of the emotional minefields for many people, adoptive and bio parents alike, is feelings about financial support for birth moms.
Wanting help and wanting to help
The simplest layer in this emotional maelstrom is just about help. A woman with an unplanned pregnancy may feel a lot of fear and uncertainty about how she will be able to afford caring for herself and her baby, even just until the birth. She will certainly have medical needs and she is likely to need extra funds for healthy food. She may lose work days and therefore have a lower income. Some women may lose their living situation if the pregnancy creates tension in family or other relationships.
The prospective parents naturally want to help. They know that if they had a pregnancy going on in their own home or their own bodies they’d need to spend money on health care, nutritious food, and other expenses. They’re grateful for the opportunity to add an infant to their family.
This part of the feelings about financial support for birth moms is usually easy to navigate.
Feeling beholden
At the same time, giving and receiving money can be uncomfortable. An expectant mom may feel embarrassment or even shame about accepting money. A prospective adoptive parent may feel uncomfortable offering or be uncertain whether they’re overdoing it. If adoption is a financial stretch for them, they may feel internal pressure to give more than they can easily afford, out of gratitude and joy.
Either side can feel beholden to the other, and that can be an unpleasant feeling.
No quid pro quo
One of the hardest parts of the equation is the feeling that you’re making an exchange. Financial support for birth moms is not money in exchange for a baby. Buying and selling human beings is not only distasteful, but also completely illegal. Using your resources to help a woman overcome barriers to having a healthy pregnancy is in no way similar to buying a baby.
But an expectant mom who considers changing her mind about keeping the baby may feel that she can’t because she would have to pay back the money spent to support the child. A family hoping to adopt may feel upset by their investment in a disrupted adoption.
The law’s on your side
Fortunately, Arkansas law is specific about what kind of financial support is allowed. An overexcited couple can’t give “their” birth mom a car or pay her college tuition. The law doesn’t allow it.
Nor does an expectant mom have to do any horse-trading with the family she’s chosen. She doesn’t have to ask for money or negotiate for the amount of rent that’s acceptable. Her legal representative and the adoptive parents’ legal representative can provide guidance and make sure that the financial support is clear and appropriate.
We’ve heard stories from other states saying that a would-be adoptive parent made a down payment in the form of a lump sum of cash, with a promise of an additional sum after the baby was born. When the adoption wasn’t completed, they felt they’d been scammed. This is not the right way to conduct the adoption plan.
Make sure you work with an experienced adoption lawyer, and you can avoid a lot of the negative feelings about financial support for birth moms.