Giving up baby for adoption - baby is due in 6 weeks - need support

are you going through an agency? if so they should be handling some of these issues. Where we live counseling is mandetory for voluntary tpr.

we are not going through an agency. This is a designated private adoption. Birthparent's lawyer is the mother of friends of ours. Counseling is not mandatory in this situation. Birthparents have been in more contact with me than the lawyer - but now that has to shift because they do not want to talk with me and there has to be contact as we are just 6 weeks from the due date.

This is a private designated adoption in a different State than where we live. Their lawyer found us as she is the mother of friends of ours. But she is representing them in this situation. We have a lawyer in our State representing us. We have paid birthparents about 3K to date to help them with babysitting (for their 5 young kids), transportation to dr., food, and maternity clothes. When/if they want counseling, we will pay for that too.

First, let me say that I truly believe your heart is in the right place. However, I think you just need to stand back and be understanding of the terribly difficult decision this expectant mother (she's not a birthmom yet) and expectant father are having to make. It is a terrible place to be, having to make a parenting decision about whether you should continue to be your baby's parent or whether you should allow others to do that. No one should ever have to make that decision, but yet sometimes we find ourselves in that place. The last thing is the world I would have wanted at that point is the prospective adoptive parents helping me make that decision. This expectant mother has to look deep into her own heart as does the expectant father, and I don't think that is a decision that can or should be helped along by outside influences. As far as the counseling goes, 30 years after having relinquished my son, I have yet to find a counselor informed on adoption issues of grief and loss (with the exception of Bromanchic, a first mom who posts on this forum). I have had to end up educating the counselor, and then I am told how I have opened their eyes. Umm, they were supposed to help me!! I'm sure informed counselors are out there, but the good ones who actually have an understanding of the losses a parent, especially a mother, goes through are few and far between, IMO. Maybe things have changed, but the counseling I and so many others received from adoption agencies at the time of the decision making was almost completely in favor of placing, with no real exploration of the options for parenting our child or of how to live with the devastating loss of our child after relinquishment. This expectant mother and father will each have to continue to make their decision regarding parenting up to the moment they each individually sign the TPR papers or until the TPR revocation time expires. There is no way to shortcut that process, and there shouldn't be. There is a saying, that the parents have to make the decision to place (at least) twice - once before the baby is born, and once after. Neither will not know if they are able to make that excruciatingly hard decision to place until they each have held that baby in their arms and spent time with it. Each parent must say hello before they can say goodbye. My recommendation to you is that you try to find peace with the idea that these people are the only parents of this child at this point in time, and they each have to make decisions regarding the welfare and future of that child in their own way and at their own pace, without influence from others. If they each decide to place, then it will be your time. I know you must really be struggling, and I really am sorry about that, but the best thing you can do is to give them the space they need to make this decision about their child and their family on their own and/or with the support and counsel of their own family.

What Isabo said. Times 1000. It sounds to me like you are anxious about the expectant mom changing her mind and are trying in some ways to control the situation or the outcome. I'm not saying you are doing this maliciously, as I'm sure you are concerned for the expectant mother and also yourself in not wanting to get more attached than you already are, but the only thing you can control is your side of it, so I would perhaps consider exploring counseling for yourself to help you deal with your feelings right now, and let the emom deal with her own. If she is not wanting counseling right now, that is her choice and not something I believe you should be involved in. It's a boundary violation and could also be construed as coercive (again, I'm not saying this is being done on purpose, but there is a fine line between wanting to help and coming across as coercive). Anyway, good luck with everything. It is a risky thing and there is no guarantee the emom will place, and I imagine that must be very difficult, but you would not want this mother or father placing their child with you unless they were absolutely certain of their decision and 100% on board with it. They really won't be able to make that final decision until after the baby is born, no matter how much planning and counseling they do now.