How to Choose the Best Adoptive Parents For Your Baby

You’ve made the difficult decision to give your baby up for adoption. You feel sure that it’s the right decision for you — and for your baby – but you still have fears, doubts and a lot of questions. Don’t worry, that’s normal.

Most of those fears and doubts are probably around figuring who would be the right family to love and raise your child. After all, your decision to put your baby up for adoption is based on your love for your baby. It’s not about you — it’s all about the baby. So, of course you have questions and doubts.

So, to help you: we’ve put together what we think are five of the most important tips to help you choose the best adoptive parents for your baby. Do these five things and you can feel confident that you’ve done your part to assure your baby’s future is healthy, happy and bright.

View Families Ready to Adopt a Baby

1. Ask every question you wish to ask

This decision, after all, is yours. You have the right to be picky! Your adoption agency will give you the opportunity to read through many adoptive family profiles, if you desire. You can read all about different families’ education, lifestyles and home life. You can find out what families do for a living, their hobbies and special interests. You can even see photos of the adoptive couple and their pets, their other children, if they have any, and the environment your baby will call home.

It’s a lot to take in. We urge you to ask whatever questions come to mind when your adoption counselor talks with you. This is your opportunity to learn all that you want to learn to put your mind at ease about the different families that are available to adopt your baby.

And if you choose a family and want to meet them with your adoption counselor, you can ask even more questions when you are all together. Most important: You should feel no pressure from your adoption counselor in any way! This is your decision and you should move at your own pace. The adoptive family you feel interested in might share a lot of characteristics with you — or may be entirely different. You might feel an immediate connection to them or maybe you won’t? Talk about how you are feeling with your adoption counselor! Their role is to help you sort through all of your feelings and help you arrive at a decision you feel good about – even if it is not adoption.

Here’s the good news: you know that you and the people who want to adopt your child have at least one thing in common. You all love the baby, even if he/she is not born yet and you all want the best for the baby. That’s a very good start.

2. Know your deal breakers

Now ask yourself, what do you not want to see in adoptive parents? This is important, too. Have this conversation with yourself first. Make a list. Are there any traits or characteristics or life circumstances that you don’t want to make a part of your baby’s life? Once you’ve given this proper thought, talk to your adoption counselor about it. Share your concerns. If it’s important to you (and you think it’s important as it concerns your baby) it’s important to us. Let’s have that discussion and go from there.

3. Trust your heart

You instinctively know more about people than you might give yourself credit for. What does your heart and your mind tell you about the family whose adoption profile you feel connected to? Do you like what you’ve found in the profile given to you? Do the photos make you smile? Can you see your child in the arms of this family?

If you choose to meet the prospective adoptive parents with your adoption counselor, you’ll have even more to base your decision on. You should feel good about what you read and see and hear and feel. Trust your intuition. You’ve taken this research work seriously and have done your “homework”. Now let’s see if they can find a way into your heart. This choice is yours to make.

And, some women do not want to view profiles themselves and they ask the adoption agency to choose the right family for their baby. That is fine to you. The choices are yours to make.

4. Find an adoption agency that will inspire your confidence

It can be pretty intimidating if you feel that it’s your sole responsibility to find who will be the forever-family for your child. That can be a very lonely job. Don’t worry. You have Open Arms Adoption Network on your side. We work with our hopeful adoptive parents for months before we present their profile to women considering adoption for their babies. We talk with them in their homes on three or four different occasions, they attend our workshops, we run many clearances and reference checks on them to make certain they are safe and loving and ready to be parents. One of our most important roles is to make sure that every adoptive parent is ready and excited and prepared to be parents today.

But don’t just take my word for it. Call us! We want to earn your trust and answer all of your questions. This is likely the biggest decision of your life. You should feel supported, never pressured nor coerced. Only you know what is best for your baby. We will follow your lead.

When you’re working with Open Arms Adoption, you can trust that you’re not ever alone. We’re here to help you every step of the way. Reach out to us at and let’s discuss all of your options.