If you are pregnant and considering adoption in California, you want answers without delay. At AdoptHelp, our team is available 24/7 to help you put your adoption plan together.

That can include identifying the type of adoptive family you want, reviewing qualified prospective families, arranging financial assistance, helping with medical coverage, connecting you with counseling and independent legal representation, planning the hospital experience, discussing open adoption, and addressing the baby’s biological father.

Your plan can move as quickly as you want it to move and because circumstances can change during pregnancy, the plan can always be changed by you.

What Is an Adoption Plan?

An adoption plan is the practical and legal roadmap for how you want the adoption to work.

It can address questions such as:

• What type of family would you like to consider?
• Would you like a married couple, single parent, LGBTQ+ family, family with children, or parents without children?
• Does religion, culture, ethnicity, location, or family structure matter to you?
• Would you like to speak with prospective adoptive parents before choosing them?
• Would you like to meet them?
• How much contact would you like after adoption?
• Who would you like at the hospital?
• When would you like the prospective adoptive parents to meet the baby?
• What counseling or legal advice would be helpful?
• Do you need assistance with rent, food, transportation, medical care, or other pregnancy-related expenses?
• How should the baby’s biological father be involved in the plan?

Some expectant mothers want to begin with only one or two of these issues.

Others call and want the entire plan organized immediately.

Both are fine.

Our job is to help you move from questions to an actual plan as quickly and efficiently as you want.

“Placing a Baby for Adoption” Is More Accurate Than “Giving a Baby Up”

People frequently search online for phrases such as “give my baby up for adoption.”

We understand what they mean, but we prefer “placing a baby for adoption” or “making an adoption plan.”

The difference is more than vocabulary.

A modern private adoption involves choosing the family who will raise your child, getting to know them before delivery, deciding what contact you want afterward, obtaining your own attorney and counselor, and developing the legal and practical details of the placement.

That is not simply “giving up” a child. It is making a series of deliberate decisions about your child’s future out of love for your child.

You Can Start Your Adoption Plan Immediately

If you call today, you can make your plan today.

We can begin immediately.

If you need housing assistance, we can start addressing that.

If you want to review prospective adoptive families, our nationwide adoption agency affiliates can send family profiles immediately.

If you want a family on the East Coast, a family with children, a same-sex couple, a particular religion, a particular cultural background, or some other characteristic that matters to you, tell us.

If you want to speak with prospective adoptive parents quickly, that can be arranged.

If your delivery is approaching, the legal, hospital, financial, and family-selection portions of the plan can often be coordinated within hours.

Some expectant mothers contact us early in pregnancy.

Others call shortly before delivery.

Some first contact us after the baby has already been born.

An adoption plan does not require months of preparation.

What matters is identifying what you want and putting the right professionals in place to accomplish it.

California Has More Than One Type of Private Adoption

California recognizes two principal methods of voluntary private adoption: independent adoption and agency adoption.

Understanding the difference can help determine how your adoption should be structured. Each method is valid but there are differences in the paperwork and the time in which your consent to the adoption becomes irrevocable.

Independent Adoption

In an independent adoption, the birth parent makes a direct adoptive placement with the prospective adoptive parents.

The child is not first relinquished to an adoption agency that then becomes the legal custodian.

Instead, California’s independent-adoption procedures allow the birth parent to place the child directly with the prospective adoptive parents she has selected.

Attorneys, social workers, adoption service providers, licensed agencies, and other professionals still have important roles in counseling, screening, family-selection services, legal work, investigation, and supervision but the placement goes directly from you to the adoptive parent you select.

In California independent adoptions, you are required to receive identifying information about the adoptive family you select. This includes requirements that you know their names, where they live, whether they are married, whether they have children, child support obligations, and whether they have ever been arrested. You also have to be told what they do for work, their religion, and their health and mental health history.

The consent in a California independent adoption (also called direct placement adoption) is signed after you are discharged from the hospital by signing an Independent Adoption Placement Agreement. That agreement requires you are told everything about the adoptive parents, receive a counseling session, and review all the documents ten days before you sign the Independent Adoption Placement Agreement. This is called an advisement meeting. There are timing exceptions for exigent circumstances. Once you sign the California Independent Adoption Placement Agreement, you have 30 days to change your mind but you also can sign a Waiver of Right To Revoke Consent that makes the agreement irrevocable immediately if signed outside of California or 5:00 pm the next business day if signed in California.

Agency Adoption

In an agency adoption, the birth parent relinquishes the child to a licensed adoption agency, and the agency has legal authority to make the adoptive placement.

Agency adoption can also be highly personalized.

An expectant mother can still review prospective adoptive families, communicate with families she is considering, and select the family with whom she feels comfortable.

The legal path is different, but choosing an agency adoption does not mean an expectant mother has to surrender her ability to select the adoptive family.

In California adoption agency placements, there are no mandatory disclosures that have to be made to you about the adoptive family you select but any reputable adoption agency will provide you this information if you ask for it.

In agency placements you need to meet with the adoption agency representative at least 24 hours before you can sign consents (called Relinquishments). The meeting is called an advisement. Relinquishments cannot be signed until you are discharged from the hospital. California law is unusual regarding when the signed relinquishment becomes irrevocable. A birth mother can put a hold on the Relinquishment of up to 30 days or choose to have it sent to the State immediately. If it is sent immediately, it gets overnighted the next day and becomes irrevocable when it is received and acknowledged but the state has up to 10 business days so it becomes irrevocable between 2-10 business days from signing. Like an independent placement, a birth mother can opt to sign a Waiver of Right To Revoke Consent documents that makes the relinquishment irrevocable 5:00 pm the next business day.

You Can Choose the Adoptive Family

For many expectant mothers, choosing the prospective adoptive parents is the most important part of the adoption plan. You would never marry a stranger and nor would you give your baby to a stranger.

In modern California adoptions, and the majority of American Adoptions, you review information about qualified prospective adoptive parents and decide which family feels right to you. Adoption is about connection. The more of a connection you have with the family you select the more peace of mind you have.

AdoptHelp works with licensed adoption agencies that provide family-selection and placement services with qualified prospective adoptive families. We have hundreds of waiting adoptive families across the country who are so excited to even be considered.

Every prospective adoptive family must complete an adoption home study before being approved. That process typically includes criminal-background checks, child-abuse clearances, interviews, medical and financial information, personal references, adoption education, an evaluation of the home, and an assessment by a licensed adoption professional.

You are therefore choosing among families who have already gone through a formal approval process.

Tell Us What You Want in an Adoptive Family

You do not need to look through hundreds of families who do not fit what you want. We have heard birth mothers explain the process like a dating site where they put in what they are open to and then only see families that fit the criteria. This is exactly how it works at AdoptHelp.

Tell us what matters to you.

You may care about:

• Where the family lives
• Religion
• Ethnicity or cultural background
• Whether they are married or single
• Whether they already have children
• Their extended family
• Their occupations
• Their approach to education
• Their interests and lifestyle
• Their views about open adoption
• Whether one parent plans to stay home
• Their community
• Their experience with adoption
• Their willingness to maintain relationships with your family

The more we know about what matters to you, the more efficiently the adoption professionals involved can help identify families consistent with those preferences.

Then you can focus your attention on the families you actually want to consider.

Talk to the Family as Soon as You Want

A family profile provides useful information, but most expectant mothers want to know what the people are actually like.

You can speak by telephone, FaceTime, Zoom, or another video platform. When practical, you can also meet in person.

That can happen quickly.

You may know within one conversation that you feel comfortable with a particular family.

You may want to speak with another family instead.

Either response is useful.

The greater the genuine connection between an expectant mother and prospective adoptive parents, the stronger the foundation can be for the placement and for whatever relationship continues afterward.

The goal is to help you find that connection, not create unnecessary delay.

You Can Build an Open Adoption Around the Contact You Want

Modern adoption does not necessarily mean saying goodbye forever.

An open-adoption plan may provide for:

• Photographs
• Letters
• Emails or texts
• Telephone calls
• Video calls
• Social-media contact
• In-person visits
• Contact with grandparents or siblings
• Other forms of communication everyone agrees upon

There is no specific number of visits or updates required for an adoption to be considered “open.”

Some relationships involve frequent visits and direct communication.

Others involve periodic photographs and updates.

The appropriate arrangement depends upon the people involved.

California also permits qualifying post-adoption contact agreements to be approved by the court and legally enforced under California law.

So if continuing contact is important to you, it can be addressed as a real part of the adoption plan from the beginning.

Your Hospital Plan Can Be Put Together Quickly

You also will create a hospital plan before delivery.

This may address:

• Who you want with you during labor
• When the adoptive parents you select to meet the baby
• Whether you want time alone with the baby
• Whether you want photographs together
• Whether you want the prospective adoptive parents involved in feeding or caring for the baby
• How hospital discharge will be handled

If you are close to delivery, this does not need to become a complicated project.

We can help organize the plan quickly and communicate it to the appropriate professionals immediately.

The plan can also remain flexible because childbirth does not always unfold exactly as expected.

California Does Not Permit Prenatal Adoption Consent

Although an adoption plan can move quickly, California separates the planning process from the final legal decision.

You may choose a prospective adoptive family before birth.

You may meet them, create an open-adoption plan, work with an attorney, receive counseling, arrange financial assistance, and organize the hospital plan.

But the legally operative adoption documents are completed after the child is born in accordance with the particular type of adoption.

California also has different procedures for independent-placement consents and agency relinquishments.

Those procedures have different rules concerning when the decision becomes irrevocable, and the attorneys involved should explain those rules before documents are signed.

The point is not to slow down the adoption plan.

It is to make sure the legal portion happens correctly when the time comes.

Financial Assistance Can Begin Quickly

Another concern for many expectant mothers is not theoretical at all.

Rent is due.

There may be groceries to buy.

Transportation may be a problem.

There may be medical appointments, utilities, maternity clothing, or housing issues that need attention now.

California Penal Code Section 273 expressly allows appropriate maternity-connected medical, hospital, and necessary living expenses when provided as an act of charity and not conditioned upon completing the adoption.

Depending upon the circumstances, lawful assistance may include:

• Rent or housing
• Groceries
• Utilities
• Transportation
• Cell phone expenses
• Maternity clothing
• Medical and pregnancy-related expenses
• Other reasonable necessities related to the pregnancy

At AdoptHelp, one of the first things we can do is determine what assistance may be available and begin putting the financial portion of the plan in place.

Financial assistance is support during pregnancy. It is not payment for a baby.

Prospective adoptive parents cannot buy a birth parent’s consent, and an expectant mother does not owe them a child because they assisted her financially.

California Requires Adoption Expenses to Be Documented

Financial assistance in adoption is not supposed to happen under the table.

California Family Code Section 8610 requires the prospective adoptive parents to provide the court with a detailed accounting of payments and things of value provided in connection with the adoption.

Independent adoptions have additional documentation requirements under Family Code Section 8812, including written requests and receipts for specified expenses.

At AdoptHelp, approved living expenses can be funded through an escrow account so payments can be tracked and documented.