At Abrazo, we’re all for saving babies. We’re proud to have joined countless birthparents and adoptive parents in saving many since 1994.
Over the years, we’ve seen and heard a lot. We’ve been privvy to many stories, and just as many miracles.
We’ve gotten called into homes where unexpected babies were delivered into toilets by teenagers in shock. Abrazo’s staff often counsels with panicked mothers desperately seeking abortion services who accidentally dialed an adoption agency instead. We’ve met with people making adoption plans for unborn children they view as “problems” rather than future persons.
And we’ve held the hands of parents making long-delayed adoption plans for toddlers and children they never wanted, but were talked out of placing, yet ultimately chose not to continue parenting, after years of trying to make it work.
Saving Babies is Just the First Step
We honestly haven’t ever met anybody who doesn’t believe in saving babies. Nobody we know who would step over a baby left on a doorstep and leave it to the elements. There are, however, plenty of ideas about how best to go about saving babies.
Adoption is the best way we know to get babies permanent stability right from that start. With that, we hope they’ll also get continual nurture. (And honest information from their adopting parents, along with ongoing access to their families of origin.)
It’s not the easiest option, though because placing a child for adoption (like adopting a child) requires great sacrifice. We do know mothers who have terminated pregnancies, then parented, and later placed children for adoption. They tell us they found all three choices incredibly difficult, but each in different ways.
It’s not enough just to talk someone out of one option or into another. They need to also be empowered to live with whatever decision they make. To find purpose and meaning in it, and to grow from it.
For us, saving babies is about way more than just getting babies adopted. We have wonderful adoptive families ready and waiting, with nurseries ready. Yet their goals (like ours) go far beyond just saving babies. They want to raise happy (and hopefully healthy) children to become self-sufficient and successful adults. They want to enable children’s birthfamilies to maintain beneficial kinship relationships across a child’s lifespan. And they want to be the best parents they can be.
Sometimes those most in need of saving aren’t babies anymore.
Not all the children who need our help are babies, of course. Abrazo is proud to offer ethical, compassionate adoption services for parents, grandparents and guardians placing children, as well. We’ve also found loving homes for toddlers, children and sibling groups of all ages.
“Why does Abrazo even bother trying to help with adoptions for older kids?” someone asked us recently. It might have sounded insensitive, but it’s a fair question. Obviously, there are dozens of available couples wanting to adopt every one baby placed for adoption, and the number falls incrementally the older a child gets. The answer is that every child who was ever once a baby is still worth saving, if it’s within our power to help.
Sometimes, saving babies means saving kids who didn’t get what they needed as babies, whether they’re now older children in need of homes or parents contemplating placement for their own babies. (And sometimes, maybe “saving babies” also means helping those who are ill-suited for parenthood not get pregnant again, which is why birth control must always be a part of ethical options counseling.)
If saving babies is your mission in life, we welcome you to join ours, too– because it’s going to take all of us working together to make a difference for all the kids who need help.
