Here’s the thing: folks can’t just call an adoption agency and order up a baby. Adoption is not a business and babies are not a product to be bought nor sold.
Sadly, some people do call adoption agencies thinking it does work that way. They’re the folks who think that you order up a baby by calling around to say what they want, like they’re ordering a pizza or getting a made-to-order suit or something?
“Hello, Bespoke Adoptions? Yeah, we’re thinking we want a white baby girl with blonde hair and green eyes, whose mom is a foreign exchange student from Sweden who had prenatal care from the very week of her pregnancy and whose dad is a college athlete who’s already signed off on his rights?”
(Clearly, somebody’s been watching too many Hallmark adoption movies.)
That isn’t how legal adoption works, and if you ever find some place that does offer this kind of “service,” be sure to report it to authorities, because child-trafficking is illegal.
How Adoption (Really) Works
In America, there are way more people hoping to adopt babies than there are babies needing to be adopted. (Wayyyy more.) It’s been many (many!) years since the point in time when pregnant “girls in trouble” were teens shipped off to maternity homes to give up babies since it was socially unacceptable to be a single mother. (That ship has sailed, folks. And not a moment too soon.)
Nowadays, the ever-shrinking pool of women who consider placing infants for adoption are women in their 20s or 30s who typically parenting other children, and/or struggling with addiction and/or unable to raise a/nother baby due to domestic violence, economic misfortune or other some other life crisis (ie., health, incarceration, sexual assault, etc.)
Texans with crisis pregnancies have plenty of options to consider, even though abortion options have been sharply limited. With more than 100 possible families awaiting each one baby, mothers have a right to choose where they want their baby to go and to keep in touch through open adoption; or to keep the baby with themselves or a friend or relative; or to let the State take their child (as of 9/1/25, failure to comply with Child Protective Services service plans in Texas is no longer a stand-alone ground for termination of parental rights.) Adoption is never anyone’s only option, and the truth is that it’s rarely a first choice, given the pain that goes with such a decision.
IPs place orders; HAPs cannot
In surrogacy circles, people who are paying the bill to rent a womb are referred to as IPs (intended parents.) Their embryos, eggs or sperm are implanted in the woman who contracts to carry their baby for them, so those IPs tend to feel entitled to make orders.
In adoption, however, hopeful adoptive parents have no legal claim to the baby in another woman’s belly, and no rights to make demands of her, as she is not being paid for her “services.” Prospective adopters do have the right of refusal if they choose not to match or take placement (just like potential birthparents do) but that’s where the line is drawn.
Another big difference is that adoption agencies must be licensed and regulated by the State; surrogacy agencies in most states are not. Working with a licensed adoption agency means that both the placing and adopting parents can expect to be protected by the adoption professionals, who also must look out for the best interests of each child being adopted.
(And yet, adoption still runs less than half than what surrogacy costs.)
Emotions Run High
We live in a consumer-driven society, so it stands to reason that people erroneously associate the transfer of a child through adoption with other costly endeavors, whether that’s infertility or real estate or even the purchase of a vehicle. (And if surrogates can lease out their uteri, why can’t birthmothers get paid, as well?) Regardless of why: you shouldn’t try to order up a baby.
Why not? The short answer is that the law makes it clear that babies and children should never be bought nor sold. (The long answer is that ethicists and politicians and others need to reassess what role money should be allowed to play in any reproductive pursuits.)
For the truth is that none of this is “easy,” not for anyone. The risks and emotions experienced by both surrogates and birthmothers are considerable and life-lasting. And those who turn to surrogacy or adoption make sacrifices in hopes of growing a family. The children whose lives start from surrogacy contracts or via adoptive placements will face a variety of factors and questions, as well– yet ultimately, they are the ones to whom anything is truly owed.
Cancel That Order & Think Again
So those who approach the process of wanting to become parents, by whatever means, need to shut down their desire to order up a baby. Focus on becoming the kind of parents any child could need, instead.
Do all the reading. Take the classes. Get into therapy. Shore up that marriage. Mend old fences. Clean out the cobwebs, figuratively and literally.
Becoming anyone’s parent, by any means, is the most important life goal of all, and there are no guarantees of any desired outcome. So devote yourself to being the best mom or dad (or birthparent or surrogate) you can be, every day to come. (Whatever child you get.)
You can’t order up a baby, but you can re-order your life to put every child first, and there surely is no worthier cause,
