Featuring insights from Kris Haycraft, Director with Catholic Charities North Dakota’s Strong Roots Bright Futures program.
Understanding choice, support, and the deeply personal decisions involved in adoption
Finding out you’re pregnant can bring a lot of emotions and a lot of questions, especially when you’re unsure what comes next.
For some expectant parents, adoption may be one of the options they want to explore. Simply asking questions about adoption doesn’t mean you’ve made a decision. It doesn’t commit you to anything, and it doesn’t mean someone else gets to decide what’s best for you.
Through the Strong Roots Bright Futures program, Catholic Charities North Dakota provides a supportive, nonjudgmental place where expectant parents can ask questions, explore both parenting and adoption, and make informed decisions about their future and their child’s future.
For Kris Haycraft, who leads the program, that first conversation begins with respect.
“You are allowed to be curious and ask a lot of questions,” she explains. Expectant parents have a qualified, licensed social worker available to answer those questions, without judgment and without pressure toward one particular decision. The goal is to empower each person to recognize that they know their own life and circumstances best.
That philosophy carries throughout the adoption-planning process. As Kris Haycraft puts it, “the expectant parent is driving the bus.” They decide whether adoption is right for them, what kind of adoption they are comfortable with, which adoptive family they choose, and what level of future contact they would like.
What Does It Mean to Make an Adoption Plan?
The phrase making an adoption plan is intentional.
Rather than “giving up” a baby, an expectant parent considering adoption is thoughtfully planning for their child’s future and making decisions about what they want that future to look like.
If adoption is ultimately the path they choose, that can include selecting an adoptive family, considering the kind of relationship or contact they would like to have after the adoption, and working through the legal process involved in transferring parental rights.
Most importantly, the expectant parent remains at the center of those decisions.
Choosing an Adoptive Family
If an expectant parent decides to move forward with adoption, choosing an adoptive family is another deeply personal decision. The Strong Roots team begins by learning what the expectant parent hopes for in a family and what kind of communication they would like after adoption. They may then review profiles from approved waiting families and choose a family that feels like the right fit. An expectant parent may also know someone they would like to consider as an adoptive family.
The process isn’t about someone else choosing what is best for the expectant parent. It’s about providing information and support so they can make that choice themselves.
What Does an Open Adoption Look Like?
Another important decision is how much contact an expectant parent would like after adoption. This is sometimes referred to as openness, and there isn’t one version that is right for every family.
According to the Strong Roots team, openness exists along a continuum. Some birth families may choose no contact after adoption. Others may exchange pictures and letters through Catholic Charities. In a fully open adoption, birth and adoptive families may exchange contact information, communicate directly, and visit one another.
Strong Roots social workers help birth families explore those possibilities and think about what level of openness feels right for them.
What If I’m Not Sure Whether I Want to Parent or Choose Adoption?
That’s okay.
In fact, you don’t need to have made that decision before reaching out.
Big decisions can feel overwhelming, so part of the role of Strong Roots is helping make those decisions feel more manageable. A social worker can help someone explore both parenting and adoption, talk honestly about the benefits and challenges of each, consider what life might look like one year or several years from now, and identify fears, hopes, resources, and sources of support. Exploring adoption does not obligate someone to make an adoption plan.
Strong Roots encourages expectant parents to gather information, understand their options, and make the informed decision that is right for them. Whatever that decision is, the goal is to support the person making it.
Support That Goes Beyond the Decision
Strong Roots Bright Futures isn’t only about adoption.
During pregnancy, the team works to understand the individual’s circumstances, hopes, goals, and barriers. Support can include connections with community resources, education on topics ranging from healthy relationships to car seat safety, transportation assistance for appointments, and help addressing basic needs such as food, clothing, and shelter.
Sometimes that support helps an expectant parent confidently move forward with an adoption plan. Other times, it helps someone realize that parenting is the right decision for them.
Kris Haycraft shared a non-identifying example of a mother who initially contacted the program because people around her were telling her she couldn’t parent another child. Through conversations and practical support, she worked through her own concerns, connected with mental health services, found full-time employment, explored childcare, and developed a realistic budget. Ultimately, she decided to parent.
In another non-identifying example, a mother who was already parenting two children explored both parenting and adoption and ultimately decided that making an adoption plan was the right choice for her family. A year later, she remained connected with her daughter and the adoptive family through pictures, messages, and visits.
The outcomes were different, but the purpose of the support was the same: helping each person make the decision that was right for them.
Adoption Planning Isn’t “Giving Up”
Language matters, particularly when we’re talking about decisions as personal as these.
Making an adoption plan isn’t an easy way out, nor is considering adoption the same as abandoning a child. The Strong Roots team encourages language such as “make an adoption plan” rather than “give up a baby,” and “choose to parent” rather than “keep the baby.” Those distinctions recognize something important: both parenting and adoption involve thoughtful decisions about a child’s future.
Considering one option doesn’t mean you’ve rejected the other.
Support Doesn’t End When the Decision Is Made
Pregnancy may be one chapter, but parenting and adoption can both be lifelong journeys.
Strong Roots typically continues supporting mothers for about a year after their child’s birth, whether they have chosen to parent or made an adoptive placement. The team helps women navigate the transition to becoming a parent or a birth parent. Some reconnect with Catholic Charities later in life when questions or needs arise.
That ongoing relationship reflects something at the heart of the program: support shouldn’t be dependent on making one particular choice.
You Don’t Have to Figure It Out Alone
If you’re facing a pregnancy and wondering what comes next, you deserve space to ask questions. You deserve accurate information. You deserve to explore your options without pressure or judgment. And you deserve support that recognizes that you know your life, your circumstances, and your hopes for your child better than anyone else.
