OB nurses, what do you do in adoption situations?

[estrogen]

What happens? What is your role? What do you say? What is appropriate? Any interesting stories on this subject?

Thanks! :)

[adptvmom]

To 33-Weeker,

I don't think you sound like a "B" at all! I think you just see things from a different view since you had involvment with both parties.

I will say that the agency we went through encourages bmoms to hold their babies and to say goodbye so they can begin the grieving process as you mentioned. In both of our adoptions, papers were signed before we ever met the birthmoms or saw our children for the first time.

In our state (AL), a bmom has 5 days in which she can change her mind AFTER signing papers without legal action. Then she has an additional 9 days that she can change her mind, but would have to do so through a legal process. Usually, if you make it past the 5 days, you are safe. We thank God that our situations have worked out so smoothly!

At discharge, the baby is relinquished to the adoption agency and was handed over to us in the parking lot. (although the nurses were right there with us and helped us get our things into the car) In each of our adoptions, the bmom had already been released from the hospital and was at home. I think we have just been fortunate to have a wonderful adoption coordinator who is not pushy with hospital staff!

[mgalloLPN]

Your job is to be supportive and non-judgemental. We had one case where the mom was going to change her mind and she pin pointed a nurse that had "talked her into keeping the baby" that nurse was told she could be sued for interviening in a legal matter or something like that. I don't know exactly. I had one family who was pregnant with twins and was only keeping one. Didn't even tell the rest of the family she was pregnant with twins, we had to time when we monitered the babies since only her and her husband knew there were two in there. She had met the couple that was adopting the other child (they were keeping whichever one came out first) they were going to take summer vacations together so the kids would get to know eachother. While I DID NOT agree with their decision. In fact i thought it was the stupidest thing ever. I supported their decision and respected it. I was a nurse I remained NONJUDGEMENTAL. Well i guess i did judge them since I just said it was stupid, but I did not tell them that, and I treated them the same whether they were making a dumb decsion or making a decision that I would have agreed with.

That's sad. I wonder why they decided to separate the twins? Poor babies.