If you have just found out that you are pregnant, you may be feeling very confused about the future and the important decisions you have to make. It may be of help if you can discuss the situation with the baby’s father, or with your own family. It may also be useful to talk things over with someone who is not directly involved and to get expert advice on the options open to you. There are a number of agencies that you can access online for information about your options in relation to a crisis pregnancy, such as www.crisispregnancy.ie.

You may be considering looking after your baby yourself, perhaps with the help of your partner or family. If you are considering keeping your baby you must begin to think about the future. You should get advice about benefits and other help that may be available, whether you are planning to make a home with the baby’s father or not. Advice and information can be obtained on and www.treoir.ie and www.citizensinformation.ie.

In considering all of your choices, this web information aims to give you some facts about adoption.

If you are considering adoption there is a number of adoption service providers located around the country. A list of Adoption Service Providers can be found at the end of this page.

You can also call the Adoption Authority Duty Phone Line 01 2309 306 from outside Ireland  00 353 1 2309 306    

10.00 am to 1:00pm  

Monday to Friday 

Adoption is a way of providing a child with new legal parents. It ends the legal relationship between the child and the birth parents and establishes a new one with the adoptive parents. Children can be placed for adoption with specified relatives within their families of origin. In these family adoptions it is important that all involved obtain counselling through the local Tusla - Child and Family Agency Adoption Services. All non-family adoptions are arranged through adoption service providers such as the Tusla - Child and Family Agency and adoption service providers which are accredited and regulated by the Adoption Authority of Ireland. There is no other way by which a child can be legally placed for adoption.

Adoption Orders are made by the Adoption Authority of Ireland, a body appointed by the Government. Once granted, an adoption order is final and cannot be revoked.

The role of the adoption social worker is to help you work out what is best for you and your baby. The social worker will help you look at both the option of keeping your child and placing him or her for adoption.

If you wish the social worker will talk to you about the adoption process. The social worker will ask you for some information about yourself, your family and the baby’s father. The social worker will also need to talk to the father, if possible and to any other guardian of the baby.

The father of the child has a legal right to be notified and consulted about a planned adoption and he will be advised of all his legal rights, unless there are compelling reasons for not doing so. You will also be advised of your legal rights as mother of the child.

It will be important for you to keep in contact with your social worker throughout the pregnancy. This does not mean that you are committing yourself to an adoption decision. Nothing will be definitely arranged until after the birth.

Your social worker will discuss with you the kind of family in which you want your child to grow up. You might have strong feelings about the adoptive parents’ interests, personalities, cultural background, religion or education. As far as possible, adoptive parents will be chosen who have similar background, interests and physical characteristics as that which you have decided, and which your child needs. You will be given some non-identifying information about the adoptive family.

Talk with your social worker about the possibility of meeting the prospective adoptive family before or after your child is placed with the family, or about the possibility of on-going contact.

Once the baby has settled down with the adoptive parents, the adoptive family will apply to the Adoption Authority of Ireland for an Adoption Order. The baby is generally with the adoptive family for at least six months before an Adoption Order is made.

Social workers from Tusla - Child and Family Agency Adoption Services will visit your child in their new home and make sure that he or she is being well cared for. During this time your social worker will discuss with you the signing of the final consent forms. The baby must be at least six weeks old before this can happen. father’s or guardian’s consent is legally required, they will be included in discussions with the social worker and decisions about the adoption process, and signing consent forms for the adoption.

Everybody involved in adoption recognises that it is a serious step for a mother to take and one that must be thought through properly.

Take time with your decision. If, after the child has been placed with the adoptive parents and before the making of the Adoption Order, you change your mind and want to reclaim your child, you should contact your social worker or the Tusla - Child and Family Agency Adoption Services without delay, to make arrangements to have the child returned to your care. If the prospective adoptive parents decline to give up the child, it is open to you to take legal action to have custody of the child restored to you. Should this situation arise you would need to consult a solicitor as a court case may be involved.

When the Adoption Order has been granted, your legal relationship with and responsibilities for your child will transfer to the adoptive parents.

Adoption today usually involves continuing contact between birth parents and the adoptive family. If you wish, you will be able to get information about how your child is getting on, until the Adoption Order is made. After that, any ongoing contact is by informal agreement between you and the adoptive family as it is not legally possible to make an adoption order with conditions attached. Contact is facilitated by the adoption service provider and can be either “letter-box” or “open” contact.

“Letter-box” contact is where regular exchanges of information, presents and photographs are passed between you and the adoptive parents as your child is growing up. Where there is “open” contact, you can keep in direct contact with your child and visit him or her usually in the adoptive home. This contact is usually once or twice a year.

Most people are curious to know something about their background, for example medical and social information about their families of origin. Adoptive parents are advised to tell children from an early age that they are adopted and to share with them as much information as possible. The sharing of information is a gradual process and increases as the child grows in understanding. It is important for you to keep in contact with the agency so as to provide up-to-date details such as medical information that may be relevant to your child.

And finally...

Adoption service providers encourage adoptive parents to keep in contact and to ask for advice and help if they need it.

While birth parents continue to remember their child, they can move on with their lives in a positive and meaningful way.