Making an adoption hospital plan for the day you deliver can make a huge difference in how your time at the hospital goes.
As the birth mother, a hospital plan gives you the chance to sit down with your counselor and figure out what you want your delivery to look like. This plan will describe your personal preference concerning many of the details associated with your hospital stay. Below is a quick overview of some of the things you will have a say in regarding your time in the hospital during and after delivery:
- Whether or not the adoptive parents will go be invited to the hospital
- Who your main support system will be during delivery
- Whether or not you would like to be listed as a “no information” patient
- Who you do and/or do not want in the delivery or labor room
- How many pictures/videos you want taken, or if you don’t want any taken
- Who the one person you would want in the room with you, should you have to have a C-section
- Your pain-control preferences to be used during labor and delivery
- Who you want to cut the cord
- Who you want to wear the second baby ID band
- Whether or not you want to see the baby after delivery
- Whether or not you want to hold the baby after delivery
- If you do not want to hold/see your baby, you can choose who the first person to do so will be
- Whether or not you want to feed your baby while in the hospital
- How your baby will be fed
- Where you want to see the adoptive parents at the hospital, if you wish to see them
- What name you want to be on the birth certificate, if you have a name picked out
- Where you would like the baby to stay after delivery (with you or with adoptive parents)
- Whether or not you want your baby to receive the Hepatitis B vaccine
- What (if any) mementos you want to keep from your baby’s birth
- Whether or not it is okay with you for the adoptive parents to have a copy of the mementos
- When/how you want to be discharged from the hospital (on your own, with adoptive parents, before or after adoptive parents, etc.)
In a time where you might feel like you have no control over things, working through a hospital plan with your counselor could help you feel slightly less overwhelmed.
Knowing that you have a say in what will take place during your delivery will (hopefully) make you less anxious about what will happen during your hospital stay. Do not be surprised if you want to change something in the plan as the pregnancy progresses. Be open with your counselor about what you are feeling, and make sure you tell her if there is something you want to update.
