Adoption in US
Comment
Long-time adoption attorney Stephen Ravel explains how a potential birth mother is assessed by an adoption attorney to see if she is a good fit for a person or a couple looking to adopt a child.
135
Transcription:
When I'm talking to a birth mother for the first time, I'm looking for why she's doing this. Is she doing it out of spite for the birth father? Is she in a situation where she really has no other choice but to place the child up for adoption? Does what she's telling me make sense? And I look to whether she follows through, whether she promptly returns the forms to me, whether she returns my phone calls, whether she goes to the doctor, whether she talks to the attorney that we may line up for her in where she is. All of those things are indications that she's committed to the adoption. Now, if she calls me and I don't hear from her for two weeks or she doesn't send the forms back, I'm starting to think she was just calling to get information or to tell the birth father that she's thinking of putting the child up for adoption. "See, I got this letter from a lawyer," and instead see how he responds. So I think you need to look to patterns of behavior that are consistent with the desire to place a child up for adoption and follow through with the plan.
Long-time adoption attorney Stephen Ravel explains how a potential birth mother is assessed by an adoption attorney to see if she is a good fit for a person or a couple looking to adopt a child.
Related Videos
Transcript
Expert Bio
More from Expert
Stephen RavelAdoption Attorney
Stephen Ravel attended UC Berkley for his undergraduate degree and Santa Clara Law School for his law degree. Stephen has been an attorney since 1973, and has been involved with adoption law since 1984. He has handled over 1,300 adoptions since the start of his career. Stephen is married and has three children. His oldest child was adopted from Brazil at birth.
Login or Register to view and post comments