You have the right to:

• Be free from pressure or coercion.
• Place your child for adoption through an adoption agency or private adoption.
• Choose the parents who will adopt your child, know their names, religion, etc., and even meet them if you want to do so.
• Review the adoptive parents’ Home Study Assessment.
• Make a written open adoption agreement, which allows you to share pictures and letters and might allow you to see and talk to the child after the adoption. This is a moral agreement and cannot be enforced in all states.
• Name your child on his or her first birth certificate. The name can be changed by the adoptive parents on the second birth certificate issued after the final adoption.
• Your own attorney paid for by the adoptive parents. In most cases, you also can refuse to be represented by an attorney.
• Make a choice for counseling.
• Financial help with certain reasonable and actual expenses.
• See or not see your child before you place him or her for adoption.
• Change your mind about the adoption at any time before you sign a consent or surrender and complete the revocation period.
• Receive a copy of the surrender form and any other forms you sign.

This document is intended as general information. For specific information, contact an adoption attorney or adoption agency in your area. Modeled after the Tennessee Birth Parent Bill of Rights by Dawn Coppock, Attorney-at-law. All rights reserved.