JFCS' adoption service, Adoption Connection, has been a fully licensed, nonprofit adoption agency since 1985. Our organization completes more than 100 adoptions annually and many more international and domestic home studies every year.

Adoption Connection is licensed to work with birthparents throughout the United States and adoptive parents in 19 counties in Northern California. Since our inception, we have completed over 1,400 infant adoptions. We help: 

• Birthmothers find loving families for their babies

• Educate both sides of a match about the opportunities and process of adoption 

• Ensure that a second parent (through marriage, etc.) gains legal status as an adoptive parent 

• Educate about the adoption process from both perspectives: the birthmother’s and the adoptive parents’.

Adoption Connection Helps Families Grow and Thrive

December, 2012

Five-year-old Joachim and 2-year-old Jaspar are cherished young men. When the December holidays and birthdays roll around, the brothers get to celebrate with their parents  …  and their birth families. 

Adoptive families have many options for how to relate to birth parents -- from little or no ongoing contact to blending families. Adoption Connection helps to create the best arrangement based on the preferences of each family. Adopted at birth, Joachim and Jaspar are part of a growing trend in open adoptions: merged families where the birth parents and their extended families are often blended into the adoptive family. 

"We wouldn’t have it any other way," says the boys’ adoptive mom, Esther, who came with her husband, Adan, to JFCS’ adoption program, Adoption Connection, six years ago for help in starting a family. "Adan and I are both from mixed heritages, and we wanted our sons to know their own backgrounds as well.

"We felt comfortable with Adoption Connection right away and knew that we wanted to work with the agency," Esther continues. Their sons’ birthmothers felt the same way. "When I learned I was pregnant, I decided early on to place my baby with an adoptive family," says Jasper’s birth mother, Jessica

"I settled on Adoption Connection because they respected my dignity and autonomy and were concerned with my needs. They didn't have an agenda, and they never put pressure on me."

Vera, Joachim’s birth mother, echoes Jessica’s sentiments, adding that Esther and Adan are the perfect adoptive parents. "They’re so supportive—they’re always checking in to make sure I’m okay," she says. 

Although placing Joachim for adoption was tough, Vera believes it was the right decision. "My son is very happy," she says, and "he’s learning French and Spanish, in addition to English!"

Jessica and Vera say that they cherish their relationships with their sons’ adoptive family. "My husband (who is also Jaspar's birth father) and I have gotten really close to Esther and Adan, and we see them and the boys even more than we thought we would," says Jessica. "We'll stop in and have dinner with them, or we’ll get together for birthdays and holidays. This is exactly what I'd hoped for. I feel empowered by my decision. In a society that can project a lot of judgment and pressure onto women facing unplanned pregnancies, I feel like I've written my own story."

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