“Zoe” came to Catholic Charities when she was four months pregnant with twins. She was a single, working mother of three boys, including one child with special medical needs, and was struggling to afford transportation and living expenses for her young family. Zoe couldn’t even imagine how the addition of two more children would affect her already precarious living situation. Once the twin’s father declared that he would not help to parent them, she felt that she needed to explore the option of adoption.
Over the next four months, Zoe visited Catholic Charities consistently for counseling as well as to access other resources. We provided her with the education she needed about adoption, open adoption, her legal rights, birth families, adoptive families and grief counseling. At Catholic Charities, we provide services in a pressure-free environment. Here, our clients can explore all their options, and make a parenting plan that is best for both themselves and their babies. Our maternity program is committed to supporting a mother throughout her pregnancy regardless of her decision to parent or to make an adoption plan.
Independently, Zoe contacted two different families about privately adopting her twins. She also worked with a Catholic Charities adoption social worker to find a compatible family. Zoe continued to explore all of her options up until the last weeks of her pregnancy when she ultimately decided to parent her twins. When Zoe’s daughters were born, Catholic Charities provided support and counseling at the hospital and visited the babies in the NICU. They were a few weeks premature, but completely healthy.
Through community donations of baby care items, Catholic Charities was able to provide a double stroller, diapers, pack n plays, clothes, blankets, and other baby care items so Zoe would be well equipped to handle her growing family.
Zoe is doing very well. She has moved back to her hometown in South Louisiana, and with family support, she is parenting all five of her children. Through involvement with our program, Zoe was able to fully explore her parenting options, make a parenting plan for her children, and receive the items necessary to provide care for her newborn twins. Through the counseling and support she received at CCDIOBR’s maternity program, Zoe was ready to face the challenges of being a single mother of five.
