Your Options With an Unplanned Pregnancy in Indiana: A Complete Guide

By: Grant Kirsh

If you are facing an unplanned pregnancy in Indiana, or you recently gave birth and are overwhelmed, this guide is for you. It walks through your options honestly, with no pressure and no judgment.

My name is Grant Kirsh. I am a second-generation adoption attorney and the owner and managing partner of Kirsh & Kirsh, P.C., a family-run law firm in Indianapolis that has served Indiana families for nearly 50 years and has over 110 years of combined legal experience helping expectant mothers with adoption plans and creating families. Our firm has handled over 5,000 private newborn adoptions. We are not a national adoption agency with no real local presence. We live here, we work here, and we answer our phones 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

Whether you are in Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, Evansville, South Bend, Carmel, Fishers, Bloomington, Hammond, Gary, Muncie, Lafayette, Terre Haute, Kokomo, Anderson, or Greenwood, this guide was written for you.

Already Took Your Baby Home? You Still Have Options

We want to say this first, because it is the call we receive more than ever before in the past.

Many women plan to parent. They have every intention of making it work. Then they get home from the hospital, and reality sets in. The friends and family who promised to help are suddenly nowhere to be found. The money is not there. The sleep is not there. And there is a crying baby in the other room who needs you every hour of every day.

If that is where you are, hear this clearly: it is not too late, and it is not your fault. This is a real shift we are seeing all across Indiana right now. In the past, placing a baby for adoption after taking the baby home was considered a hard thing to do. That has changed. There are things we can do to make it easier, and we have completed many of these placements in the last six months alone. We know how to do it the right way.

The one thing we ask is this: time is of the essence. The sooner you contact us, the more we can do and the smoother it goes. Call or text us any time, day or night, and read more in our post about considering adoption after bringing your baby home.

Your Three Basic Options

With an unplanned pregnancy, you have three paths: parenting, adoption, or abortion. Indiana law heavily restricts abortion, with limited exceptions, so for many women the real decision comes down to parenting or adoption. We will never tell you which to choose. Our job is to make sure you understand your options.

Option One: Parenting

Parenting is a real choice, and for some women it is the right one. The honest questions to ask are about your actual situation, not the one you wish you had. Do you have stable housing? Steady income? Childcare? People who will truly show up, not just say they will?

Here is advice we share often: the best indicator of future behavior is past behavior. If the people promising to help have always been there for you, they probably will be this time. If they have let you down before, they probably will again. Many of the women who call us after taking their baby home were given false hope by people who made big promises and then disappeared. That is not the mom’s fault.

Option Two: Adoption 

Adoption today is nothing like the old picture in most people’s heads. When you make an adoption plan with Kirsh & Kirsh, P.C.:

You choose the family. We typically have over 100 carefully screened families waiting to adopt, and they can come from anywhere in the country. You really cannot make a bad decision. You just need to make the decision that feels right to you.

You stay connected. All of our families commit to providing letters and photos for at least 18 years at minimum. Many offer visits and video calls. If you want a closed adoption instead, that is your choice, not the adoptive family’s.

It costs you nothing. Our services are 100% free to birth mothers. Financial help with living expenses is allowed under Indiana Code 35-46-1-9, up to $4,000, and medical expenses and adoption-related transportation are not included in that cap. Counseling will also be covered 100% by the adoptive family, if you want to participate in counseling.

You, as the mother, are protected. Under Indiana Code 31-19-9-2(b), moms cannot sign a consent to adoption until after the baby is born. The Indiana Hospital Association policy, which our firm helped draft and update as recently as 2025, recommends waiting no sooner than 24 hours after a normal delivery or 48 hours after a c-section before you sign a consent to adoption. If you want to sign sooner that is allowed, if that is what you want to do. After signing, there is a 15-day window to attempt to withdraw consent under Indiana Code 31-19-10-3(a), though this is very difficult, and consent is effectively final once signed. You will almost certainly never have to step foot in a courtroom, and adoption cases in Indiana are closed, confidential court records that are not open to the public.

We were also the first in Indiana to offer birth mothers their own independent attorney, paid for by the adoptive family, at no cost to you.

What About the Father?

A biological father does not have automatic full parental rights unless you are married to him, or were married or engaged to him within 300 days of the birth. A DNA test alone does not establish paternity in Indiana. A father may also sign a denial of paternity, which has the same effect as a consent to adoption. If the father is uninvolved, has disappeared, or will not talk to you, the adoption can often still proceed. Every situation is different, and this is exactly why an experienced Indiana adoption attorney matters. We cover this in detail in our other posts, and we will walk through your exact situation when you call.

Explore the Rest of This Guide

This pillar connects to focused posts on the topics women ask us about most: considering adoption after taking your baby home, when the promises of help fall through, how adoption works after birth, having a baby with no plan in place, Indiana’s Safe Haven Law, substance use during pregnancy, privacy, naming your baby, twins, whether adoption is temporary, telling your husband or partner, making a plan from jail or prison, choosing a family in another state, and why choosing adoption is not giving up.

We Are Here, Day or Night

Reaching out costs nothing and commits you to nothing. This is a judgment free zone. Whether you are pregnant, at the hospital, or home with a baby and out of options, call us.

Call or text us at 800-333-5736. Visit us at IndianaAdoption.com. Everything is free and confidential.

About the Author
Grant Kirsh is a second-generation adoption attorney and owner of Kirsh & Kirsh, P.C., a family law firm in Indianapolis, Indiana that has been serving Indiana families since 1981. Grant graduated from Indiana University McKinney School of Law in 2013 and has personally handled nearly 3,000 foster care adoptions and his law firm has handled over 5,000 private newborn adoptions. He practices all forms of domestic adoption, with a deep personal commitment to expectant mothers considering adoption in Indiana and Indiana’s foster care system and the families and children it serves.