Our Services

Helping you to decide ...

We want you to take your pregnancy seriously. Diakon Pregnancy Services will therefore work with you to help you:

  • Plan the best course of action for you and your child
  • Deal with the wide range of emotions you may experience
  • Feel comfortable with your decision, whatever it is

We will meet with you and speak in total confidence at your home, our office or any other location convenient for you. We can even help you with the sometimes-difficult task of relating news of the pregnancy to the father of the child or to other family members.

The goal of our options counseling is to help you make an informed decision. In these discussions, we cover such topics as:

  • Resources for single parenting
  • The life skills you may need
  • Adoption

And our commitment is long-term. We maintain contact with the birth mother throughout the pregnancy—and even beyond that, depending on the option chosen.

Plus, there is no fee for our service.

Reviewing options

We explore all options with you, with no pressure to decide on a particular plan. Speaking with someone who really understands, beyond family members or friends, can be especially helpful when making such a lifelong decision.

If, for example, you decide to parent your child, our staff members will meet with you to assist you in finding community resources. We will work with you to make sure you are ready to be a parent, assisting you as well with parenting skills and related concerns or issues.

However, should you decide on adoption, we will help with that process as well, focusing on you, the baby, and the prospective adoptive parents. Knowing how difficult this time can be, our caring staff members will meet with you throughout your pregnancy and then continue to offer support and guidance for at least a year after the baby is born.  We encourage the birth father to be involved in the process as well and can provide counseling and support to him and meet with him separately, if necessary.

Services to birth parents

In the case of adoption, Diakon Pregnancy Services:

  • Assists the birth mother with insurance and legal issues throughout the hospital and adoption experience
  • Helps birth parents choose an adoptive family
  • Facilitates the adoptive placement and coordinates all placement activities
  • Promotes discussion of varied levels of openness based on birth- and adoptive-parent desires; maintains birth parents’ confidentiality to extent requested
  • Coordinates exchange of correspondence between birth and adoptive families
  • Continues to provide emotional support to birth parents, particularly in the first year after active service

If you choose adoption, Diakon maintains a list of approved resource families waiting to adopt a newborn. Each family has received extensive state-approved training and our experienced adoption specialists work with every couple interested in adoption to make sure they will provide a loving and stable home for the child.

Please note that under Pennsylvania law, the father has the same rights as the mother. Therefore, if you consider a voluntary plan of adoption, the father must be in agreement. If you do not feel comfortable discussing this topic with him, Diakon staff can assist you by reaching out to him.

In addition, while the adoption is confidential, we also work to make many aspects of the process as open as possible.  Contacts between you and the child may be arranged as he or she grows older, depending on circumstances and agreement by everyone involved in the adoption.

For more information

If you are interested in receiving our services or need more information, please complete our Contact Us form.

You also can text the word SERVICES to 444999 to receive an immediate response.

For additional information, you may wish to download our brochure.