As an adoptee, I've learned that silence in adoption can leave lasting wounds that never fully heal. Too often, birth families disappear for years after placement, and when that happens, adoptees and adoptive families are left to pick up the pieces, wondering why contact stopped and whether they did something wrong. It's not just the absence of letters, phone calls, or updates; it's the absence of EFFORT, the absence of presence, and the absence of acknowledgment. Too often, birth families disappear for years after placement, slipping into silence while the adoptee grows up in the fallout of unanswered questions. The quiet becomes louder with age. What starts as confusion turns into sadness, then into resignation, then into a kind of emotional scar that follows you into adulthood. That silence creates a lifetime of wondering, grieving a relationship that never had the chance to exist, and carrying the weight of questions that no one ever stepped up to answer. Birth families often fail to follow through with promised contact, updates, or communication, even though sending a letter or message takes extremely little effort. Growing up with no communication leaves you constantly wondering, questioning, and trying to make sense of why there was no effort to stay connected. For me, years of complete silence and no communication, a little photo book from early 2000s from my birth mother, to preschool well into adulthood created a long-lasting sense of loss, confusion, and emotional distance that no adoptee should have to navigate alone from a biological family being absent. That silence becomes its own kind of wound and is an EXCUSE people give for disappearing, while the adoptee is left to carry the confusion and pain it creates. While I realize open adoption is not legally binding in the state of Texas, consistency matters. When birth families go silent for years or decades, the emotional consequences fall entirely on the adoptee who never asked to be placed in that position. It isn't fair to expect an adoptee to carry the emotional responsibility of fixing relationships that were never maintained. We don't owe our biological families contact, closure, or forgiveness. Adoption agencies often put this pressure on adoptive families to send updates when staying connected is a SHARED effort, and when one side walks away for decades, it's not the adoptee's burden to make that right again, so when your lazy birth mothers randomly wake up one day choosing to reunify with the birth children they never kept contact with, they fail miserably. This is the part adoption agencies rarely talk about. Agencies talk about love, hope, placement, and new beginnings, and those things can be beautiful. But they don't talk enough about: * what happens when birth relatives disappear * what open adoption promises go unfulfilled * how adoptees internalize the silence * how confusing reunions can be * how heavy it is to carry decades of unanswered questions * how complicated it is to rebuild trust * how harmful inconsistent communication truly is in the adoption community. Agencies and adoption agencies like Gladney give themselves a round of applause for doing absolutely nothing about this regarding birth families going MIA. They should better prepare both birth and adoptive families for that possibility, so the adoptee doesn't grow up feeling forgotten or responsible for everyone else's choices. And let me be absolutely clear: adoptees do not owe their biological families anything. Not a Christmas card, not a Mother's Day message, not acknowledgment of holidays or milestones because those things are earned through actually showing up. Adoptees deserve to have their boundaries respected and their voices heard. Reconnection, if it ever happens, should come from a place of mutual respect and emotional safety, not guilt or obligation. Adoption is lifelong, and adoptees should always have the right to decide what relationships feel healthy for them. read more

As formal emplyee working with the Gladeny Home for 1 year and 6 months the work environment was chaallenging due to inconsiste communication, lake of support from leadership team, and unclear expections. Staff were often expected to manage high workloads within adequte resources or guidance. Concerns raised by employees were frquently dismissed or not addressed, which contributed to low morale and burnout. While the organization's mission has potential, significant improvements in management practices, staff support, and accountability are needed to create a healthy and sustainable workplace. This workplace had a stressful and unsupportive environment. Expectation frequently changed without notice, and staff were often held accountable without proper training or clear direction. Communication from management felt reactive rather than proactive, and there was little follow-through when issues were reported. Over time, this created a culture of fear anf high turnover. I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND THIS WORKPLACE TO someone seeking stability or strong leadership team. read more

We were surprised and disappointed to learn that Gladney is currently too overwhelmed to assist families looking to adopt--even to the point of not maintaining a waiting list. It's disheartening, especially considering how many children in Texas are still waiting for loving homes. It feels strange, even concerning, that an established organization like Gladney doesn't have the resources available to begin guiding prospective adoptive families through the process. read more

Gladney and AdoptEd provide excellent educational materials. I've used their materials in my high school child development classes to explain the benefits of adoption. My hope is that someday a student may be able to utilize the knowledge they gained from Gladney to make the best decision for their life! read more

Birthmothers - Please read the reviews of Gladney here and everywhere. Please do ANYTHING to keep your child. Do not let a temporary situation (perhaps lack of resources or support) turn into a long-term, permanent solution (losing your child and your child being separated and raised by someone other than their mother). Please read the academic research about the trauma suffered by the majority of birthmothers after placing their children and the long-term effects of adoption on children. I am a Gladney baby (1968) and a Gladney birthmother (1986). Gladney does not care in any way, shape or form about you as an adoptee or a birthmother. Their interest lies only with the adoptive parent$$, who are their revenue source. They will lie to you about everything - every aspect of information regarding birth parents, your birth child and please note that "open adoptions" can not be enforced and can be closed at any time. I am a reunited adoptee and reunited birthmother - with NO THANKS to Gladney. They lied to me and my adoptive parents about my birthparent and they told me ANOTHER MAN was my birthson, leading to me being in reunion with the WRONG PERSON for 14 years. A DNA test revealed it was someone else. Despite having written letters to him his whole life, sent gifts (which were returned by Gladney) and SIGNED THE REUNION REGISTRY, they told my real birth son that "his parents were not interested in meeting him, ESPECIALLY THE MOTHER" when he came to look for me! He left heartbroken. At that time, I had been in reunion with the WRONG man for almost four years, thanks to Gladney. They are GARBAGE to be avoided at all costs. Please PLEASE keep your children. read more

We started the adoption process with Gladney nearly 5 years ago. We could not be happier with the care and compassion from everyone involved: from out initial call about orientation to continued post placement follow-ups. It is nice to have them as a constant resource as we sometimes need help navigating the complexities of open adoption. The agency in general is very open to lost of different life circumstances and has always made us feel welcome. If we choose to adopt again, it will definitely be through Gladney. Cannot recommend using their services enough! read more

Could not be happier with our experience! We initially met our counselor in our orientation and knew we wanted her throughout the entire process. We went through a couple negative responses early on and our counselor was supportive throughout. When we finally matched, our counselor shared all the excitement and joy with us. All the home studies and follow up visits were a piece of cake. We had a unique placement experience as our birth mom didn't want transitional care, so we took our daughter the day she came home from the hospital and had to wait 30 days by chance the birth father signed the registry. Although it was stressful, our counselor was there the entire time. Nothing at all negative to say about Gladney. If you are thinking about adoption, definitely keep them at the top of your list! read more

We have been tremendously pleased with Gladney. We adopted an infant in 2018. Gladney was transparent with terrific communication and expectations. We felt at home once we toured the facility. We appreciate that they take care of Birthmothers and support them. The Gladney family association activities are another reason why we chose Gladney. Thanks again for all that you do. read more

My mother-in-law had a baby in the late 50s and they gave my mother-in-law's information on this closed adoption to the wife of her baby, who was digging for information. I actually saw the documents that were sent to them and even though they blacked out part of it you could see exactly who it was from our entire family this was supposed to be a closed adoption. read more

Gladney has a wonderful staff that worked with me to have the most amazing adoption experience.

Our journey started back in 2013 where we went for fertility testing. Once we made the attempts to pursue adoption in 2015, we were faced with some tough push back from other local agencies. Gladney was the first to welcome all of our questions and the only one that took the proactive steps to reach out to us for simple inquiries. The entire process starts with their monthly information sessions where you'll receive an opportunity to apply with their organization at the end. It's an all day session and you'll meet successful families and birth mothers who have already been matched to see how the process worked for them. You'll also find out about Gladney's process and what the timetable is like on going from start to finish. And you'll see how they market families to birth mothers (primarily through the internet and with a profile book they require you have made) and how they attract birth mothers to their program. There's no pressure to apply and you have 30 days to do it if you don't want to do it that day. There is a fee to apply, but it is deducted from your total cost once you're approved to adopt with them. Once you apply you're placed with a counselor who handles pre-approval couples in large batches. Most of their duties are in helping you meet your goals and stick to deadlines in order to make the adoption happen on a reasonable schedule. Once you get the paperwork done, they arrange for home inspections with your state agency (or if in Texas it may be done with a Gladney counselor). After your approval, Gladney is willing to act as your broker to pair you with birth mothers, but you have to give them a profile book at a minimum. You'll be placed with a different counselor who will be with you from this point forward until your placement is finalized (6 months post adoption basically) Once you have the profile book with Gladney you get shown to birth mothers and it's a waiting game. Once matched you'll meet the mother with Gladney there to assist both you and the birth mother to meet each other. And from there, it's up to you to decide how much communication you want with the birth mother beforehand. Once the child has been born (depending on the state) Gladney is legally required to make you wait until the mother signs over her rights before allowing you to take placement of the child. Our experience (in brief): Once we applied in September 2015, we were approved in December 2015. We submitted our profile book in March 2016 and we were paired with a birth mother in June 2016. We took our daughter home in August 2016 from Oklahoma. She is now six months old as of the time of this review. We were EXTREMELY lucky and fortunate to be matched and paired with our very first birth mother we were submitted to in our process. YMMV as it depends on the birth mother's situation, her opinion of you, her choice to keep the baby or not and a whole bunch of other variables. The only promise Gladney made to us was that if we were approved for adoption, we would be matched up with someone and we would be parents. Our birth mother was in a tough situation and we were very lucky to have met such a brave woman willing to do what she did for us. She could have picked anyone, but she picked us to raise her daughter. My takeaway: If you're considering domestic adoption, you really shorten your waiting time by being open on race. It's not required but you're going on a much longer list that takes longer to fulfill. Once you take possession of the child, you'll find that there's absolutely no difference between your adopted child and a naturally born child. They need us, love us and trust us all the same. Cost is revealed in the informational meeting, it's comparable with what we were told by other agencies. Gladney does not offer any financing, but if you're considering adoption, you'll find someplace to get the money. read more

Gladney made an overwhelming process seem manageable and they took care of everything! We picked Gladney after reviewing and talking to multiple agencies. We live in Oregon and so picking an out of state agency felt like a risk but the second we stepped foot on campus for orientation, we knew we made the right choice. They were organized, professional, understanding of families situations, full of knowledge about the process, full of experts to help us through the process, and most importantly... transparent about costs, about timing, about what a roller coaster adoption can be. Orientation talked about financial aspects (costs, assistance, timing), had a birth mother panel, and a family who had recently adopted and I loved that they talked realistically about expectations and had birth moms on the panel who had a range of feelings about their experiences. We felt prepared and aware of what the process could look like, they minimized the unknowns and answered all questions we had (and there were a lot!). If you're reading this, I urge you to take the step of just reaching out to them... and if you want to know more about our process, ask Gladney for our email (Liz and Pat) and I'll gladly share more of the process with you! read more

It is hard for me to write this review because I truly do not enjoy saying negative things about people/companies. However, our experience was less than excellent and (without exaggerating) almost cost us our relationship with our child's birth mother. I just wouldn't want anyone else to have our experience. Here are the areas where Gladney did not provide excellent or even average service: 1. They did not provide accurate information of what was needed for paperwork, classes, doctor info etc. 2. They was consistent miscommunication around finances. 3. Our case worker did not show up to the hospital when we were there for 48 hours. Our birth moms did for only a few minutes and was not helpful. 4. Our birth mom was passed to 4 case workers in less than a year. She did not feel cared for. She also was told by a director that, "she would never have a good relationship with us (the AP)". Thankfully we do have a good relationship with her & she has been honest about her hurts with Gladney so that we can move forward. A few times post adoption she was so hurt by them that she told us if she had to continue working with them she would rather have a closed adoption. We are so thankful we had a relationship with her, and that did not happen. We are a big proponent of birth mom care and have not seen that Gladney has followed through on what we were understanding they offer. 5. We were under the impression that part of our payment was for lifetime counseling for the birth mother. It was actually only 6 sessions. 6. The case workers wouldn't drive to Dallas to meet with us, but instead informed us & the birth mom that they could only meet with him us in Forth Worth & during normal business hours. This did not meet our expectations of what their service & care would look like. We have addressed our concerns with those in the organization we worked with & hope that they are able to improve their care for all parties so that others may have a better experience. read more

I really have to wonder about this facility. First of all, it looks like a fancy museum. I am wondering where they get that much funding to keep the lights on in that huge building. Secondly, they are not forth coming with every step that must be carried out. Thirdly, to proceed you must attend a training session. This session is offered on a quarterly basis. You can not proceed with out this training, and it is at inconvenient times. I had an uneasy feeling about this organization because of several red flags in this process. When I started asking questions, the worker's attitudes changed. Eventually, I went to the manager and reported all my concerns. I found that my concerns were not welcomed. For the next few months, I was black balled by the workers until I closed my account. When I think about this organization, nothing but painful memories comes to mind. Please, think carefully before choosing this organization for your adoption needs. read more

Please do not be fooled. Do your research and pay attention to all the negative reviews you find online.

This place has truly made us feel like family. They are upfront about the adoption process and provide with loads of training. They have been in business over 125 years and made a movie about the founder Edna Gladney. read more

My husband was adopted through Gladney over 30 yrs ago and heard nothing but great things from my in-laws. We also had a great experience 4 yrs ago. Everyone we worked with was patient and understanding through it all. We were also willing to drop everything we were doing to attending anything that was asked of us. read more

I want to be as respectful as possible although this agency did not give me that courtesy. At the beginning of my pregnancy I was planning adoption and I chose to go through Gladney. I decided to move into the dorms and at first it was great. I felt like gladney was the right choice and then after a few weeks of being there I was shocked to find that that was not how things would continue. I was appalled when the staff continuously gave me attitude when I would ask about something or when I would try to explain something. And I was treated as though I was not an equal and was talked down to. Also of course when living in the dorms with a bunch of pregnant women conflict is to be expected but when something happens and you tell the supervisor about it she tells you she'll deal with it and she doesn't do anything about it so if you have an issue with someone just know those issues will not be solved because gladney does nothing about it to help you or that other person resolve the issue. They pick favorites in the dorms as well so it's never fun when you see another female getting something you may need help with as well and gladney comes up with all the reasons in the world as to why they can't provide that for you but they can for that person. I am so happy I decided to place with a different agency because I would have regretted my decision for the rest of my life had I gone through gladney. To anyone who reads this before picking gladney please check out other adoption agencies and do your research because I promise you gladney should not be an adoption agency. I ended up going through life long adoptions and I'm not trying to advertise them I'm just letting you know any adoption agency is better than gladney.(this isn't even the whole story between me ms gladney but I'm not about to get into all of that just know they should be ashamed) read more

We were very fortunate to have found Gladney Center for Adoption to work with. We had spoken with many agencies, and nothing was as warm, friendly, and helpful as Gladney. God just led us to this agency. Everyone was an absolute pleasure to work with, from the initial orientation to placement. They were there to help us and navigate us through the entire process with ease, even when things did not go directly as we thought they would. Our match to placement took right around 20 months. Our Caseworkers always validated our feelings, were very supportive, and absolutely went above-and-beyond during our time of placement. We could never write enough heart-felt words or thank them enough for all that they did for us. This was a journey and they were with us through it, like close friends. We could never recommend this agency enough and have already done so for others. We would ABSOLUTELY use them again. They led us to and helped us attain our dream--starting a family. read more

So grateful to see this center right next to a Planned Parenthood. I hope to learn more about Gladney and support the work of adoption in my city. read more

The people at Gladney are amazing. We struggled with infertility for many years and were terrified that we wouldn't be "good enough" or rich enough to adopt. After so much bad news, we really needed someone to give us hope. Gladney did just that. They never lied to us, were always honest about how long and sometimes hard the journey might be. But for the first time someone said to us, "WHEN you have your baby..." instead of "IF you ever have a baby..." Such a powerful thing that one little word. Gladney's staff from the initial paperwork help to the day we brought our beautiful son home 19 months later was caring, efficient, responsive, and honest. We are particularly thankful for Melissa and Amy, the caseworkers for us and our son's birthmother. We truly believe that without both of them working so hard together we would not have achieved our goal. We will forever be grateful for Gladney's help in helping us get to our miracle! read more

I am a birth mother and a professional working in adoption. From my experience it does not seem that Gladney works in the best interest of the child. It is most definitely about the serving the adoptive parents. They do not seem to encourage open adoption, nor do they appear to encourage their adoptive families to explore open adoptions and the benefits it can bring to all triads of the adoption. My daughter's adoptive parents are nice people and mean well. But because I was uncertain of how I would personally feel about having more openness in my own adoption, I chose semi open (letters and photos that come minimally twice a year). After going through the grief and getting to a very great place in my life, I have brought up the opportunity to have an open adoption with her adoptive parents and it has been met with a lot of insecurities around their feelings. I later learned that her adoptive parents came into the domestic program only wanting a semi open adoption which then led me to believe that Gladney is about money and services catered to adoptive parents and not children or birth parents. I now am a huge advocate for domestic adoption and open adoption and hope to change the negative perspective that individuals still have around open adoption. I also support and encourage birth parents to think about how their feelings might change surrounding openness later on down the road, so they are not left with the "well you said you wanted this so you have to deal and accept it". read more