Dealing with a Long Wait When Adopting - Weekend Wisdom

Question: How can prospective parents manage their thoughts and emotions while waiting to be matched with a child (especially in cases where the waiting period is a long one)?

Resources:

• Suggested Books for Adoption
• Coping Mechanisms for the Waiting (Article)
• Creating a Family Online Support Group

Transcript

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.

Welcome everyone to Weekend Wisdom. This is our opportunity to answer your questions.
It's put on by the non -profit creatingafamily .org. You can send us questions to
answer to info @creatingafamily .org. So please send us your questions because we've
gotten some great ones and we want to answer your specific questions. All right,
so today the question is from Tina, and it's all about how to deal with a long
wait and adoption. So she asks, "How can prospective parents manage their thoughts
and emotions while waiting to be matched with a child, especially in the case where
the waiting period is a long one?" All right, well, Tina does not say whether she's
talking about domestic infant adoption or adopting from foster care or international,
And in some ways, it really doesn't matter. So we're just going to answer the
question, kind of assuming all three. First of all, Tina, I just want to say, I
feel for you. I truly, I truly do. You know, this waiting time is like living in
limbo. That's especially the case if it's your first child, but even if it's
subsequent kids, it's still a time where you are, as my grandmother would say,
neither fish nor a fowl. In many ways, you are expecting, but there are no visible
signs that you are expecting, and they're facing one of the biggest life events
without all the usual supports, because a lot of people won't even know that you
are expecting a child. And then we throw in the whole idea of the unknown time
period. For a lot of things that are big events, we know they're coming. We prep
for them. We know there's an end time. There's a find in time. So, you know, I
always take the assumption that I could do with anything for X period of time. But
in this case, you don't really know what that X period of time is. Plus, even
after you get a match, you don't really know, especially with domestic infant,
because it is not unusual at all for expected moms to change their mind and decide
to parent. So even then, you don't have a firm confirmed end date. So now after
I've depressed you with all the things you probably already know, I was really
trying just to give you validation for it is it's not in your imagination. You're
not being a wimp. It is a hard thing to go through. So now to your real question,
how do you cope? One of the first things you need to do is find your people, find
a group that who can support you and don't expect that they're going to understand
what you're going through. So you're going to have to educate them. There are still
plenty of people who believe you just, if you're going to adopt, you just go to
the baby store, so to speak, and there is a baby waiting for you. You pick the
baby and then you come home. As you well know, there is nothing further from the
truth. That is not how it works now. So you can't expect for whoever your support
system is going to be, whether it's your family or your friends or some combination
of both. You need to explain how the process works, why you're doing it and then
specifically say it's going to be a wait I don't know how long and I'm going to
need your support and then tell them for most people this especially if it's a long
wait this waiting period is a time where it's kind of a mix between where it's all
you want to talk about and it's the last thing you want to talk about you're
Sometimes seeking people who will talk with you about this and share your excitement
or anxiety and everything else. And other times what you're really looking for is a
distraction. And you need to let your support system know and you get to choose.
You get to choose and you'll let them know when you want to talk and when you
want to be distracted. And honor the full breadth of both of those emotions. There
is nothing wrong with either of those things. And quite frankly, both are healthy at
times. Another thing that people like to do during the wait that they find helpful
is to plan monthly or quarterly fun things that you're really looking forward to
doing it. Maybe it's a vacation, maybe it's a concert or something that you're
really looking forward to. So when that with month passes or three months pass and
you don't have a child, you could still say, "Well, at least I get to go on this
vacation," or, "Yeah, at least I get to go to this concert," or whatever it is
that you have to really be looking forward to, and yes,
you still might rather have had the child or the baby, but you still have this, at
least this, to look forward to. Another thing to do is take advantage of this time
to do things that you're not going to be able to do, or you won't be able to do
easily once the baby or the child comes. You know, take tar lessons,
take vacations. I mentioned that before. Throw a big party, schedule monthly outings
with your friends, or your family, or whatever. Those are all things that will help
you with the passing of the time. And these are also things that, honestly, you
could do once a child comes, but it gets more complicated. So take advantage of the
time to indulge yourself in all those activities. Another thing to do during this
time is volunteer. That helps you get out of yourself and it's so easy to get
overly focused on yourself during this time and what you're looking forward to and
what you're wishing for. It really helps to get out of yourself and focus on
somebody else and volunteering will be harder once a baby or a child comes. So
consider volunteering. You could consider volunteering with something that works with
kids or you may just want to avoid kids altogether and choose some other activity,
an environmental group or whatever. Another thing to do during this time is think of
some things that you would like to know or have knowledge of once the baby arrives
and then take advantage of this time to learn about it. You've probably had to take
a baby CPR course, but you could get a refresher. Something that I loved to do was
sing to my kids. I have a lousy voice, but my kids are the only ones who
appreciate it. But I used the time while I was waiting to learn lullabies that I
could sing to my kids and I do my babies after they got old enough. Actually, my
kids let me sing to them for a surprisingly long period of time and never judged
me. Well, when they got older, they did, but for the most part, when they were
younger, they never judged me. If you are crafty, you may want to make baby clothes
or baby blankets. You may want to research some of the best of the adoption books.
A plug here, Creating a Family has a suggested book list based on the type of
adoption and age of the child, creating a family .org, hover over adoption.
There's a suggested, click on suggested books. And start slowly adding these books to
your library. You may want to research what type of bottling system, a baby bottle
system you're going to use. Yes, believe it or not, there are systems out there.
And you can learn that whether you want to use cloth diapers or disposable diapers,
stuff like that. Take advantage and just go ahead and start immersing yourself. That
would include, of course, decorating the nursery. However, for all the things I just
mentioned, there is one huge caution, and that is you've got to really know yourself
and you've got to pace yourself, because especially, I think, in terms of the
nursery, it would just kill me to have to walk by a completely decorated nursery.
It would just add to my pain. For other doesn't, they don't feel that way.
They look by and they see hope and the potential joy. Other people are able just
to close the door and ignore it. And the same with making baby clothes in blankets
and even doing the research. That may make it easier for you or it may make it
harder for you. So you just have to know yourself and wait in cautiously and stop
if you see that it's just adding additional pressure to your life. And the last
thing I want to say is nurture your relationship if you're partnered or nurture your
friendship relationships if you're not or even if you are partnered, both of those.
You know, once kids come, it's easy to not focus on our primary relationship and
our primary relationship should be the relationship with our partner if we have one.
And if we don't have one, our friends are our support system and we need them and
we need to nurture them. So utilize this time to go out of your way, to spend
time with, do kind things for, think of, be helpful for, do any other way you can
think of to nurture these important relationships in your life. All right Tina,
I wish you the absolute best of luck and please let us know when you get a child
or a baby. We would love to be your cheering section. And in the interim, we can
be your support section. You can join our support group. It's on Facebook, facebook
.com /groups /creatingafamily. Thanks a lot for your question.
It was a fun one. And before everybody leaves, let me remind you that in addition
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podcast. Thanks a lot. Bye.