Assistance, Information, Support for Adoption

Please note, this page is no longer being maintained and may contain old or inaccurate information. Visit the home page or select a category in the navigation for more up-to-date information.

Dealing With Adoption Detours
by Joanne Green
Reprinted from AdoptNet
Adoption is a wonderful, magical time of making permanent changes in one's family. It is all about making additions. But sometimes the magic disappears. On occasion the pure delight of adoption takes an unexpected detour, and the family experiences the pain and grief of deep loss. It does not happen to everyone, but occasionally it does happen. Once in a while, an adoption does not work out as planned.

First, it is important to know that there is no such thing as a totally "risk-free" adoption, just as there is no such thing as a totally risk-free pregnancy. While it is true that any adoption could fall through in some way, some plans are riskier than others.

My own experience is not a common one. It is uncommon in that my husband and I have experienced more frustration and heartbreak than any other family we've known. No one experience, though, is unique to us. The end of our story is a happy one. We have two beautiful sons by adoption, Jacob and Joey.

When my husband and I first married, we knew that we would not be producing children in the conventional, biological way. Right away we began to research the possibility of adoption. We never would have guessed that it would take a full sixteen years before our dream would be realized.

At first, we were frustrated, trying to find an agency that would work with us. For one reason or another, either we did not qualify for that program, or the waiting list was incredible, or what have you. Once we found a program that we could work with, we ran into unbelievable bad luck. Three times in a row, our adoption plan was destroyed as a result of changing world politics.

We entered, then, into a fost- adopt plan, and welcomed home a precious four-year-old girl. For two and a half years the court was undecided about what was to happen to her. When the decision was finally made, it was decided that my daughter would be reunited with her birth mother.

In the few years that followed, we found it difficult to trust agencies, so we attempted to locate a birth mother who wished to make an adoption plan for her child. What followed was an incredible roller- coaster ride of elation, hope and depression. Several times we were involved in an adoption plan that fell through before the birth of the child.

We decided to try an agency again and began a homestudy with our county. A year later our county denied our application to adopt, and did not give us a reason. We started again with a new agency. Mid-way through the home study process, we heard about a birth mother from an old resume letter that we had sent out earlier. To our surprise, the birth mother delivered, and we took our daughter home. Our py was dashed when the birth mother chose to reclaim the child.

After losing our infant daughter, we accepted the referral of a baby boy from Korea. At first this new child was a focus of the grief we were feeling, but soon we were really bonding to this child and were anxiously anticipating his arrival. We lost him too. The referral fell through when the birth mother decided to reclaim him from the Korean agency.

Two weeks later, we accepted the referral of another baby boy from Korea. After seventy-two days, Jacob came home. Eight months after that, the greatest miracle of my life was realized. My son's adoption was finalized. Our pattern of horrible pain was broken.

A year later, Joey arrived home, and we have since had our day in court with him as well. We feel like the luckiest people in the world.

I have to believe our experiences can help others. Some observations born of our painful experience may help other families who have also suffered from loss in the adoption process.

My first observation is that adoption pain is something we are not ever prepared for. In a sense, we don't know how to grieve our loss. Words meant to comfort can be cruel. In my pain people told me that it was "God's will", it was "better for her to be with her 'real' mother," and, "At least she wasn't my 'real' child." Imagine the pain of realizing that such comments were meant as a comfort.

I found it easier to handle the grieving process by finding parallels to experiences we already understand to some extent.

Having problems finding an adoption plan, for instance, is a lot like dealing with the issue of infertility. Your hopes escalate with every new plan, but then it just doesn't happen. Each disappointment is a loss, and each time you start again at square one, you build your hopes again. Then, again, they are dashed.

The loss of an adoption plan that was in process, prior to the arrival of the child, is like a miscarriage of a desperately-wanted child. When an adoption referral falls through, you have to grieve the loss of the anticipated child. The name you picked out has no child to attach to. The baby clothes you lovingly purchased go back into a box and the crib comes down. There is no baby after all. you have to explain it to friends and family. You feel empty and cheated.

When your child is taken from your anns, it is like a death. She was yours. You held your child, you sang to her, you played with her, and now she's gone. you had to allow another person to come into your home and take your child away. you ache for her. Every parental instinct tells you that it is not right, and yet the law tells you that it is. And then after she is gone, you have the painful task of slowly erasing her presence from your home. One day you find sleepers, still in the laundry. Her formula is in the cupboard. Her toys are here and there around the house, and you keep finding them. The list goes on and on, and each time you die inside. The most difficult thing I had to do when my infant daughter was taken away was to pick up the pictures at the photo lab that we had taken before she was reclaimed. She was a real part of our home, and we lost her.

An adoptive parent's grief is increased because there is very often no real sense of closure. After all, the child really is still alive, and where there is life, there is hope. I often find myself wondering where my daughters are and what they look like now. I held out hope for years that I would be see my older daughter again someday, but that hope was never realized. We finally had to "close the door" on that area of our lives so we could move on.

My advice is this: If you are a family that ever experiences grief in the adoption process, first allow yourself to grieve. You need that. Then move on in a forward direction. Don't give up. The system works. I always told myself and my husband that if we gave up, we would have a 100% chance of failure. We persevered, and today we have two beautiful children.

If you know a family who has suffered some sort of loss in the adoption process, don't avoid them, and don't try to say something philosophical to comfort them. Realize that your friends have suffered a significant loss. The most comforting thing you can say to them is, "I'm so sorry." There are no other words that would add comfort or take away pain.

Adoption really is a beautiful process. But even a beautiful rose may have its occasional thorns. The thorns of adoption disruption prick deeply; but for the family that perseveres, the eventual beauty is even deeper.

Want to adopt? Pregnant?
click here