When I was pregnant, I tried to find anything to give me some sort of hope about what I was feeling through the process of choosing adoption. I didn’t find it. I wish I had known about Adoption.com when I was pregnant! I am grateful that prospective birth moms now have the opportunity to read other birth moms’ stories and experiences so that they don’t feel so alone. Here are some articles from 2015 that I would have enjoyed 3 years ago:
Birth Mom Shares Her Message of Hope With Other Birth Moms. “Hold on, Spring will come.” Even though I had a hard time with my decision to place my daughter for adoption during my pregnancy, my hardest time was post-placement. I missed my birth daughter so much. I felt like I was crying all day, every day. I felt like I was never going to stop crying. I suffered from postpartum depression. I was so depressed that there were a couple times that I wanted to stop living. I prayed and spoke to my good friends, and that helped me. I love the positive message of this video: It’s hard, but it won’t always be so hard.
4 Ways Adoption Has Changed My Heart. Even 2 1/2 years after placing my daughter for adoption, I still have questions and wonder about many of the things in this article. I wondered for a while if my daughter would ever give me a kiss or a hug, and she has. (She has voluntarily given me both on different occasions, and when each happened, my heart was a puddle.) I wonder how she will feel that I placed her for adoption: Will she understand? Love me? Hate me? I wonder what she will call me. Will she consider me a friend or her birth mom? Will she want contact or will she not want anything to do with me. I try to be hopeful, but the fear of the unknown can be scary. Even though I can’t know what the future will hold, I am grateful for how this journey has changed me and my perspective on my life. I am always changing and trying to be better for her.
Uplifting Words from One Birth Momma to Another. This article is by far my most favorite of all the articles I have read. One of the most important emotions for a birth mom to have while going through an adoption is hope. You need to be able to hope for the best, see the forest through the trees. If you can’t do that at least once in a while, then you won’t ever be able to probably grief and move forward with your life as you should.
Letter to a Birth Mom, From a Birth Mom. This article reminds me of an experience I had on a birth mom support group Facebook page. I thought this support group was to be about helping each other grieve, but it was quite the opposite. These women seemed to relish their years of pain. So when I came in and said how much I loved my adoptive family and how this adoption had been an awful and wonderful experience for me, they didn’t like that one bit. Many of these women, I could tell, were very bitter after 30+ years of being a birth mom. They had no appreciation for anything or anyone. One woman in particular was a birth mom and an adoptive mom and she showed no love whatsoever toward her child’s birth mom. She was angry and bitter and expressed to me that I had no idea what adoption was and that soon my adoptive family would change their minds and take away my relationship. These women had allowed their difficult experiences to make them bitter and angry. I was sad that they couldn’t see the good in adoption.
5 Ways I Push Through Hard Days in My Adoption. For my adoption experience, when I would change my mind during my pregnancy, I would remind myself of what this baby needed. Did she need clothes, a bed, toys, food, medical care, and financial and emotional support? Yes, she did. What could I give? I was only able to give emotional support, and sadly, no one can survive solely on emotional support. I would also look around my room: Did I have room for my things and everything she would need? No, I didn’t. Those reality reminders helped me realize that I was making the best choice possible. Supportive friends and family are also very important to your emotional well-being as you embark on this adoption journey.
