Adoption After Infant Loss

Hey Melissa,I am so sorry to hear about the loss of your sweet daughter. I wish no one had to suffer the loss of a child. I have a somewhat similar experience to you. I have been able to successfully get pregnant 4 times, but have never been able to carry to term. I had a stillborn son at 5 months and I miscarried my daughter this past summer at 14 weeks. I also had 2 first trimester miscarriages. Each one was completely devastating to me and like you, my desire to parent surpassed my desire to be pregnant. There is absolutely nothing that can take away from the love I feel for the children I have lost. They will always be a part of my life and I miss them dearly.After my 4th miscarriage and being diagnosed with a very rare uterine abnormality that makes a full term pregnancy almost impossible, my husband and I began talking about adoption. We have always wanted to adopt, but I had mixed emotions about beginning the adoption process. A part of me felt like I was abandoning the children I had lost and I didn't want them to feel like I was forgetting about them. I knew I needed to grieve over my losses and come to terms with the fact that I will probably never have any living biological children. Well, a few months after the loss of our daughter, my husband and I submitted our application to adopt and as I sit here typing, my son, who we adopted 2 weeks ago, is sleeping next to me. It has been such a wonderful experience and I feel as if the losses that I have experienced have helped me to more fully cherish the gift of this little boy. It helped me to empathize with his birth mom because I know how painful it is to leave the hospital with empty arms and a broken heart. I feel that I can love more deeply because I now know how precious the miracle of life truly is. Your adoption journey won't be without challenges and it will bring up a lot of pain, but when they put my son in my arms, I didn't care that he and I don't share the same genetics. That didn't even cross my mind. All I knew was he was my son, I was his mom and we were now a family. He has helped heal my heart and I really hope you find healing as you start your adoption journey. <3

Hi Lauren,Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a thoughtful reply. I am so sorry for your losses, it's just so awful, isn't it? It is so encouraging to me to hear that you are parenting a living child now, after all you've been through, so thank you for writing. I had a spontaneous complete placental abruption which caused me to go into preterm labor very, very quickly without cause or warning and our daughter was born via emergency c-section. I am at a high risk for both reoccurring in a subsequent pregnancy (should there be one) which also helped us make the decision to move away from TTC and move forward with adoption - since we cannot conceive without medical intervention, there is just no way we're going to try that hard to get pregnant knowing full well how very dangerous and complicated that pregnancy would be for both the child as well as for me. If it were to happen naturally (...very unlikely...) that's one thing but throwing ourselves into the process of trying to conceive via infertility treatments just isn't the right path for us anymore.If I may ask, which adoption agency did you choose? Was it a national agency or local in-state? We are the gathering information stage and have set up a consultation with an in-state agency next month, which seems very promising. I am pleasantly surprised by the short wait you experienced, in comparison to most of the other estimates we've been given, which are closer to 1.5 to 2 yrs. What were the various challenges you faced with your adoption journey and what advice do you have for us, at this very beginning stage? What level of openness did you choose? Did you apply for any grants or do any fundraisers to help with the adoption costs? I apologize for all of the questions but I'm just encouraged to have made a "connection" and appreciate your willingness to share with me. Many congratulations on the adoption of your precious son, Lauren - thank you again for reaching out to me <3

Of course! I have always felt comfort in finding others who understand the devastation that comes with child loss. It's a sad club to be in, but I have met some of the most amazing people in support groups with other moms in similar situations. I am so sorry that you have had to suffer so much heartbreak. :( I had a premature rupture of membranes followed by a placental abruption as well with my first son, Hunter, two and a half years ago. It was so frustrating that after years of waiting, hoping, surgeries, medications, specialist after specialist, miscarriages, and bed rest that it could all still end so sadly. There was a part of me that had a hard time of letting go of the dream of having a successful pregnancy, but I reached a point where I knew that I couldn't' handle anymore. After that I realized that it didn't matter how my children came as long as they ended up in my family. So I'm very excited for you as you learn more about adoption! I went through adoptionlife.org and they have been amazing to work with . I think they are a national agency, but they happened to have an office in the town I live in. My husband and I literally walked in one day, walked out with an application, and started our home study that week. A few pieces of advice I would give are: Be gentle with yourself as you still grieve the loss of Evelyn. She loves you and wants you to be happy. You know in your heart that you will always love her and bringing more children into your family will not diminish your love for her. This was something I really struggled with when we were matched with our son's birth mom. I didn't want Hunter to feel like he was being "replaced" if that makes sense. And gather as much information as you can about different agencies, the services the offer and if they are a reputable agency. The agency plays a huge role and I feel like our adoption wouldn't have gone nearly as smoothly or quickly without their help. I loved that they provided us with support and they offer the birth mom lifetime counseling. I think one of the biggest challenges navigating through negative adoption taboos. Everyone has their opinions on what adoption should look like, but you have to decide what is right for you. There isn't a set way on how adoption should look. We have an open adoption with the birth mom and her family, but the birth dad didn't want to be involved at all. We did a few fundraisers to raise the money to adopt and that helped so much! We did an adoption auction and local businesses ended up donated goods and services when they heard about it. It was really incredible how much people wanted to help and the encouragement we received. Sorry I just wrote a mini novel! I'm an open book so please feel free to ask as many questions as you like! Keep me updated on how your consultation with the agency goes! I'm really excited for you! :)

Thank you for sharing with me, I feel like I'm always willing to share about my life, too, and it's refreshing to come upon another person also willing to to be so open! I have kind of a personal-ish question. Can you give me an idea of the fee schedule with Adoption Life? I actually sent an inquiry and they weren't able to mail me anything and asked if I could call but I'm just not "there" yet emotionally to actually sit on the phone and discuss the in's and out's of this process with an agency...hopefully, that'll change by next month for our consult! If you don't feel comfortable giving me a price range of what their fees are, that's okay too, I totally understand. Just thought I'd ask!Hmm other questions. Was the wait Adoption Life quoted you on par with what you ended up waiting for the placement of your son? I'm still so surprised that your process moved along so swiftly. Was that a bit unusual for your agency or what was expected? At what stage of pregnancy for the birth mom did you find out you were matched? ie how long did you have to wait for your placement after you were matched? When did you have a baby shower, and when did you start decorating the baby's room? I think the room decoration will be difficult for us, because it will entail taking down some of Evelyn's things to incorporate different things for her sibling and up until that point, it'll have been HER room, you know? Was transitioning the room that had been intended for your biological children difficult? And as for the open adoption: do you see your son's biological parents or is is mostly letter/email and photo communication? Were you present for your son's birth? See, so many questions, I'm sorry!

As I recall, there was an initial payment to secure their services, a payment once matching occurred, and then our final payment was given right before placement. It was approximately $15,000 for their services and then an additional $3,000 for birth parent expenses. I think it good to wait until you are "there" before getting the ball rolling. It takes time to emotionally prepare and that 100% OK!Something I loved about working with Adoption Life is their transparency. They would call us and say something like, "hey, we have been contacted by a birth mother expecting twins. I know you said you were open to multiples, but just to let you know there will be above average birth parent expenses. It will be and additional $10,000 or so plus the cost to travel and such." They did this several times where they would call about a particular situation and give us as many details as they were allowed to give including what the birth parent expenses were estimated to be. They knew we couldn't afford to pay an extra $10,000 but they would still let us know. The adoption expenses quoted to us ended up being more than we were actually quoted because we had an in state adoption and so we didn't have to pay for out of state legal fees. It was a nice surprise.We were matched very quickly, but the birth mom was only 20 weeks along in the pregnancy so we did have an unusually long matching period. I actually really liked it because it gave us time to prepare and we had the opportunity to get to know our son's birth mom. I started decorating the nursery before we were even matched and it was very difficult. Sometimes I would just close the door and walk away. It might seem silly, but something that helped was repainting and I gave a lot of my baby things to a teenage mom I knew that didn't have much for her son. It helped me to know that my first son's things went to another little boy who needed them. I kept a few items for a memory box, but I needed a fresh start so I repainted the crib and changed things around. I have a teddy bear with a recording of my son Hunter's heartbeat so that one day Keegan can play with it and hear about his big brother. I also got four little bird cut outs for the wall, each representing a child we lost. I love the idea of incorporating my angel babies into Keegan's life. Our contact with Keegan's birth mom is mostly text messages, photos and videos because she moved to another state. While she was pregnant, we went to some appointments though and got together frequently. We were going to be there for his birth, but she ended up needing an emergency c-section so they had to take her to the operating room. Seriously, ask anything you want! :)