Questions to Ask a Birthmom

Over our years of adoption learning and doing we have been actively involved with several birthmoms. Even the ones that were always planning to not go through with the adoption (they needed us to take care of them while they searched for a way to make their own lives better and to get even more money, bless their hearts!) enjoyed hearing about the "new" things we were hearing and learning about pregnancy and new babies. We were always careful--just say a little bit and then see how they take it. One bm really liked talking about the natural herbs to take during pregnancy and how they can help, like raspberry tea, etc. Another bm didn't really like talking about baby stuff, so we asked her if she was a collector of any animals or anything. We discovered she really liked teddy bears and had fun finding her different types of teddy bears for her collection (on stationery, pencils, pillow, etc.) One bm told us all about her kitchen and how she collected black and white cows motiff on everything! she even sent us a picture of her kitchen! It gave us something in common to talk about when the grief of giving up a baby became hard---we became friends, not only because of baby, but because we searched for things we had in common. Good luck! Patience is the best thing you can pray for---become really good listeners! It pays off in the end--we have successfully adopted 5 wonderful children and we are so happy with them all.