The holiday season welcomes togetherness, love, and family; and while the holidays can bring happiness, they can also be hard for people who have loved ones they wish they could celebrate with. As a birth parent, the holidays can be hard to go through, especially when you’re thinking about the child you placed for adoption. You might feel resentment, guilt, and regret about your decision, and just know that you don’t have to handle these feelings alone. It’s pivotal that you care for yourself and remember why you placed your child for adoption. How can you give yourself self-care, and who can you talk to about your feelings?
Tips for Self-Care
Self-care isn’t just lighting candles, wearing face masks, and relaxing in a bathtub with a glass of wine. Self-care is the act of taking care of your physical, mental, and emotional well-being. There are many ways to practice self-care during this holiday season as a birth parent. Physically, you can exercise, go on a walk, eat healthy, cook a holiday meal, practice a sleep routine, get a massage, and do anything to help you physically relax. Mentally and emotionally, you can do anything that’s also physical. You can journal about how you feel, write a holiday letter to yourself or the adoptive family, meditate, pray, show kindness to others during the holidays, set goals for your life, keep away from drugs and alcohol during holiday parties, take time for yourself, and talk about how you feel with someone you trust or with an adoption therapist who can help you with adoption depression.
Who Can You Talk To?
Talking to a professional about your feelings can help tremendously with your complex feelings during the holiday season. Finding trusted adoption professionals is key to opening up about your adoption placing struggles. Adoption counselors are there to help guide you through the hardship that the holiday season can bring and will be warm and supportive so that you have the space to open up. The adoption counselor shouldn’t judge how you feel because they know the holidays can be a time for grieving.
Seeing family and friends with their kids can be hard on you as a birth parent. You might feel like not going to special holiday events with them, and that’s okay. You don’t have to feel alone this holiday season, and you can spend time with loved ones while focusing on what the holidays mean to you. Talk with the family, friends, and neighbors you trust about how you’re struggling to get through the holiday season without a child to celebrate with. Opening up about your grieving process can bring healing, and your neighbors, friends, and family can help you celebrate new traditions with them during the holidays.
Making New Holiday Traditions
Making new holiday traditions is something you can do on your own or in the community to help you through the holiday season as a birth parent. If you’re the crafty type, you can make an ornament that honors your birth child to hang up on your tree. You can take time to volunteer at a soup kitchen or church to serve warm meals to people in need. Ask family or a friend for help with grocery shopping and cook a holiday homemade meal. Watch heartwarming holiday movies and listen to festive holiday music to lift your spirits. Help out with a wishlist from a Toys for Tots organization to help other children have an amazing Christmas. Write down things you’re thankful for and share them in a birth parent support group.
Sharing Your Story with Others
You aren’t alone in how you’re feeling; listening to other birth mother’s perspectives of post-placement care could also inspire you to share your own adoption placement story. Birth mother support groups are held in a supportive, and welcoming environment, and they can be face-to-face, or online, groups that have a similar adoption placing process as yours, and groups that have chosen open or closed adoptions. You’ll have to research when the birth mother groups will be held due to the holiday season, but it will give you time to prepare what to say and learn. By sharing your story and hearing other unique birth mothers’ stories, you’ll feel more at ease with navigating the holiday season and have a newfound community that knows what you’re going through.
If you have an open adoption or semi-open adoption, you can ask the adoptive parents for visits during the holiday season and make plans to do holiday activities during your visitations. If you’ve chosen a closed adoption, you won’t have any contact, but you can still celebrate the holidays with your community.
You can always ask a birth parent support group about special activities you can do this holiday season to celebrate together. You can do a Secret Santa, see a holiday movie, have a spa day, make a gift basket, give each other a journal, have a holiday dance party, or create a work of art, the possibilities are endless. Your presence is a gift, and you won’t regret spending time and leaning on a birth parent support group for years to come.
Looking Ahead
The holidays can bring grief, but they can also bring so much joy. Taking time to practice self-care, talking to an adoption counselor, making new holiday traditions, being a part of a birth parent support group, and looking forward to the new things your future has to offer can be very uplifting. You can make plans to celebrate the upcoming holidays while taking time to reflect. While you might feel sad now, take time to grieve and then focus on making new milestones for yourself. Placing your child for adoption is only a part of your story, and while it can be hard, it can also become a beautiful thing to remember as you celebrate the holidays with the people who love and support you.
