Ways to Be Miserable During the Adoption Wait

The wait to adopt can be long. You will find plenty of advice online telling you different things you can do to make the wait easier. But what if you just want to wallow in your own insecurities and sadness? What if your budget doesn’t allow for a “babymoon?” Because, of course, you spent your life savings on infertility treatments and adoption expenses? If that’s you, here are some ways to ensure that your wait is optimally miserable:

1. Call your counselor/lawyer daily. Daily! Bugging the ever-living daylights out of your counselor may actually pay off. She may get tired of you and show your profile more often. They do say the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Making threats to leave your agency and go with another is also another effective way to be heard. Everyone loves an idle threat. (NOTE—I am not legally responsible if anyone contracting with an agency or attorney has their contracts voided based on this advice!)

2. Stalk all the other couples on your agency’s website. Read their profiles. Scoff at what they say and how much better your profile reads. Then obsess over what you could have said differently. Darn that couple who is about your age who has a bigger house than you. Judging yourself by others’ profile letters is super helpful and guaranteed to make you question everything you wrote. Extra points if the agency posts recent matches or placements so you can really track your imaginary competition. There was one couple I based our adoption “progress” on. When they adopted before we did . . . well, let’s say it wasn’t a fun night for my poor husband as he listened to me rant and rave over how much better we were than this other couple. Fun times, I tell ya. Yes, even eight years later I can see their profile picture in my mind.

3. Throw/attend as many baby showers as possible. Every mom who has been through round after round of fertility meds and the long adoption process loves baby showers. Get right in there and rub those bellies you are so jealous of. It will totally make your empty arms feel better. Nothing like carrying the weight of the world to make you feel more like crap. Bonus points if you get all the ‘Guess-the-candy-bar-melted-in-the-dirty-baby-diaper’ answers correct. Lord knows you probably downed enough Snicker and Baby Ruth’s during the process to guarantee a win!

4. Be superstitious. That song you heard on the radio 5 minutes before your counselor called and said your profile was requested by an expectant mom is totally a sign! And every time you hear that song you should get nervous and start looking at your phone (especially if you are driving!) Not to date myself, but mine was Justin Timberlake’s ‘Sexy Back.” I mean, what song in the early/mid-2000s could have been more inappropriate?

5. Watch every adoption-related Lifetime movie possible. Especially the ones where the birth mom steals the baby back. Those are always the best. Scaring the ever-living $@^# out of yourself about the “what if’s” is always a great way to start an adoption relationship. I mean, if you don’t go in considering what can go wrong what kind of a person are you? Risk assessment is a real job, people! SOMEONE has to be the one in a million to have that happen. It totally could be YOU!

Whatever mundane, crazy, borderline-psychotic things you do during your wait, it WILL all pay off in the end. You will find the child you have dreamt of. Well, at least until he or she is a teenager . . .