admin, Author at AdoptionWorks

Adoption Chat: “Support in the Wait” for Prospective Adoptive Parents

admin — Fri, 09 Jun 2023 02:55:44 +0000

The adoption corner of the internet can be a fiery place. Much of the indignation is rightly stoked; the history of adoption in the United States shows that birth families and adoptees have not always been treated with respect. In modern, open adoption (which you can read more about here in one of our previous articles), professionals seek to better serve the entire adoption triad and learn from history’s mistakes.

As necessary changes are made to adoption policy, it is easy to make large generalizations about how we got here and paint the adoptive parent as the big, evil archetype in adoption history. And this, while in some instances it is deserved, is not always fair to the group as a whole.

Adoption is hard. It begins with loss and is steeped in trauma from the get-go. I am thankful that individuals with adoption hurts have spaces where they can discuss their stories with openness and vulnerability.

But the longer I observe the adoption world online, the more I become concerned for the emotional well-being of the men and women who are what we call prospective adoptive parents (see our list of Terms to Know at the end of this article).

We could write books upon books (on top of the ones that already exist on the topic) about what a prospective adoptive parent must understand about adoption, trauma, loss, parenting, transracial families, and the importance of openness.

These things are all major aspects of adoption education, and I do not suggest that a prospective adoptive parent take any of these topics lightly.

But I also think that the wildly disparaging narratives about adoptive parents can start to demean the conscientious men and women who are doing this difficult work of learning and preparing with all that they have.

It can be discouraging for a person to feel as if they have failed before even beginning. I believe that active support for prospective adoptive parents during the “waiting” phase of an adoption journey can provide positive outcomes for the entire triad.

_______________________________________

Let’s consider for a moment the host of differences between the typical waiting period to birth a child (aka, pregnancy), and the wait to become a parent through adoption. Some of these differences exist because they include good and very necessary steps to prepare parents for the adoption journey. Yet, these differences still come with their own set of normal emotional responses.

As a prospective adoptive parent:

1. The timetable of your “wait” is completely uncertain (as opposed to an expectation of 9 months of pregnancy).

2. You have little control over the health and well-being of your prospective future child in utero

3. You are not yet considered a parent. Prospective adoptive parents is not only a cumbersome title, but a very inconclusive one.

4. You are not able to bond with your child yet.

5. Even if you have been matched with birth parents, you may feel very unsteady regarding your current role

6. You are being required by an agency to learn aspects of parenting that you may not have previously known existed, such as the effect of trauma on behavior, or the complexities of existing as a transracial adoptive family. While it is super helpful education, you cannot help but think about how little “training” your friend who is growing a family by pregnancy is required to do.

7. Your life has been cracked open and peered upon by strangers who are deciding if you are fit for this journey. It feels raw.

I have never met an adoptive parent who did not wholeheartedly agree that these experiences were worth it in the grand scheme of things. And yet that does not negate the host of emotions and experiences that the waiting period can bring.

Waiting is often an emotional roller coaster.

There is an unending list of logical things to do during the waiting period, including organizing a nursery and pursuing more specific education about adoption (And if you only do one of these things, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do the latter).

But oftentimes it is more difficult to focus on the heart and soul work of parenting. I hope that these suggestions spur you to delve into some internal places of healing and growth while you wait.

How to Mentally and Emotionally “Wait Well” for Prospective Adoptive Parents

1. Utilize available counseling services. Not sure what to talk about in counseling? First, discuss your own attachment style and how this may impact parenting and/or the marriage relationship.

Here are some other helpful questions posed by Christa Jordan, adoptive mother and author of the book, Before You Adopt: A Guide to the Questions You Should be Asking :

– What are some areas of your life you are feeling unsatisfied or lacking?

– Are there unresolved issues/pain from past relationships and/or infertility issues that need to be addressed?

– What are your fears/ hesitations/ “worst case scenarios” that you have about adoption or foster care?

– Do you feel any shame in growing your family through adoption?

2. Find people who have been in this season before. Find people who are currently in this season. Ask them all the things. Babysit their kids.

3. Read or listen to some parenting books both from both an adoptive perspective and a general perspective.

4. Cultivate your faith. Also, consider how your faith informs your vision of yourself as an adoptive parent. One book that we recommend is It Takes More than Love: A Christian Guide to Navigating the Complexities of Cross-Cultural Adoption by Brittany Salmon.

5. Allow yourself to grieve the fact that the adoption journey brings challenges. Allowing yourself this space to grieve is not only okay, but vital. Growing your family through adoption means that you will probably feel sad about missing out on aspects of growing a family through birth. You are not a terrible person for feeling that sadness. Experience it. Process it. But don’t dwell there forever. We would rather you process these feelings now than allow them to later impede healthy parenting.

6. Listen to adoptee voices. A DFW local writer, adoptee, and adoption professional Elena Hall is a fantastic resource to begin this endeavor. Her works include Through Adopted Eyes and Adoption is Both

7. Turn down the noise on social media

8. Spend quality time with your spouse. And then spend even more quality time with your spouse.

9. Talk to your spouse about your expectations for discipline.

10. Spend time intentionally praying for your child, your child’s birth family, and your own potential future as parents.

Now, a Personal Note.

As a new maternity caseworker a few years ago, I was actually quite intimidated by the prospective adoptive parents at our agency.

These are couples who just generally seem to have their lives together, I thought. I mean, sheer management of the massive stacks of paperwork that one must scale before even making it to a home study is wildly overwhelming. These were real adults. I felt so small.

It was not long before I learned that the internal world of a prospective adoptive parent is not all confidence and perfection, even if their profile books appear to be so. There are often feelings of doubt, worry, lack of self-confidence, pain, fear, bewilderment, and even shame.

Entering into the world of adoption is not for the faint of heart. But these parents-to-be are willingly facing potential emotional upheaval head-on.

To any Prospective Adoptive Parents out there, I want you to know that we care about you and we want you to be successful in parenting well. You are not just a scapegoat for the adoption community, but an avenue for someone to experience love and attachment following the most incredibly treacherous loss.

Even silly, intimidated maternity caseworkers like me are here to support you. Thank you for the heart and soul that you pour into loving others well.

Terms to know:

– Prospective/ Hopeful Adoptive Parent(s): A person who is somewhere in the process of becoming an adoptive parent.

– Waiting parent(s): A person or family who has been approved by an agency and is waiting for a placement.

– Waiting period: The time that a person or family is waiting has been approved with an agency and is waiting on an adoptive placement

– Adoption Triad: the triangular representation of an adoptee’s relationship to his or her birth and adoptive family, with the adoptee at the top and the birth and adoptive families as the bottom foundational corners. Together, all three parties make up a triad.

– Birth Mother: A mother who has placed a child for adoption and relinquished legal rights to parent that child.

– Expectant Mother: A woman who is pregnant. Even if she is currently making an adoption plan, she is never called a birth mother until she has relinquished her parental rights. This distinction is made to honor a mother’s agency to choose to parent her child at any point prior to signing relinquishment.

– Birth Family: Other biological family members of an adoptee

– Adoptive Family: A couple or family who has legally adopted a child.

Resources:

It Takes more than Love: A Christian Guide to Navigating the Complexities of Cross-Cultural Adoption by Brittany Salmon.

Before You Adopt: A Guide To The Questions You Should Be Asking by Jonathan and Krista Jordan

Adoption is Both by Elena S. Hall

Through Adopted Eyes by Elena S. Hall

Note: There are so very many educational resources for Prospective Adoptive Parents. Make sure to follow @adoptionworkscw to stay up to date on recommended resources that our team suggests

The post Adoption Chat: “Support in the Wait” for Prospective Adoptive Parents appeared first on AdoptionWorks.

What is Open Adoption?

admin — Mon, 20 Feb 2023 20:51:18 +0000

For many people who have not been directly touched by adoption, this article may seem like a foreign concept filled with words borrowed from a language you did not know existed. Adoption, after all, is
something we usually observe from a distance or on television, with limited understanding of what someone who has lived out an adoption story may experience.

If you are someone that falls into this category, I appreciate your willingness to dip your toe into the waters of learning some adoption terms and concepts. Honestly, we are all constantly learning about adoption: Whether we are adoption professionals, triad members,* or the people who love them. See below for a definition of an adoption triad.

To understand the world of adoption one must first recognize that adoption stories are unique; they are contrastingly beautiful and painful, wholesome and gut-wrenching. Most adoption stories are all of
these things at once. But the best we can do is to learn what information we can from a posture of humility. As professionals, we commit to making discerning choices about adoption policy and procedures
according to the most recent research available. And, we listen: to adoptees, adoptive families, and birth families. We learn from the past and we seek to use integrity in our work with each client of adoption.

So whatever brought you to this page to learn a little about open adoption, I hope that you keep these ideas at top of mind and join us in the pursuit of learning about adoption as a whole.

A quick definition of open adoption:

Open adoption, also known as modern adoption, is currently the most widely accepted type of adoption the United States. It refers to an adoption in which a birth mother or birth parents have specifically chosen the family that will be adopting the child and have opportunity for communication and relationship with the adoptive family and adoptee throughout the course of his or her life.

As of 2012, approximately 95% of adoptions that occur were considered “open” [6]. It can be assumed that this percentage is even higher today, a full decade after this study was completed.
Yet, this wide acceptance of open adoption was not always the case. Closed adoption, as described below, was the norm for most of the 20th century. But a shift began to occur in the social work and
adoption field as many professionals began to question the previously-standard procedures of keeping legal lock and key on adoptees’ birth and medical histories.

By the mid-1990’s these professional practices became commonplace, and open adoption took its place as the new standard of adoption care.

Open adoption vs. Closed adoption

Closed adoptions do not allow for any future communication. No information is exchanged between parties. Records are sealed, and even the adoptees themselves are barred at viewing their own records without going through a court of law. The birth family most likely did not have any choice in deciding the family with whom their child would be placed.

Open adoption, on the other hand, begins with an expectant mother being empowered to choose the family with whom she will place her child for adoption. She is encouraged to meet with them, ask questions, and be an active participant in the adoption process.

Open adoption allows for future contact and building of relationships between birth and adoptive families.
Openness allows for agency support throughout the lifetime.
Open adoption allows for adoptees to have direct connection to their birth, family, and medical histories.

Note: AdoptionWorks only facilitates OPEN adoptions. Even if a birth mother chooses to currently have no interaction with her child or the adoptive parents, her disclosure of medical history and her ability to choose the family for her child deems the adoption “open.” Also, in an open adoption, she can seek communication or receive updates from the family in the future if she decides she would like to pursue a relationship with them.

Open adoption is on a continuum.

For some, the idea of open adoption can be scary. But it is important to remember that openness is on a continuum! Just like with any other relationship, it can develop and change over time. Not only are
boundaries acceptable, but they are greatly encouraged. Adoption professionals encourage birth parents and adoptive parents alike to have honest conversations about their comfortability with levels of openness.
Some families choose to begin the relationship completely mediated by the agency, sending photos and updates through case workers. Some families communicate independently of the agency, see each other multiple times a year, and are invited to family events.
Each adoption triad has unique dynamics, and each member of that triad has unique needs within that dynamic that informs levels of openness. Levels of openness can change over time. We expect openness to look differently at 3 months than it does at 3 years or 33 years. Changes in levels of openness can occur throughout different seasons of life and stages of development. This is normal and expected. A good adoption agency will be present to help you navigate these changes as you go.

Most importantly, open adoption relationships are build on mutual trust and respect. When an adoption takes place, the birth family and adoptive family often create an open adoption agreement,
which is simply a summary of the agreed-upon expectations for communication and relationshipbuilding moving forward. The open adoption agreement is not a legally binding agreement, but a document that can remind both parties the importance of maintaining connection to each other to the best of one another’s abilities.

Open adoption is an opportunity for empowerment across the entire triad:

Research on this topic overwhelmingly suggests that openness benefits the entire triad [2, 3, 4, 5]. This does not mean that experiences are emotionally pain-free or perfect in nature. Adoption, after all,
begins with the experience of loss when a child and mother are separated. But it does mean that professionals and researchers have largely determined that a choice to pursue openness brings more benefits than not.

For the birth family: In open adoption, A birth mother is empowered to make active decisions in the adoption process, including choosing the family with whom she would like to place her child. Ashley
Mitchell, birth mother and advocate for birth mothers worldwide is a good resource to learn more about the birth family perspective. You can find her @bigtoughgirl on Instagram or at https://lifetimehealingfoundation.org/

For adoptees: An adoptee is able to have connection with his or her history and birth story in an open adoption. He or she always knows the truth about who they are and how much they were loved by the
people who brought them into the world. There are many adoptee accounts to follow, but a favorite of ours at AdoptionWorks is @throughadoptedeyes For adoptive parents: In an open adoption, adoptive parents are able to have access to their child’s medical and family history, be able to help their child with difficult questions that come with being an adoptee, and create lasting relationships with their child’s biological family.

Open adoption is an opportunity for empowerment across the entire triad:

Open adoption is not co-parenting

Once a mother has relinquished her rights to parent her child, she does not have the capability to determine the details of how that child is parented. The adoptive parents are the legal parents of the
child once the adoption has been finalized. This is why we find it so important that an expectant mother is fully aware of her decision to make an adoption plan prior to relinquishment! This is a serious and irrevocable choice that we pray she does not take lightly. Open adoption allows for beautiful opportunities for relationship, but does not encroach on the legal parental rights of adoptive parents.

*Definitions to know:

Adoption Triad: the triangular representation of an adoptee’s relationship to his or her birth and adoptive family, with the adoptee at the top and the birth and adoptive families as the bottom foundational corners. Together, all three parties make up a triad.

Birth Mother: A mother who has placed a child for adoption and relinquished legal rights to parent that child.
Expectant Mother: A woman who is pregnant. Even if she is currently making an adoption plan, she is never called a birth mother until she has relinquished her parental rights. This distinction is made to honor a mother’s agency to choose to parent her child at any point prior to signging relinquishment.
Birth Family: Other biological family members of an adoptee Adoptive Family: A couple or family who has legally adopted a child.

References:
1. 10 things that scientific research says about open adoption. American Adoptions Blog. (2017, August 4). Retrieved January 21, 2023, from https://www.americanadoptions.com/blog/10-things-that-scientific-research-says-aboutopen-adoption/
2. Berry, M., Dylla, D. J. C., Barth, R. P., & Needell, B. (1998). The role of open adoption in the adjustment of adopted children and their families. Children and Youth Services Review, 20(1-2), 151–171. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0190-7409(97)00071-6
3. Editor. (2021, December 9). Open adoption: Advantages and benefits. American Pregnancy Association. Retrieved January 20, 2023, from https://americanpregnancy.org/child-adoption/open-adoptionadvantages/#:~:text=for%20an%20adopted%20child%2c%20some%20possible%20advantages%20of,the%20adopted
%20child%e2%80%99s%20sense%20of%20abandonment.%20more%20items
4. Ge, X., Natsuaki, M. N., Martin, D. M., Leve, L. D., Neiderhiser, J. M., Shaw, D. S., Villareal, G., Scaramella, L., Reid, J. B., & Reiss, D. (2008, August). Bridging the divide: Openness in adoption and postadoption psychosocial adjustment among birth and adoptive parents. Journal of family psychology : JFP : journal of the Division of Family Psychology of the American Psychological Association (Division 43). Retrieved January 21, 2023, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2638763/
5. Grotevant, H. D. (2019). Open adoption: Rethinking family. Open Adoption: Rethinking Family. Retrieved January 21, 2023, from https://www.umass.edu/ruddchair/sites/default/files/rudd.grotevant.pdf
6. Siegel, D. H., & Smith, S. L. (2012, March). Openness in adoption. Openness in Adoption From Secrecy and Stigma to Knowledge and Connections. Retrieved January 23, 2023, from https://adoptionresearch.com-us.com

7. Study shows rise in ‘open’ infant adoptions, with only 5% now completely ‘closed’ new report cites benefits of – and need for more knowledge about – these extended families. The Donaldson Adoption Institute. (2012, March 21). Retrieved January 21, 2023, from https://adoptionresearch.com-us.com

The post What is Open Adoption? appeared first on AdoptionWorks.