Adopting a child can be a complete rollercoaster of emotions. There’s ups and downs throughout the whole process.
You may feel hopeful, anxious, excited, worried, eager, frustrated and even heartbroken at times. It can be uncertain and stressful, as well as legally, and financially challenging.
It’s important to allow space for all of your feelings. Understanding what emotions you may feel, and what you can do to take care of yourself during the process, is crucial to your wellbeing.
Tips To Help You During Adoption Challenges
1. Establish A Healthy Way To Cope
It will be important that you find a healthy way to cope with the emotions and stress as you proceed with the adoption process.
It can help to talk to others who are also going through the process. You can take inspiration from how they cope, but it’s good to find ways that work for you.
Perhaps engaging in exercise or a new hobby might help. It can also be beneficial to spend time looking after yourself, perhaps by relaxing in a pampering bath or self-soothing in the comfort of your home.
It doesn’t matter what you do to manage your emotions as long as you try to remain consistent to help yourself cope.
2. Stick To Your Routine
You might want to change up your routine as you may be tempted to over-prepare for a child, however it can help to keep doing what makes you happy as much as possible.
This could include maintaining strong relationships with your family, partner and friends, so that they can support you.
Routine also helps you to deal with your emotions, and stresses, as you have small activities and goals to focus on.
3. Write A Journal
Journaling is a wonderful way to de-stress, and for many people is a big part of self-care. If you don’t already keep a journal, you could try starting now.
As well as helping you express how you feel, journaling can also be a memento for the future. Adopted children can have many questions in the future, including wanting to understand how the adoption process worked.
They can also wonder about the process their parents went through, the assessments, and emotions that come with making a family in this way.
It can be difficult to remember everything, so a journal could be something to give your child in the future to help them understand.
4. Prepare For The Arrival Of Your Child
It’s important not to over-prepare, but it’s natural that you will want to prepare for your new child, as this is often an exciting time.
You could try taking parenting classes and first aid courses. You could read parenting books. You might want to look into schools, nurseries and childcare in your local area.
Things like decorating your child’s room and babyproofing your home can wait until you are further through the adoption process.
5. Don’t Put Your Own Life On Hold
It can be very easy to put your own life on hold as you wait for a child. It’s important not to do this and keep working towards your dreams and goals.
Ignoring your own needs in favour of waiting can be detrimental to your mental health. The wait can be long, so focusing on your life, relationships and wellbeing is critically important.
6. Accept You Have No Control Over The Timeline Of The Process
It can be very difficult, but you need to come to terms with the fact that you have no control over how long it will take to be selected as adoptive parents.
Remind yourself that waiting for a long time doesn’t mean you’ve failed, and it also isn’t a reflection of your parenting abilities. The process of adoption can be a long journey and you may feel frustrated or demotivated at times. Waiting a long time doesn’t mean that you have done something wrong so try to be patient and kind to yourself.
7. Remember That Adoption Is Worth The Wait
Try to remember that the wait, the emotions, and the stress will be worth the wait. It can help if you read success stories on particularly hard days. You might want to join online forums for adoptive parents as the real-life experiences of others can help you to stay optimistic and hopeful.
