Grief is tricky – there is no “one size fits all;” everyone experiences it at different times and in different ways. When it comes to adoption, grief is at times overshadowed by joy and then soon returns to rear its ugly head. Birth parents who choose adoption for their child choose adoption because they believe the outcome is worth the heartache, and in most instances, studies have shown this is true (NCFA, 2023). That does not mean, however, that they are immune from the pain of making this decision for the child they love.
Grief can affect the following areas:
- Emotions - Emotions can include feelings of sadness, loneliness, or anger. It can even include feeling numb to your emotions altogether.
- Physical - Grief is not only an emotional experience, but can be a physical one. Grief can show itself through anxiety, lack of energy, the incessant need to keep busy as a distraction, hypersensitivity, or tightness in your chest.
- Cognitive - As your body and your heart are trying to come to terms, your brain can begin its own form of grief including denial, questioning and second-guessing decisions, preoccupation, confusion, and assumptions about others that are not founded.
- Behaviors - All the listed above symptoms can be shown through outward behaviors such as weeping, obsessive eating, lack of appetite, engaging in unhealthy sexual relationships, insomnia, and being socially withdrawn.
Although feelings of sadness may be present throughout a mother’s pregnancy, much of an expectant mother’s focus who intends to make an adoption plan is on the logistics of the plan and grief seems to take more of a backseat. However, towards the last trimester, an expectant mother and an adoption counselor may discuss something called anticipatory grief, a type of ambiguous loss that occurs as the expectant parent prepares for the future separation between her and her baby (Lehmann, 2024). Talking with an adoption counselor about how to be proactive in combatting these emotions can be incredibly beneficial for an expectant mother so that she can better prepare and consider her coping mechanisms, both positive and negative, before these emotions arise.
The grief experienced after the child is born and the mother leaves the hospital is classified as acute grief (Lehmann, 2024) and includes the very real, all-consuming feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and pain that we imagine grief to be. Acute grief does not have an end date and does not always include feelings of sadness – for birth parents, adoption may feel like a psychological amputation (Lehmann, 2024). Part of grief is learning how to co-exist and continue forward despite its presence.
There are many steps birth parents can take to process and move through their grief in healthy and productive ways. Some of those include journaling, intentionally scheduling out their day, talking to a few trusted individuals about her grief (an adoption counselor, close friend, therapist, etc.), spending time with loved ones, celebrating their child through traditions or rituals, and maintaining an open adoption where letters and pictures can be exchanged. Studies show that birth parents who possess some level of ongoing contact with their children feel less anxious and experience diminished feelings of grief (Lehmann, 2024).
Lastly, it is important for birth parents to recognize that they are not alone in this decision. BraveLove is a pro-birthparent organization that exists to break the stigma of adoption and provide resources to expectant parents, pre- and post-adoption, as well as professionals. There are support groups, video testimonials, and blogs that share real-life stories of mothers and fathers who have walked a similar path. As E. A Bucchianeri said in his book, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly; “So it’s true when all is said and done, grief is the price we pay for love.”