My last blogs, What is Adoption Loss? and and Legal-Risk Placements, talk about the disappointment and grief that ensue when a planned adoption does not happen and describe some situations when this might occur. Other situations of adoption loss can occur when a child whose birthmother who had arranged to place with specific parents literally dies before or after the birth. A famous, thankfully rare, situation was the crash of a jumbo jet carrying several hundred Vietnamese children to the United States for adoption during Operation Babylift just before the fall of Saigon in 1975.
A baby may be born with a birth defect or illness that the adoptive parents feel they cannot handle well enough. Or it is possible that adoptive parents who begin to feel attached to their expected child can be the victims of fraud, if the birthmother fakes pregnancy and asks for living or medical expenses, or promises to place the baby with more than one family.
Sometimes a foreign country will close its doors to international adoption. If a family has already been referred a specific child, seen photos, learned about the child’s name, situation, likes and dislikes, this loss can be devastating.
After an adoption loss, each phone call from a caseworker or pregnant woman may trigger a cycle of attempting to stay calm, becoming excited, and being disappointed again.
The would-be adoptive parents often report a lack of support from friends, family and community. If the child was not yet placed in the adoptive home, others may not realize how involved the adoptive parents had been and how much they had emotionally invested in the child. Others may not know what to say. Some may have conflicting feelings of sympathy for both the adoptive parents and the birth parents.
The prospective parents are advised to allow themselves time to grieve the loss of their expected bundle of joy. The adoption agency may be able to provide counseling or recommend a counselor who is familiar with adoption issues.
Processing the grief from losing an expected adoption can help you be emotionally prepared to be the best parent you can be to the child who eventually will become yours.
Please see these related blogs:
Book Review: The Adoption Decision