Here’s to Your Healthy Adoption!
Adoption is love. Adoption is beautiful. Adoption is also stressful, but it doesn’t have to be. For a healthy adoption journey, hopeful adoptive parents must begin the process with a proper level of expectation and maintain that until the day they bring their child home. Never compare your adoption to that of anyone else as each is as unique as you.
Every person that wants to experience the wonder of parenthood hopes to a.) conceive (naturally or via surrogate) or adopt quickly, and b.) have an uneventful pregnancy/process. Unfortunately, as with so many things in life, we have little control over timing of events or the way in which they will unfold. With little control over something so important, after time, feelings of hope may turn into despair. Hopeful parents may begin to doubt their path to parenthood and even question why they ever thought they would be successful. Do not fall victim to this damaging and counterproductive cycle. Instead, put your positive energy and strong desire to fulfill your dream to good use. Enjoy every day, wait patiently or be proactive in your search for expecting parents, and prepare for parenthood. No matter how long or short the wait may be, it will be worth it!
Some tips for your good health while you wait:
1. Exercise patience.
2. Live life as you did before you ever thought about having children.
3. Spend time with family and friends.
4. Surround yourself with children and shower them with all the love and attention you have to give.
5. Focus on what you have, not what you don’t have (yet).
6. Be proactive in your search for expecting parents. Create a non-identifying Facebook/Instagram page, join a few support groups (local, Facebook, etc.), network with other hopeful adoptive parents, and place your profile on adoption websites such as adoptimist.com. Let the world know you are approved and eager to adopt!