7 things I wish I knew before adopting a baby
When I first started my adoption journey, I was terrified and overwhelmed. I just knew that no one would ever pick us to be parents, because we were old and boring. And that was right. We are old and boring. But that's okay. And when I finally decided to overcome those fears, and really lean into our story, that is when we actually went on to adopt two amazing children.
Now throughout this process, I learned seven valuable lessons that really helped us go on to form our family through adoption. Over the past eight years, I've used those seven lessons with my clients and helped them match their own adoptions. As a matter of fact, I have helped over 1000 people form their family through adoption. If you want to adopt a baby, you need to know these seven things, too, so that you can adopt with less overwhelm and confusion, my friend.
Make Adoption Your First Choice: Process Past Trauma & Grief
The very first thing that you need to know is that you need to process all past trauma and grief that you have in your body. Even if you didn't come to adoption through infertility, you still likely have some trauma and grief in your past that you can process before starting this journey. Doing so will make your journey less triggering and less traumatic for you.
In my case, I came to adoption through infertility. I had a really traumatic event in our infertility journey where I almost bled to death. I had an ectopic pregnancy that ruptured. I passed out face-first into our hardwood floors at home and almost bled to death in my own living room.
When I got to the hospital, the doctor told me that I was within 30 minutes of dying. He said that if I had waited 30 minutes longer before coming to the ER or being brought there by ambulance, that I actually would have died. When that happened, I just kind of bottled that up. I just kind of pushed it away and went on to the next thing. I healed, I processed, and I cried in the hospital. I took an extra day in the hospital to recover before I came home. I thought I had healed and that I had recovered. You just kind of always tell yourself to ignore and override. I was just ignoring and overriding those moments that were so tough.
We went on to pursue egg donors and IVF. It wasn’t until we actually started going through a home study process that it even occurred to me that I needed to seek professional help about this. I needed to actually process that grief and make space for the journey that was coming ahead.
Because adoption can be tough. If you are not emotionally ready for that, it will be even harder, my friend.
Find Beauty in Your Family
Now the second thing I wish I had known before I adopted a baby was seeing the beauty of our family. You see, I was convinced we were too old and too boring, and that there was no way that an expectant parent was going to pick us to parent her child. We were in our 30s, for goodness sake. I was thinking that we were past the point where a lot of people are going to think we're cool enough to be parents. There was a lot of insecurity wrapped up in that.
I finally overcame that and said, You know what, I believe that there is someone out there for everybody. Let me lean into our story, and really tell the story of our family. When I overcame that, that is ultimately what began to push us forward and propel us in our adoption journey.
It turns out that our story is what actually helped us get picked! We were picked not only with our agency multiple times very quickly, but also through our OBGYN. He was sharing our desire to adopt with others because he had lived through our infertility journey. He quite literally saved my life. He was very invested in us becoming parents and he would share our desire to adopt with others. He led us to multiple adoption opportunities by doing that.
Stop Wasting Time
The next thing is that I wish I had sought professional help when I was confused. In adoption, there were so many times that we were confused. I felt like every other day I had a new question. Now I'm naturally inquisitive. But all of the questions felt very overwhelming. I would spend hours upon hours on Google.
I probably wasted close to a year researching on Google before I finally got up the nerve to sit down with an adoption attorney and ask him all of my questions. I walked into that office that day and he said $500 an hour. I opened up my checkbook, signed the check, passed it across to him and said we'll fill it in when I'm done. Because I was just so fed up and so confused and I needed help.
I was so frustrated because everything I read on Google felt like it contradicted the last thing I saw or read, or the last thing that somebody else told me. I spent way too much with that attorney that day, sitting there and asking him all of the questions. I showed up with my little notebook and I had them all written out. One question turned into three, and three questions turned into 30. Before I knew it, we had spent several hours with him.
Friend, if you’re feeling stuck, contact me and I will personally work with you so that you can get unstuck. I'm not charging you $500 an hour like that attorney did me to answer all the questions. I’m here to answer your questions to the best of my ability. Just reach out.
Pursue Multiple Adoption Paths
Now the next thing that I've learned, through a client’s journey, is that sharing your adoption profile in multiple ways can result in you matching faster. Now, what I didn't know when I went through my own journey is that I was already kind of doing this. I was working with our adoption agency. Then I was sharing our profile with our OBGYN, with my hairdresser, with my dentist, those people that I go to on a regular basis and see quite frequently. By sharing my profile in a few different ways, it did result in a few different opportunities for me. My clients that are sharing their profile regularly through an agency as well as daily with different people are matching within a year. As a matter of fact, 95% of my clients are matching their adoption in less than one year, for less than $40,000.
Learn How to Advocate For Yourself
When I went through my own adoption journey, I was really kind of lacking confidence. The infertility journey had just really kind of beaten me down a bit. It had taken me back to a place of submissiveness. When I would show up to talk to our adoption agency, I would let them guide the conversation. I was afraid to ask questions because I didn't want to be a pain in their neck. Because in my mind, if I was hard to work with, I was hard to match. That resulted in me not really advocating for myself, and me not asking the tough questions that I should have asked.
So remember, you advocating for yourself in a polite way is totally okay. The people pleaser in me really came out in that journey. That was hard, because I would show up to the agency calls and I thought if I just show up and do exactly what they tell me, then they're going to pick me. That was the biggest load of baloney that you could ever imagine, my friend.
It really came down to my profile. That's what mattered the most. Being easy to work with may have made them return my phone calls more often or worked in my favor. Who knows. But being easy to work with does not mean not advocating for yourself. It is so important that you show up, ask the questions, and do what you can to advocate for yourself along the journey.
Adoption Can Be Affordable
Now, when you're advocating for yourself, it doesn't mean you have to drain your bank account. This is one of the things that I really wish most hopeful adoptive families knew. You see, I get a lot of DMS and emails that talk to me about the fact that they want to adopt, but they don't have $70,000. They tell me that if they spend that much on trying to adopt the child, then they can't pay for the child's college, or they can't afford to raise the child. So that's something that I wish hopeful adoptive families knew is that you don't have to drain your bank account. I have had some clients that have adopted at a cost of $5,000. I have had some clients who have adopted at a cost of $80,000. It really just kind of depends upon your criteria, your willingness to wait, your willingness to put in the extra effort, and how open you are to medical complexities.
It's really important that you sit down and make a financial plan for your adoption. If you're struggling with this, reach out to me so we can discuss it one-on-one. We will work through that together.
Take Small Actions Each Day
You have got to put yourself in the driver's seat of your adoption. But you also have to have patience. I know that may seem like, how do you do both? How do you put your pedal to the metal and really drive hard towards your goal of adopting a baby, but yet also have patience in the journey. It is a delicate balance, my friend. When I talk about putting yourself in the driver's seat of your adoption, it is really about doing everything you can to share your adoption profile, to advocate for yourself, and to make sure you're setting yourself up for success. It is about those small, consistent actions that you take every single day. That's ultimately going to lead you to matching your adoption faster. Having patience means not worrying about whether or not the phone's going to ring every single day. You're going to have to go on and live your life. And it's hard.
I remember waking up in quite literally cold sweats at one in the morning, wondering if it was ever going to happen; is today the day? What would happen if I get the call today? Would I run around my house and be frantic, packing all of the things getting ready to go? Or am I going to be calm as a cucumber and ready to move into this next stage of my life and be the mom that I've always dreamed of being? If you are struggling and having those same 1am moments, then I really suggest that you check out my conversation with Mark and Sarah. Mark and Sarah were struggling. They had been waiting for a long time. They tried several different things. They really put themselves in the driver's seat of their adoption, and within just a few short months, they brought home their baby boy. Check out this conversation with Mark and Sarah so that you can get some inspiration to stay strong in your own journey.
