Infant Adoption Podcast: How to Unlock HOPE With an Adoption Support Community

The adoptive families I work with are asked to search out helpful information, websites, books, support groups and podcasts and share what they have learned. I will be posting these helpful resources and comments regularly on my blogs.

The following is one shared recently by a waiting adoptive couple:

“We came across a new Podcast from one of our favorite resources, “Infant Adoption Podcast”. This episode is titled “How to Unlock HOPE With an infant Adoption Support Community”.

In the podcast, he focuses on the top 5 reasons why a great adoption support community will help you go through the infant adoption process:

Quickly find out where/how to get started
Talk to people who “get” it
You get a regular source of encouragement, inspiration, and accountability
You get a great place to learn
You can form small groups inside of that community that help maintain a connection

We were quite inspired to join a community like this and joined a Facebook group that they have set up online. People can find this group by going to their website).

A few other take a ways aside from the 5 main points he addressed was that these groups are special because it’s a group that share the same hope and talk the same language which creates a bond within a people very quickly. We love the concept that it’s important to be able to talk to other who “get it” and share experiences with one another to support each other. Although we love our friends and the support that they offer, there is truly something unique about having support from those who have gone through or are going through the adoption journey.

Thanks again for everything you do! Praying for you and the agency!”

I don’t think there can be anything more important than becoming a part of a support community no matter what challenge you are facing. To be able to talk to someone who understands and can reassure or empathize with you can be stabilizing. It also allows a realistic look at whether what you are feeling, and thinking are normally experienced by others.

It is not unusual to feel isolated, anxious, and frustrated while going through the waiting process of infant adoption. I realize that generalizations don’t always apply. This is just what I have frequently seen from the grieving and acceptance process couples who come to see me, are experiencing.

Men and women generally process and express their emotions differently. Men tend to hold in and compartmentalize different aspects of their lives, separating their emotions from work, recreation, friends, and family, etc. Often men will cope by overworking, drinking, self-medicating, working out, hanging out with their friends, or finding a hobby to keep them busy so they won’t have to talk to their wives and be pulled into an emotional conversation. No one may ever know what the man is going through. They may become angry when their wife wants to talk about her emotions. It is in men’s nature to feel the responsibility to fix whatever is wrong, especially if they see their wife is grieving or hurt. Every resource has been exhausted with doctors, supplements, yoga, and all types of suggestions by friends and family and there is nothing left to do. Finances may also be depleted by these efforts, yet nothing has worked. Men can feel helpless and frustrated because they can’t “fix it”. This is when adoption is the only alternative left to realize the dream of becoming parents.

Women will more frequently let their sadness carry into every area of their daily activities, with break through crying, a short temper and depression. Women will also, often self-medicate with alcohol, prescription drugs and even food. They may withdraw and feel alone because everyone else is having babies, their husband will not talk about his feelings and doesn’t want to hear theirs. They may feel that talking about their inability to have a family won’t change anything and no one else understands anyway. If a woman is not able to be heard and understood by those closest to her, she will begin to refuse phone calls or avoid friends and family gatherings.

Once the decision has been made to adopt, a sense of hope and anticipation is restored. There is something in the prospective adoptive family’s control. Something they can do. There is the search to find the right agency, the application process, the home study, and creation of the photo album. And then, nothing left to do but wait.

In a support group you are with people who may be further into the process of waiting and can give advice, understanding, and suggestions of what has worked for them. It can often be helpful to have someone who has been there be able to say, “I know what you are feeling”, even if there isn’t a solution. It can also be healing to help another person who has just started going through the adoption process. When a family is successful and can share that they have the child they been waiting for; this can be encouraging and feel like there is hope at the end of this journey.

The (infantadoptionguide.com) seems like helpful resource that I am happy is out there for waiting adoptive couples