Each new year is a fresh start, and I think I know what all of my readers are hoping the new year will bring – a new addition to the family! That was definitely my wish as each new year rolled around. I would hope and pray that I would ring in the next new year with my child fast asleep in our nursery.

Do you make New Year's resolutions? I sometimes do but do not take them very seriously. I can tell you some resolutions that I never made while I was waiting to adopt:

Find a way to stop aching when spending time with friends' children Focus... more

If you are reading my blog today, you are probably looking for some emotional support. I remember how it felt to have empty arms on Christmas Day when I desperately wanted to be a mother. Even those of you who are waiting to adopt a sibling for your child still know pain, even if your arms are not empty.

Some of you are waiting to adopt children who are living in a foster home or an orphanage. I can only imagine how your heart yearns to be with your child and how it must break knowing that your child is having to spend his holiday without his forever family.... more

I spent two Christmas Eves in the "waiting to adopt" mode. The first Christmas came around about 6 months after our home study was approved. I kept hoping for a Christmas miracle in which the phone would ring, telling us that an expecting mother had chosen us to adopt her unborn baby, but that was not meant to be.

Our agency begins showing all profiles of hopeful adoptive parents to expecting mothers as soon as the home study is approved, so I had hoped that we would be matched right away. After... more

In my last post, Adoption: Does Reluctant Spouse = Reluctant Husband?, I talked about how most spouses who are reluctant to adopt tend to be husbands. However, I also pointed out that many reluctant wives never agree to adopt in the first place, which skews the ranks of the reluctant spouses, making it appear that men are more likely to be reluctant about adopting than women.

Why are some women reluctant to adopt? Some have not yet grieved the loss of experiencing... more

When couples decide to adopt, there is often one spouse who is gung ho about adopting while the other is less excited about the prospect. Of course, there are exceptions, but frequently one person is much more eager to adopt than his or her spouse.

When we talk about this phenomenon online, we often talk about the "reluctant spouse." However, with most of the adoptive and hopeful adoptive couples that I know, we are really talking about a reluctant husband. I know many adoptive mothers, and every single one of them wanted to adopt. Some of the... more

My husband and I received the call right around Thanksgiving that we were matched with a baby whose due date was right around Christmas. As you can imagine, that was one busy time. Because babies are known for coming both early and late, we had no idea when to expect our bundle of joy. And because the expecting mother would have 10 days after the baby's birth to choose to parent, we did not know whether we would be spending Christmas with our forever child or not.

We made all of the usual preparations for anyone expecting a new baby, but I was really torn about... more

When my husband and I were waiting to adopt, it was hard to decide whether to make plans in advance. On the one hand, it could take a long time to be matched with an expecting mother, so there was no point in putting our lives on hold. On the other hand, we did not want to pay a lot of money toward a vacation, only to lose our deposit if we were matched quickly.

This issue became even more of a struggle during the holiday season. Should we plan on traveling to visit family in another state for Christmas? What if we were matched at the last minute? Even worse,... more

On my post, Adoption with an Unstable Marriage, Julia from the Parenting Children With Special Needs blog posted the following comment:

Several years ago I provided respite care for a teen girl in a preadopt home. The family ended up adopting her and her younger brother. She was in their church choir, maybe she still is. The parents got divorced after the adoption. I heard today that she gave birth... more

Over on the Adoptive Parenting blog, I have kicked off a series today about adoption regrets. Over the next several posts on that blog, I will discuss various regrets that adoptive parents might have about their adoptions and provide advice about how to heal those regrets.

I strongly suggest that all hopeful adoptive parents follow that series so they can avoid making the same mistakes that other adoptive parents have made. When you are waiting to adopt a child and desperately want to become... more

In a perfect world, every couple who decided to adopt a child would have a stable marriage, and the marriage would last forever. No adopted child would ever suffer through his parents' divorce. Unfortunately, in the real world, not every couple stays together. While many adoptive couples have very solid marriages, some do not. If a marriage is teetering on the brink of dissolving, moving forward with an adoption is a bad idea.

The adoption process is very stressful, and it can rock the most stable of marriages. Once the process is completed, many marriages become... more