I cannot stress strongly enough the importance of grieving your losses in adoption. There is a lot to grieve as a hopeful adoptive parent. If you come to the adoption process through infertility, you need to grieve the loss of the child who would have had your nose and your husband’s eyes. You also need to grieve experiencing pregnancy – an experience that most women have. Adoption cures childlessness, NOT infertility. All of these losses need to be grieved.

There are other areas of adoption to grieve that are more subtle.... more

When we were going through our home study, the social worker told us that adoption involves grief for all members of the adoption triad. I did not want to hear this, and I did not believe it. I could understand how the birthmother could grieve the loss of her birthchild, but I could not understand how I or the child could possibly experience grief. We would have each other, and there would be nothing to grieve. I now realize just how wrong I was.

The birthmother’s grief is obvious. Her baby... more

For those of you who are adopting after infertility, have you actively grieved the loss of your fertility? I used to believe that this was not necessary because I became a mother through adoption. I have learned that becoming a mother is not the same thing as overcoming infertility. Adoption cures childlessness, NOT infertility.

Alison Kathleen Whitney wrote the best description of infertility that I have ever read in a story entitled A... more