As I have been working through the Emotions of Adoption series, I have been focusing on the negative and painful emotions experienced by hopeful adoptive parents. One reason I chose to write this series when I did is because I knew that many of my readers were in pain as Mother’s Day approached. Now that Mother’s Day has passed, let’s turn our focus to the positive emotions in adoption for hopeful adoptive parents. One of those positive emotions is hope.

After battling infertility for three years, I decided to adopt. I endured three years of hope followed by disappointment, month after month. I finally reached a place where I accepted that my body was never going to conceive a child, no matter how hard I tried or how badly I wanted a pregnancy. Accepting this loss was a very dark time in my life.

The adoption process shined a ray of hope into my darkness. Unlike infertility treatments, in which there were no guarantees that I would ever get pregnant, adoption brought with it the certainty that I would become a mother. It might take a few months or a few years, but I knew that I would ultimately hold a child in my arms. This knowledge shined a large beacon of hope into my life — hope that I desperately needed.

When I was filled with despair during infertility treatments, my sister told me the one thing that ever offered me hope. She said, “I don’t know if it will happen through birth or adoption, but you will become a mother.” I held onto that hope with both hands. She was right. I have now been a mother through adoption for over six years. Every tear was worth it because my journey brought me to being this little boy’s mother.

After we completed the home study process, we were ready to be matched with a placing mother. The completion of the process was an exciting time. I saw it as having “conceived” my child in my heart – it was just a question of how long my child would “gestate” in my heart before I would hold him in my arms. That was a hopeful time in my life. Yes, the waiting was extremely difficult, but underlying the pain was always the hope of one day becoming a mom.

When the pain is looming large in your life, try to remember those flickers of hope that you have felt along the way. Even when you are sinking into despair, those rays of hope can break through the pain and give you the strength to keep on waiting.

Related Topics:

• Is It Me? – Hope Springs Eternal


• Emotions of Adoption Series