On my post, Avoiding Adoption Regrets, a reader posting the following comment:

One question that I have about parents interested in adopting is wondering if they are so much in a 'courtship' phase that they cannot hear what anyone tells them. Does it matter how firm their social worker is asking them questions about what they can and cannot handle? What is it that makes a difference for pre-adoptive parents to help them get into a good space where they can make the best decisions that may prevent some remorse and regrets? – Rebrev from Avoiding Adoption Regrets

These are some great questions!

I was a starry-eyed hopeful adoptive parent. I saw adoption as the light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel of trying to become a parent. I just knew that everything was going to work out in a particular way. Adoption was going to be a good "fix" for all – a "fix" for an expecting mother to have a married couple raise her baby, and a "fix" for us to have a baby to love.

In addition, I brought along a filter of my own expectations of what adoption was like. Television and movie characters whose lives were affected by adoption shaped those expectations. I assumed we would adopt the next baby on the list and was surprised at the level of involvement that an expecting mother would have, including choosing the adoptive family.

I became angry when the social worker talked about the grief involved in adoption. I did not want to hear that there was any grief. I wanted to hear that everyone would be happy because our "problems" were now "fixed." Also, I would love the baby enough so that he would feel no grief.

What broke through my filters was educating myself. In areas in which I was completely closed-minded, the social worker required me to read some books on the subject. She also insisted that I talk with some adoptive parents who had adopted through the agency. Talking with an adoptive mother accomplished more to break down the filters and help me "hear" what the social worker was saying than any other method.

The adoptive mother had been where I was. She had worked through the same issues. While I saw a birthmother as a woman who could come back unannounced years later and blow the lid off my child's life, the adoptive mother focused on the level of gratitude she felt toward the woman who enabled her to become a mother. She told me that I would feel differently after meeting the expecting mother, and she was right. When I met my son's then-expecting mother, I realized that adoption was not about "fixing" a problem, and his birthmother would not be "the competition."

I have frequently posted that hopeful adoptive parents need to do all they can to educate themselves about every aspect of adoption, from level of openness to health risks. Some readers misunderstand my comments about educating yourself to mean that I find anyone who disagrees with my choices to be "uneducated." This could not be further from the truth.

Each family has a different set of needs, so different types of adoption will be a better match for each family. Some people fully educate themselves about the options and still wind up making the same choices, which is great because they know that their decisions are the right ones for their families. However, some people, like me, dig in their heels about the known and refuse even to consider the unknown. As a result, I wound up regretting some of my decisions, which is why I wrote the series on regrets on the Adoptive Parenting blog.

When I was going through the adoption process, I saw the social worker sort of like the "enemy" because she had the power to prevent me from adopting. So, I was not open to much education from her. However, talking with another woman who had been in my shoes was powerful because she understood where I was coming from and where I was going. So, I believe that talking with "been there, done that" adoptive parents is the best way to remove some of those filters and make a better and more informed choice about your adoption.

Photo Credit: Lynda Bernhardt