What will be different? (Life after baby comes)

This is quite a tricky post to write, because we certainly are not at this stage yet! (Hopefully soon, though!) After we come home with our little one, what happens then? And what happens before then? How will parenting an adopted child be different? Of course, I can only go by what we have learned. But our teachers have had years of experience in adoptions, so I know they know.. :)

Once we are done with our homestudy and more paperwork we will be "in the book" - meaning that our picture profile will be shown to prospective birth parents whose wishes for an adoptive family will be compatible with us (and vice versa). Then comes the waiting... we could get a call a week or two after being in the book or it could be a year or two. (This will be a hard waiting time for us!!) Finally a phone call!! It could be that the birth mother has picked us out of the book and we will have meetings with her before the birth of the baby. OR it could be the social worker saying that there is a baby at the hospital that, for whatever reason, the birth mother has chosen not to parent. As you can see, once we are "in the book" we need to be ready for anything! :)


So after the baby is born, what? (you ask...) :) State laws require that the birth mother wait 48 hours before signing a relinquishment. After that, and other paperwork for us, we will most likely have an entrustment ceremony (more about that here). Then we come home with our new little one!

Life with a newborn for us won't be much different than for any other new parents. Obviously, I won't be recovering from birth, but we will probably be rather quiet for a few days or weeks. Mark and I will be taking this special time to bond with our new little one. Most parents have nine months in which to bond with their baby, but we will have just met! 

Don't be surprised if we are not too willing to share "holding rights." And if you are holding our little one and he (or she) starts to fuss, don't be surprised as we reach for him. Many first time parents aren't too willing to share anyway, but we have a double reason. We need our baby to learn to need us. We need to establish with our little one that we will be there for him and we will meet his needs. (You can read a bit more about bonding and attachment here.) So for the first several weeks we will be pretty exclusive. (Sorry, Grandma's!) :)  And I will be a baby wearing mama - one of these is pretty high on my to-get list! :) (update: I have it! and I've already tried it out on a friend's baby - works great!) :)

 There is also a process of grief in an adoption. We may experience some grief for the birth mother who is going though grief of her own. In our happiness to have our child, we won't easily forget what she has lost - that constant presence, care, and love of the child she carried.

At about six months, the adoption should be finalized in court. At this point our child will be officially our child in the eyes of the law. Until then they are under the guardianship of our adoption agency, and we are the caregivers. (A little more on this in next week's post.)

As we raise our child, we will be making sure that he knows his story. One adoptive mother did a picture scrapbook for her little boy that told (in simple language) his story. I love this idea and plan on doing it for our child. I firmly believe that it is important for our child to know his background. Adoption won't be a secret from him. In time, he may go through his own time of grieving, but this is normal. We will support him and love him as he matures into the knowledge of who he is and understands his unique story. (more on a child's understanding of adoption here.)


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Whew! I think that was the longest post yet! Thanks for hanging with me! There is a lot of ground to cover, and I'm afraid I just barely skimmed the surface. There is so much more even I don't know yet!! (I feel rather ill-equipped to write these posts, but maybe you've learned some from the little I know.) This just about wraps up my special adoption posts. One more Tuesday in November - I'll be answering questions so please don't hesitate to ask me! :)