Guilt is consuming you. Where you once felt sound in your judgement to place your child for adoption, you’re now regretting your decision. You always knew it would be difficult transitioning from expectant mother to birth mother. However, with your child no longer in your arms, you’re beginning to realize that nothing could have prepared you for this sense of loss.
Peaceful sleep is far from memorable, and questions continuously plague your mind. Why is this doubt beginning to creep in when I was so sure before? Am I allowed to change my mind? Why do I feel so empty inside? More and more, you convince yourself that you made the wrong decision.
Adoption Choices of Colorado wants you to know that feelings of regret, no matter the circumstances, are completely normal. Placing your child for adoption was a life-altering decision, and the weight of that choice led you to this unsafe headspace, where you’re drowning in negative emotions. While these feelings are valid, they’re also important to work through. A birth mother’s regret is nothing to take lightly. Let us help!
Remind Yourself of the Why
Everything changed when you left the hospital without your child. Now, you find it hard to conjure up an appetite. Friends and family members keep calling, but you lay in bed ignoring them. Instead, you think of your child and ask yourself the same unfair question: Why didn’t I keep my baby? You’ve sobbed the question over and over, but have you stopped to answer it?
Reminding yourself why you decided to place your child for adoption can help ease your pain. After all, it wasn’t a selfish decision. You wanted the best for your child, and you knew you couldn’t offer him or her what you envisioned. Rehearse both the pros and the cons you considered upon making your decision. Try to recall the reasons you initially thought it was right.
For example, if you set standards for how you wanted your child to be raised, you knew that, in order for those to be met, your child would have to be raised by someone other than you. When dealing with such high emotions, logic can stand as a foundation for healing. Don’t let the why get lost in your grief.
Talk It Out
If you talk with someone openly, whether it be one-on-one or in a group setting, you’ll be well on your way to coping with these feelings of regret and loss. Individuals who are able to listen without giving advice or unhelpful comfort can provide you with a safe space. One where you’ll feel comfortable voicing your deepest thoughts without fear of judgement. Whether you choose to confide in a professional, family member, friend, or other birth mother, having someone you can be candid with will prevent bottled up emotions and promote clearer reasoning.
Express all the positive and negative feelings you have, and make sure your confidante doesn’t emit false hope, for this can emote false rationalizations, anger, and self-punishment within yourself. Having the freedom to be honest about your feelings on adoption will help you understand your own thought processes and figure out what the core causes are for regretting your decision. Once you pinpoint the cause, you can learn to manage it, healing your mind and heart.
Be Gentle Yet Honest with Yourself
Many birth moms wonder if placing their children for adoption was a permanent solution to a temporary problem. In reality, choosing to place was the best way to make those temporary problems not permanent. A birth mother’s regret is the result of a profound act of love. Remind yourself of this as often as you can. Self-sacrifice doesn’t feel good; otherwise, it wouldn’t be true.
Deciding to let your child live everyday life with another family was a sacrifice. Your hormones were all geared up to be a mother, and you quite literally denied your body and mind something that it was physically and mentally prepared to do and be. If you felt happy or indifferent at the loss of your child, that would show you weren’t putting his or her best interests first, like any loving mother would.
If feelings of regret seem all-consuming, remind yourself of the circumstances you were in, not the circumstances you are in now. Where you’re at now may or may not be the same as if you had parented – but you can’t know that. As long as you did the right thing for your baby in the circumstances you were in, you didn’t make the wrong decision.
Birth Mother’s Regret
In Colorado, once an adoption is legally finalized, it becomes irrevocable. When you signed the adoption papers, you terminated your parental rights. The adoptive parents you chose are now your child’s legal parents. As a birth mother, your rights and responsibilities as a mother are no more. But, depending on the openness of your adoption, you can communicate these emotions freely with the adoptive parents. You’d be surprised how many adoptive parents are accepting of the birth mothers’ desire for involvement.
Adoption Choices of Colorado knows that being a birth mother is no easy task. It takes time to figure out how you’re going to embrace this new role and how you’re going to deal with the hard times. Try your best to take care of yourself and think of the well-being of your child. As long as he or she is safe, healthy, and happy, it’s worth it.
Adoption Choices of Colorado
For more information on adoption please contact Adoption Choices of Colorado. We can be reached via our website or phone 303-670-4401.
Support Adoption Choices
Adoption Choices, Inc. is partnering with Crowdrise, a fundraising website for nonprofits, to help our adoptive parents and birth parents with much needed financial assistance. We understand that expenses keep clients from fulfilling their dreams. Both with birth parents making a plan for adoption, and with adoptive parents growing their family. It is our mission to provide financial assistance through grants and scholarships, awarded annually in November, in honor of National Adoption Month. Funds assist adoptive parents with matching and placements, adoption finalization and helping birth mothers improve their lives through higher education — and much more.
However, we can’t do it alone. Please read up on our programs and donate money where you are able. Your donation will make a huge impact.
About the Author
Patience Bramlett, a University of Southern Mississippi news editorial graduate, is a seasoned and award-winning freelance writer. She is also a passionate reader, whose only wish is to live life without fear of the unknown. Her motivation and inspiration to live her best life stems from the words of John Lennon:
“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy.’ They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”
This year, she’s joining Adoption Choices Inc. as an Editorial Intern. Fueled by her love of family, she hopes to educate those looking to grow their families through adoption.
When Patience is not exploring Colorado with her husband, she’s drinking coffee, forever figuring out how to tame her hair, growing her library, and trying to break into the publishing career.
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Bibliography:
Merrill, Annaleece. “What to Do When You Regret Placing Your Child for Adoption.” Adoption.com, 20 Jan. 2018, adoption.com/what-to-do-when-you-regret-placing-your-child-for-adoption.
Olsen, LIndsey. “Do You Ever Regret Your Decision to Place Your Child for Adoption?” Adoption.com, 12 Apr. 2016, adoption.com/do-you-ever-regret-your-decision-to-place-your-child-for-adoption.
“‘What Does Adoption Mean to a Child?”.” American Adoptions – Once You Give a Baby Up for Adoption, Can You Get It Back?, American Adoptions, Inc, www.americanadoptions.com/pregnant/getting_your_baby_back.
Stephanie joined the Adoption Choices family in 2014 as the Child Placement Supervisor. Her love for adoption began in first grade when she made friends with twins adopted from Vietnam. Her heart grew strong over the years for adopted children and ultimately led her to graduate school where she continued her focus to her dream of working in the adoption field. Stephanie earned a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Denver in 2001. Over the past 15 years, Stephanie has worked as a pregnancy counselor and as an adoptive parent counselor for foster care, international adoption and domestic adoption, writing hundreds of home studies for families, and helping build their forever families. Stephanie is married and has three boys ages 12, 9, and 5. Together with her family she enjoys riding bike, playing games, watching her three sons compete in their various sporting and musical activities and go on vacations.
Christy Ikeler, is our Executive Director and Birth Parent Director. Christy has been with Adoption Choices Team for 18 years, since opening the doors in 2002! Christy has a true passion for what she does and her true love is working with and helping each birth parent. Whether she is up all night on the phone talking with them, taking them to doctors appointments, out for their favorite treat, providing counseling or at the hospital during labor and delivery, Christy is very involved every step of the way. She has a contagious laugh and a spunky personality that our birth moms all can bond with and relate to. As an adoptive parent herself, adoption holds a very special place in her heart and she can relate on every level with both birth parents and adoptive parents. In her free time Christy loves spending time with her daughter, gardening, baking and taking vacations with her family. Christy is an excellent leader for our team at Adoption Choices and is truly one of a kind!! As Executive Director, Christy spends time with the staff, birth parents and adoptive families in order to ensure that the agency is running smoothly. She has placed a huge emphasis on community outreach and programs for birth parents. Christy loves the opportunity to lead the agency into a brighter future.
Ms. Mackenzie has built a successful counseling career over the past 20 years, supporting mothers and families, people of all ages and genders, students, community professionals and fellow clinicians. Liv values a diverse professional focus, including the entrepreneurial life of a sole proprietor, the evaluative process of certifying foster/adoptive homes, the insightful and mindful one-on-one one work with enthusiastic clients, and serving as an advocate for underserved populations. Liv is a Licensed Professional Counselor and holds a BA in Pre-Law and Economics from American University, an MA in Counseling from Adams University and a certificate in Human Resource Management from Villanova University. Away from work you will find Liv spending time in nature, biking to the farmer’s market and adventuring with her family.
Catherine A. Madsen, joined the Adoption Choices family as legal counsel in 2013. Catherine is responsible for providing legal guidance to the Agency, training and updating staff on developments in adoption law and legislation, and program development. Catherine
Virginia Frank is an adoption attorney accredited since 1991 with the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys. Ms. Frank is a leader in the field of private adoption and has completed over 4,000 adoptions in her career. Ms. Frank has a law degree from Oklahoma City University and a BA in both Political Science and Communications from the University of Oklahoma.
Cassidie has been with Adoption Choices since 2015, she has her bachelors in Interdisciplinary Affairs with concentrations in both Sociology and Business Management. Cassidie has additional training in Victim Advocacy, foster care and has been working in women’s services for over 10 years. Cassidie has always had a heart for adoption and it was her career dream to work in adoption. She started off doing volunteer work for advocacy programs, adoption organizations and worked in High Risk Maternal Fetal Medicine through the University of Colorado Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Colorado. Cassidie is also blessed to have personally experienced an adoption of her own in 2012, completing her family of five! Cassidie loves what she does as a case worker from initial phone calls, meetings, doctor appointments, interaction with the adoptive families to delivery and counseling. Cassidie has a passion for those in need and strives to help make a difference in the lives of the people she meets. She is a firm believer in being kind, compassionate and open minded in all situations. “Unless you’ve walked in their shoes, there’s no place for judgment. A kind word or compliment can go a long way!” The bittersweet moments in adoption reminds Cassidie each and every time, why she loves what she does!