There is a kind of grief that comes with adoption that isn’t always acknowledged. It’s what therapists sometimes call “ambiguous loss.” You haven’t lost your child in the way that word is usually understood. Your child is alive, and loved, and growing up in a family.
And yet there is something profound that you will grieve including the relationship you imagined, the milestones you won’t witness in the same way, the mother you might have been in different circumstances.
This grief is real. It deserves to be taken seriously, even when the people around you don’t quite understand it. Even when you yourself struggle to name it.
The goal isn’t to stop grieving. The goal is to grieve with support, allowing yourself to feel the loss without letting it consume you, and over time, to gradually make space for healing and the life that continues alongside your grief.
One of the best things you can do before placement is build your support plan for after. Here’s what that can look like:
1. Commit to Post-Placement Counseling
If you’re making an adoption plan with an agency, ask your adoption specialist about scheduling post-placement counseling sessions directly through the agency. Adoption Advocates, for example, offers ongoing support to birth mothers including counseling that continues long after placement, at no cost to you. This kind of agency-provided support is specifically tailored to adoption grief, which is meaningfully different from other kinds of loss.
2. Build Your Support Network
Professional counseling is important but so is having at least one or two people in your personal life who know what you’re going through. This doesn’t have to be a big disclosure to everyone you know. It might just mean telling one trusted friend or family member: “I’m going through something hard and I may need you to check on me.”
Some birth mothers connect with other birth mothers through open adoption communities online. These are women who truly understand the experience from the inside. If this appeals to you, ask your adoption counselor about resources. There are private, moderated communities where birth mothers share honestly and support one another.
The goal is to grieve with support, allowing yourself to feel the loss without letting it consume you.
3. Start a Memory Box
Ask your adoption specialist or health care team about keeping mementos from the birth: a sonogram, a hospital bracelet, a footprint card, a photo taken in those first hours.
You don’t have to display these things. You don’t have to do anything with them right now. But having something tangible, something that says this happened, and it was real, and it mattered can be important to your healing.
4. Know What to Expect With Post-Partum Recovery
The postpartum period is physically demanding under any circumstances. After placement, you’ll be navigating a body that is recovering from birth while simultaneously processing grief.
During one of your prenatal visits, talk to your OB about how to handle the post-partum period. Know how to handle it when your milk comes in, and what to expect with changing hormones. The physical aspect is an often-overlooked physical aspect of grief that can be unexpectedly difficult, and your doctor can help you be prepared.
5. Prepare for Triggers
Some birth mothers are surprised by the things that hit them hard: a stranger’s newborn at the grocery store. A pregnancy announcement from a friend. The smell of a hospital. A song that was playing during labor.
Triggers are not a sign that you made the wrong decision. They’re a sign that you loved your child, and that love doesn’t just stop.
If you can anticipate some of them ahead of time and have a plan for what you’ll do when they hit (text a friend, call your counselor, give yourself permission to leave a situation) — you’ll be better prepared than if they catch you completely off guard.
6. Give Yourself a Timeline, Not a Deadline
There is no “should be over it by now” with adoption grief. Some women feel relatively okay in the weeks after placement and are blindsided by a wave of grief months later, triggered by a due date anniversary, a holiday, or nothing at all. Others feel the weight immediately and gradually find their footing.
What you need is not a timeline for when you should be healed. What you need is a plan for ongoing support including people, resources, and coping strategies that will be available to you not just in the first two weeks, but six months from now, a year from now, and beyond.
Adoption Advocates offers lifelong counseling to our clients. If you are struggling with post-placement grief, please reach out to us for help. We’re here for you, no matter how long it’s been since your placement.
