Find insight and advice when your family doesn’t support your adoption decision
If you are an expectant mother considering adoption, fear about sharing your decision with your loved ones might be one of your greatest barriers right now. What if your family doesn’t support your adoption plan? What if they become angry, disappointed or try to change your mind?
Our Texas adoption agency frequently guides women through these common fears. Here, we will share some of our insights from our decades of experience supporting women through their adoption decision.
Why your family doesn’t support your adoption plan … yet
It is normal for family members to have strong feelings about your adoption decision. They may respond to your news with lots of questions, doubts, tears and even anger. Our Texas adoption professionals have found that in nearly every instance, these reactions are based on concern for you and the fear of the unknown.
Your family is most likely worried for your wellbeing. They want to protect you from sadness, grief and regret. Perhaps your family doesn’t support your adoption because they are concerned that you are making a rash decision or being taken advantage of. Their heightened emotions are a result of their protective feelings over you.
We also find that families still fear the adoptions of yesteryear. In past decades, adoption was clouded in secrecy. Your parents or grandparents might be imagining the days when agencies chose the child’s adoptive parents, not the birth mother. This had enormously detrimental effects on everyone involved, so it is hardly ever practiced anymore.
Advice for coping with family during your adoption
The social workers at our Texas adoption agency encourage our expectant mothers to take their time with their decision. We can answer their questions and provide resources for as long as they need. By the time they tell their loved ones, they are at peace with their decision.
When your family doesn’t support your adoption plan, it is often due to misunderstandings about the topic. It helps to inform them about modern adoption practices.
- In modern adoptions, the birth mother chooses her child’s parents.
- The birth mother creates her own hospital plan, including the details around delivery and postpartum visits.
- The birth mother determines how she will get to know the adoptive parents before her child is born.
- Adoptive parents are strongly encouraged to stay in touch with the birth mother after the adoption. This includes exchanging letters, pictures, emails, phone calls or following each other on social media. Many families even visit throughout the years.
Extensive research has found that knowing who their birth parents are leads to better adjusted adoptees. In fact, most adolescent adoptees today report feelings of admiration and gratitude towards their birth mother.
If you are worried that your family won’t support your adoption decision, our adoption professionals can help. Give us a call at (817) 784-7641 and we can start working together today.
