Emotions You May Experience after Placing Your Baby for Adoption as a Birth Mother
Adoption is an excellent way to handle an unplanned pregnancy, but it does come with its own challenges. The best thing you can do is research, ask questions, and educate yourself on all things adoption in order to plan and know how you can handle your adoption journey before it begins.
Placing your baby for adoption can create several varying emotions and feelings within yourself. Whether you struggle with the idea of adopting your baby or not, you may experience your own changing degrees of grief, remorse, or guilt. Like the stages of grief, you may experience a roller coaster of emotions, but not in the same order. The easiest way to handle these emotions and feelings is to expect and plan for them beforehand.
Here are the intense and valid emotions you may experience after placing your baby for adoption.
Denial/Guilt
During the adoption process, you may feel these emotions multiple times. The doubt and guilt may stem from the circumstances of being in an unplanned pregnancy. You may feel like, “This cannot be happening to me.” You may even try to force other options that are not a good fit for you because you are still in this stage of grieving.
Shortly after the denial stage, you may begin to feel guilty after the decision. It is also possible that you may feel guilt right off the bat. Both are completely natural emotions you may experience after placing your baby for adoption.
The reality is that your situation will not dramatically change. All you can do as the birth mother is plan for the safety of yourself, your child, and both of your futures. Throughout this guilt stage, allow yourself to feel. Talk to a trusted person or counselor to help you work through them. You do not have to struggle alone.
Anger/ Frustration
As a birth mother, you may also feel angry or frustrated at some point during the adoption process. Anger is a secondary emotion, and it is really covering up for the sadness and anguish you are feeling underneath. Your anger may cause you to look for people that are to blame, or you may find yourself being more irritable about things that would not bother you otherwise.
Just like denial and guilt, these are other emotions you may experience after placing your baby for adoption.
The best way to navigate your anger is to take notice. To see and understand why you are feeling what you are. If you notice that you have been more irritable lately, take the extra time to figure out why. Going that little extra mile will help you plan on your next steps.
Sadness/Depression
This stage of grief can occur even after the adoption process. After placing your baby up for adoption, you may have second thoughts after the adoption has been finalized. You may also feel like you have made the wrong decision. The easiest solution for this step is to plan and know that you did the best for your baby.
An unexpected pregnancy is difficult to deal with, so do not be afraid to talk to an adoption counselor or mental health professional to help you manage these emotions. They may also be able to provide you with resources to help you even further in your adoption journey.
Acceptance
The final stage of grief is acceptance. This will most likely occur once you have felt and worked your way through all the other emotions.
You will finally come to terms with the decision that you made for yourself and your baby. You will also realize that you made the right decision.
Handling Negative Emotions after Placing Your Baby for Adoption
It takes a very brave person to recognize and ask for help when it is needed. An unplanned pregnancy is one of the most difficult challenges many women face, so give yourself time to grieve and feel, no matter the choice or decision you make.
If you ever feel like the emotions get too strong for you, feel free to contact a mental health professional for further treatment and help to manage your feelings through the adoption process.
Adoption Choices of New York is available to assist with your adoption plan. Call us, text us, email us; we are here for you!
Contact Us 24/7: 800-505-8592 (Phone) | 518-478-8420 | Click to Email
Meet the Author: Latee Wilburn is an experienced blog/copywriter and social media marketer from the University of Georgia. She has written for many women’s lifestyle spaces, like Society19, BeautyDepot. She has also written for Adspire.us, a start-up working to inform young women in the ad/marketing industry, as well as tell the stories of the successful women before them. Her latest experience was writing and maintaining social media accounts for the true-crime community, MurderMurder News.
Her experience with writing expanded from childhood. It officially began after a creative writing course while she attended Perimeter College. The passion and love for writing quickly grew, and she began to hone her skills in social media marketing and copywriting. Fusing her two experiences to cultivate meaningful copy with an extra creative flair.
She’s currently finishing up her last year at UGA, majoring in Communications. She plans to attend graduate school to get a Master’s in Psychology and become a psychotherapist to help children and young adults with their mental well-being. Until then, she resides in her cozy reading nook in Georgia with her two dogs, Daisy & Peanut.
