The Importance of Counseling in Adoption

Choosing to place a child for adoption can become an emotional roller coaster for an expectant parent. Anxiety, fear, hope, gratitude, relief, grief, loss – just to name a few. Unfortunately, it’s not a ride they get to exit after signing the relinquishment paperwork. The emotions of placing a child remain with birth parents for the rest of their lives. This is why counseling is a crucial component of the work Adoption Advocates does with expectant parents.

As adoption professionals, we care about our clients’ mental health and well-being. We want them to make choices and take actions that are right for them, even if that ends up not being adoption. This can only happen if they are aware of their current feelings, know what emotions – like grief – are likely to come, and actively work to process them.

Goals of Counseling

We start counseling as soon as we start working with an expectant or new parent considering adoption.

Informed Decision-Making

To make an informed decision, one must research the options available and become educated about each. For most pregnant women in Texas, her options are going to be parenting or adoption.

Our primary role as an adoption agency is to help women explore adoption. Still, we know it’s not right for every situation. That’s why exploring her alternatives is one of the first discussions we have. We can talk about what adoption *and* parenting would look like, so she can weigh the pros and cons of each on her own.

Adoption Education

Adoption has come a long way in the past few decades. Today’s modern adoption plans are nothing like the hushed secrets of the Baby Scoop Era, and most differ wildly from what we see in movies and on TV.
For an expectant parent, making an adoption plan means making a series of choices. So, it’s important not only to understand what those choices are but also what they mean and their impact on both the expectant parent and the adoptee. This can include everything from the level of openness she wants to the decisions she makes at the hospital.

Grief Preparation

Knowing that adoption placement will trigger feelings of grief and loss is one thing. Actually experiencing it is different. Everything becomes so much more real after a mother has delivered her baby, and the emotions can be extremely intense. It’s easy to become overwhelmed by them. An adoption specialist will explore the expectant parent’s past experiences with grief, to learn about how she may process it. Together, they will figure out what coping mechanisms may work best for her, so she is prepared at relinquishment.

Having a safe space to process these emotions, and someone who understands, are also important. Many women explore adoption because they lack a support system to help them raise a child – which means they are also left on their own to navigate their grief. Having an experienced professional by their side can help them process their feelings healthier and more effectively.

When evaluating adoption agencies to refer clients to, ask about their expectant parent counseling practices. Ethical adoption agencies should include grief counseling as part of the pre-adoption work with clients. And because grief tends to come in waves, agencies should also offer lifelong adoption counseling to birth parents.

Not Just for Expectant Parents

Adoptive parents benefit from counseling throughout the adoption process as well.
Many adoptive families are choosing to pursue adoption because of infertility. And while adoption can be a great solution for becoming parents, it’s not a magical healing balm that takes away the pain of infertility. The only thing that can do that is processing the grief and loss of not being able to conceive or carry a child.
Without processing infertility grief, some parents may feel like adoption is second-best or a backup plan. No child deserves to feel like they were “settled for” or were a second choice. So, we recommend all clients engage in counseling to aid them through the ups and downs of the process.