When an Adoption Falls Through

No adoption is 100% certain until it's done- I say that to the families I work with all the time, but for most of the families I work with, their adoption is pretty certain; something crazy, out of the norm would have to happen for it to fall through.

Sometimes crazy, out of the norm things happen.

Most of our friends and family knew we were adopting, but if you're reading this and you didn't know, let me catch you up. Geoff and I had talked about adoption since before we were engaged; working in adoption it was obviously something close to my heart, and Geoff was on board essentially from the first time we talked about it. So when we decided we wanted to have kids, adoption was Plan A. We began our homestudy, the first step of any adoption, planning to adopt internationally. I could write a whole other post on why we chose international (and maybe I will write it), but long story short, we decided easing in to parenting with a younger child was best for us and any child we cared for, and most young children in foster care are not legally free for adoption. Internationally, many young children wait for an adoptive family because they have special needs- medical or developmental diagnoses, something we were very comfortable with.

However, partway through our homestudy, our agency contacted us because there was a little boy here in the US that they were searching for a family for, and it would be an adoptive placement. "S" was almost five years old, and after a lot of thought and prayer it was a pretty quick decision to say yes. We changed our homestudy and quickly rushed through the paperwork needed to adopt him. All the social workers involved in his case were in favor of him being placed with us for adoption. Everyone wanted it to move as quickly as possible and so we rushed to get ready for him, much sooner that we were expecting to actually have a child. Our friends were so sweet and threw us a shower, we put together a twin bed and bookshelf, researched preschools and indoor playgrounds and read about parenting children from trauma and the neuroscience of a child's brain. Everything was moving towards us adopting him- until suddenly it wasn't.

I can't explain what happened without delving into his long backstory, a story that isn't mine to tell. Long story short, suddenly the adoption that seemed so sure was actually very unsure, and after two painful, uncertain months, it was not going to happen at all. To say we were stunned was an understatement. We were heartbroken.

Our adoption falling apart was like a slow train wreck. The train crashed, then it rolled off the tracks, then when you thought it had stopped rolling, it rolled further, fell off a cliff, and then burst into flames. It was undoubtedly one of the most painful seasons either of us had experienced, and certainly the most painful we had been through together. A friend compared it to a miscarriage, and while I don't want to claim they are the same- they're not, and I can't imagine the pain of a child who is physically growing inside you being ripped away- there are obvious parallels. We'd been preparing for and falling in love with this child, and it was like he was suddenly gone.

If you know someone who has an adoption that doesn't go through for some reason, there are a few ways to support them:

1. Ask if they want to talk: Grief and pain make people uncomfortable. I know I am totally guilty of avoiding people who have suffered a loss because I don't know what to say. Just say "I'm sorry you went through this. Do you want to talk about it? It's ok if you don't." They may say they don't want to talk about it- honestly, Geoff and I mostly don't, but I still appreciate people who have asked.

2. Invite them to do things: I get it, sad people are not fun, but they aren't going to get less sad crying in their house. Invite them to do things in the human world. They might say no at first- keep asking now and then.

3. Encourage them if they want to try again: it might seem insane to you to try to adopt again after that pain, but if they choose to try again, just be supportive. They know there is a risk of things falling through again, so they don't need you to be Debbie Downer and remind them. I know it might seem weird to celebrate again after what happened, but if they are trying again they are trying to hope, and having people hope with you is the best thing.

It's a natural human response to search for meaning in painful situations. I can come up with reasons why things happened they way they did for us, things we needed to learn or time that needed to go by for things to work out a certain way. It's harder to find the meaning in it for S. I can think of possible reasons, but ultimately they all leave me dissatisfied. It's hard to feel things worked out for the best for him, but maybe they did. Maybe we would have been bad parents for him- I'm not so full of myself that I think we are the best possible parents. All I can do is pray that he is well and loved. The story doesn't end here for us, and it doesn't end here for S either.

Geoff and I aren't giving up on adoption. We'll go back to international adoption like we planned, and are adopting from India. It will be a lot longer before we bring our child home, but we are so excited and hopeful to move forward, even as we grieve over S. Adoption is always born out of loss for a child, and maybe this experience will give us more empathy for our child. All we can do is move forward.

“Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. When there's a big disappointment, we don't know if that's the end of the story. It may just be the beginning of a great adventure. Life is like that. We don't know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don't know.”
― Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart