Dealing With Anger And Hopelessness After Placing Your Child For Adoption

As a birth parent, you may encounter feelings of hopelessness and anger directly after your baby’s birth. You might feel anger towards yourself, or even your baby. Keeping a journal throughout your pregnancy will help you address your feelings early on. Write down your thoughts about keeping your baby and your thoughts about finding your baby an adoptive family. Keep this journal throughout your adoption experience; it will be helpful to read after you have placed your baby in a loving home. For a birth father, a journal will also help you come to terms with the decision you and your baby’s mother have come to.

Reading your thoughts and your daily feelings about placing your child for adoption can help remind you of the plan you made. You decided adoption was right for you. You did not come to this decision lightly, but your feelings anger and depression can still be upsetting to you. The greatest gift you can give your child is a happy, loving home. Yet even after you have done just that you may be consumed by feelings of anger and hopelessness. Your head may be telling you that you did the right thing but your heart is in so much pain. How do you work through those feelings of anger, despair, and hopelessness?

Acknowledging your feelings will help you cope with them. Unresolved anger can affect your whole body. You may not be sleeping well and feeling tired constantly. Finding someone to talk to will help you vent your feelings in a safe and healthy way.

You need to have an outlet for all your feelings because unresolved frustration can start to form a wall around you. This wall will begin to affect you and those around you and it will be hard to you to see the good in life. You don’t have to find a counselor to talk to, just find someone who can listen to you; maybe a priest, clergyman, your family, friends, or possibly a support group if there is one in your area. Just find someone you can trust. Your adoption coordinator can also be a resource and help you find peace.

Lastly, remember that you have made the right choice for you and for your baby. You have done what many wish they could do; you found the best most loving family to raise a child that you couldn’t at this time in your life.

This is a selfless, wonderful act that you should be proud of. By writing down your feelings throughout the adoption process, you are giving yourself a reference point to always look back on. When you feel anger and hopelessness overwhelming you, just look back at your journal and all your thoughts and feelings that helped you form your decision. Those words can be a comfort to you as you confront your decision and come to terms with your feelings. Finding someone to talk to will also help you work through your unresolved feelings of anger and hopelessness.