The adoption wait can be an exciting, emotional, frightening, and joyful time. One thing it isn’t is predictable. Adoptions don’t usually happen in an organized, scheduled manner. Waiting to adopt is a time when you have little or no control over much of what occurs. What you do have control over is what you can do to get ready for baby before you adopt.
In today’s “Before You Adopt” series installment, we’ll be sharing about the benefits of writing in a journal or blog about adoption during your wait. Remember, you can direct your part in the adoption wait. You can’t control all the details, but you can control your response.
During your adoption wait, consider keeping a journal or blog to write about your journey. Documenting your adoption process will help keep you busy. Plus, it’ll make a great story to share with your child how excited you were for his or her arrival!
In an adoption blog, you can also educate your family about adopting a baby, and show what you’re going through during this time of waiting.
There are tons of blogging sites out there that don’t cost a thing. A few ideas include WordPress, Blogger, or LiveJournal. If blogging isn’t your cup of tea, you can also write your emotions and experiences in a journal. Many adoptive families have found this to be a wonderfully unique tool: Your Sacred Adoption: A Guided Journal of Life, Love and Memories. It’s a guided journal with spaces you fill out as you go through your adoption process. By using this memory book as a guide, it helps you record and remember this time of anticipation. Straightforward prompts serve to spark your memory to keep writing down the important experiences at every step of the way.
One of Lifetime’s adoptive mothers, Sarah, who adopted her daughter through us two years ago, shares that blogging about her adoption wait was beneficial. “For me, writing is therapeutic. I was grateful for the outlet of blogging during our adoption wait,” Sarah says.
Heidi Keefer is a Content Creator for Lifetime Adoption and has 15 years of experience in the field of adoption. An author of thousands of blog posts over the years, Heidi enjoys finding new ways to educate and captivate Lifetime’s ever-growing list of subscribers.
Heidi has a keen eye for misplaced apostrophes, comma splices, and well-turned sentences, which she has put to good use as a contributor to Lifetime’s award-winning blogs. She has written and published hundreds of adoption articles which explore the various facets of domestic infant adoption today.