In my last few posts I wrote about some of the many emotions that adoptive parents often feel while going through the adoption process. Today I am going to discuss some of the emotions that are common for adoptive parents to experience when their child is first placed with them.

Being united with a new child is a joyful event. It is also a very emotionally charged event. Sometimes, along with being joyful, it is stressful, sad, challenging, scary and many other things.

I write a lot about how to handle (and survive) all of the waiting involved in adoption. During all of that waiting, adoptive parents can't help but imagine what it is going to feel like and be like when they finally have their child in their arms.

Unfortunately, things do not always go as adoptive parents imagine. Sometimes children are very scared of their new parents. Adoptive parents have had the benefit of months of staring at pictures and bonding in their minds and hearts to this new child, and they also have the emotional and developmental abilities to understand what is going on. For a child, even if they have been shown pictures of their new parents, more than likely those new parents are going to feel like strangers to them. Some kids certainly do go right to their new parents happily, but many cry, scream, yell, run away or otherwise show their fear and uncertainty.

It is also common for health issues to emotionally complicate those early minutes, hours and days together with your new child. Parenting a sick child is always stressful, and parenting a new sick child can be highly stressful. Sometimes children merely have the typical orphanage colds that tend to go around, however ear infections, parasites and/or other digestive issues and more rarely, serious previously undiagnosed special needs can all make things challenging.

I know many adoptive parents who have had to deal with explosive diarrhea in their first days with their new baby or toddler. Let's just say, that is not fun.

There are also those "icky things" about international adoption that can be a challenge. Lice, scabies, ringworm, giardia and other "ickies" can dampen the fun of early days with a new child.

Since most adoptions these days involve travel, it is also common for your first encounters and experiences with your new child to be in unfamiliar settings. Travel all by itself is exhausting, and parenting a new child in new surroundings can be tough. While it was challenging for me to be a mom to a newborn when I was stuck in a hotel in South Carolina instead of being home, it was really challenging to be a new parent to a baby in a hotel in Vietnam and in Ethiopia.

It is very normal for adoptive parents to find that the instant love they thought that they would have for their new child is not there. Sometimes this new little person that is your child, doesn't feel a whole lot like your child at first. They don't look, feel or smell familiar. They can have challenging behaviors. They can outright reject you. It is normal to think, "What have we done?" and wonder if you will come to love this child as your own. It is also normal to wonder if your child is going to come to love you.

It is normal to feel nervous. It is normal to feel scared. It is normal to feel exhausted. It is normal to feel overwhelmed. It is also normal to be completely thrilled, walking on air and over the moon in love. Everything in between panicked and thrilled is normal, too.

In my next post I will share some tips on how to make your first meeting and first days together with your child as smooth as possible.




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