In my last two posts I have written about fears that some adoptive parents have about their adoption travel, and then gave some tips on making your adoption trip less intimidating.

In this post, I am going to give suggestions to make it easier to leave children at home while you travel for your adoption.

-Try to keep things in perspective. Your children at home will miss you and may be sad at times while you are gone, but the time you are gone is going to be just a tiny sliver of their lives. I always get to dreading it right before we go, and I always try to remind myself that before I know it, I will be back home and everyone will be settled back in and it will be like I never left. (It really happens that way!)

-I always told myself that when we were traveling to get one of our children and leaving others behind, that we were going to the child who needed us the most at that moment. Parents of more than one child can’t always be there every second for every child, and sometimes, it comes down to who needs you most. When Marcus was a baby and was in the hospital, I was gone with him a lot for appointments, surgeries and hospitalizations. I hated being away from my other kids, but he needed me the most.

When we’ve traveled to get our children in Vietnam, South Carolina and Ethiopia, it was very difficult to be away from home, but again, our kids that were far away, alone…without parents or a home or a family…they needed us the most. They needed us to come and get them.

-Plan fun things for your children for while you are gone. Some parents leave little presents for them to open each day…others plan fun little activities. Knowing your children are having fun will make you feel better.

-Find someone you know, love and trust to watch your kids, or several people. We have had to “divide and conquer” and split our kids up when we’ve traveled, and it has worked well. We’ve chosen family members and close friends that we knew would take wonderful care of our children, and we knew our children would have fun staying with. So we missed them, but we weren’t worried about them.

-Set up a way for you to communicate with your kids back at home. When I was “stuck” in Ethiopia with Belane, being able to talk to the kids on the phone, even just for a minute, was a huge pick me up for me and for them.

-Be prepared. Sign a temporary guardian letter for whoever you leave your children with (in case of need of medical attention or something needing to be handled at the school). Leave doctor and dentist numbers, insurance cards, etc. Prepare a will (not to be morbid, but to be responisble and well prepared).

-If you can afford it financially, you can consider taking your children with you. Take into consideration whether or not they are good travelers, if they are picky eaters, how they handle changes, how they handle being around strangers, etc. and really look at whether or not it would be a good choice to bring them. I know families that this has worked very well for, and I know families that tried this and wished they hadn’t.

-Consider only having one parent travel. We have also done this. It was tough, and we still regret not finding a way to have Josh go to Vietnam with me, but at the time it was what we had to do. Josh got paid by the hour and we couldn’t afford for him to miss work, plus we had three very young kids at home that we felt needed at least one of us around. If one parent does travel alone, try to find someone to travel with you. The trip is typically long and emotional, and can be difficult to handle it all without some help. (Doable…but tough!)

-And remember….if you do have to leave your kids at home…I promise it will be harder on you than it will be on them. You will feel sad and guilty and awful and will miss them something terrible, and although they will have their moments of missing you and being sad, most likely they will have a fun week doing new things with friends or family and will do just great.

For more tips on your adoption travel…

Check out the posts in my travel tips category

Visit Adoption.com’s awesome Adoption Travel page… it is chock full of awesome articles, tips and resources.