Help from Family & Friends

SUGGESTIONS FOR WAYS YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS CAN HELP YOU

What a helpless feeling it is to see someone you love and care about in such deep distress and grief from the loss of a life promised. As your friends or family members need to grieve, you also may feel grief and sadness. If you are a family member, a disrupted adoption plan is the loss of a potential member of your family, and your range of emotions may be similar to those of the couple whose adoption plan disrupted.

When someone we care about has been hurt, we often feel angry. You may feel anger and confusion about the disrupted adoption plan too. It is healthy for you to acknowledge your feelings, but it is equally important that you not add your own grief to that of your friends or family members. If you need help processing your feelings, seek other support people to allow you to express and experience your feelings. The most important role you can play now for your friends or family members is to be present for their feelings and not allow yours to become equally important.

So what can you do to help? The following list may offer some practical ways you can support a friend or family member who has experienced a disrupted adoption. This list is not exhaustive. Trust your instincts; you may instinctively know other ways to be helpful.

Be present. As your friend or family member is grieving, just be there. Don't try to fix it (you can't), and don't try to make sense of it (you can't do that, either). Just be there, maybe sitting with them, maybe just being around them in the house. It is most important that you be there.

Listen. Be prepared to listen! And, maybe to listen to the same story over and over. As difficult as it can be to listen, some people process their emotions verbally and need to talk things out. Listen, too, to what is not said, to the need possibly to be quiet, to reflect, and to pray. The important part of listening is to be able to hear more than just the spoken words and to "hear" the feelings.

Don't say that you know how they feel. You don't! Everyone experiences loss differently. Our individual personalities and life experiences give us different lenses through which we view our life experiences. A family who has experienced the grief and loss associated with infertility may feel this loss much differently than you might. That's okay. Your role is to be there and walk with them through the valley—not to carry them or set their pace on their journey.

  • Don't say, "This wasn't the one" or "There is a reason..."
  • Don't be critical of the birthfamily, agency, or adoption process. Don't say, "It was a mistake for the birthmother to spend time with the baby in the hospital..."
  • It may be true, but it doesn't help to say "This wasn't the baby that God intended for you."

Be prepared to step in and take over some daily chores. You may need to call other friends and family members for them or call their employers. You may need to help pack—but not throw away—the baby items that they have collected. You may need to intercept the mail or telephone calls or mow the lawn or provide a meal.

Help them to plan ways to remember this child.
  • Write a letter to the child, or write a journal.
  • Make a memory box with pictures, cards, and memorabilia.
  • Plant a tree.
  • Buy a garden stone.
  • Plan a healing or memorial service.