Joan O’Donnell, Ph.D.

 Dr. O’Donnell is a psychologist and psychoanalyst who works with men and women dealing with infertility and adoption. 

 Adopting Knowledge:      During the home study, social workers ask prospective adoptive mothers if they’ve resolved the grief of infertility. Why is this important?

 Dr. O’Donnell:     When faced with infertility, a woman needs to resolve the loss of the fantasy child within sooner and in a more concrete way than a woman who is pregnant. (Keep in mind, biological mothers go through this process in other ways: not having the girl or boy they fantasized about, not having a child who looks like them, etc.) 

 his is an extremely important process of grieving, so that the woman can decide whether the experience of mothering is or isn’t more important to her than that of having a biological child.  It is at this stage that many women first question having a child at all, rather than taking it as a given that this will happen. It is a stage where some women choose to live childfree. 

 At this point, many other women decide that mothering is more important to them, and may choose to adopt.

 AK:     A lot of us worry about whether we’ll feel like a “real” mother.

 DO:     Many adoptive mothers (and biological mothers) have concerns before becoming a mother, but the why of this is often a very individual matter related to their own history, particularly with their own mothers.  The origins of the wish to become a mother is considered to come from an internalization of the ”mothering” that the daughter received. 

Therefore, some women move into the developmental stage of mothering with more ease than others, regardless of whether their child is biological or adopted.

More often than not, I have found that adoptive mothers are amazed at how much and how quickly they feel like “real” mothers.

Mothering is an experience that comes from caring and being responsible for someone.  (“It is the time you have spent for your rose that makes your rose so important,” as The Little Prince was told). It’s a leap of faith for the pre-adoptive mother to believe this, and she may not until she has the experience.  Talking with adoptive mothers about this can help. 

AK:     And then there are people who ask, “Have you met her ‘real’ mother?”

DO:     It is usually people who have not had this experience who focus on the concept of a “real” mother, and usually they mean no harm, they just don’t know.  How the adoptive mother takes this is based on how resolved she is about coming to motherhood in the way she did. The more resolved she is, the less personally she will take this and the better able she will be to “educate.”

AK:     Any advice on how women can prepare for motherhood, while waiting to adopt?

 DO:     How to prepare during the wait can be an individual process as well.  Many women, because they have been experiencing ongoing disappointments through the infertility or adoption processes, prefer to wait before buying baby supplies and strollers.  They do need to attend to the stress and anxiety of the wait and that can be done through a combination of psychotherapy, support groups, exercise and any of the ways they have found to deal with stress in their lives. 

Family members and friends need to be sensitive and available for whatever process the individual is going through. Fathers go through their own process and need to be attended to as well.  Too often, their stress and experience has been neglected.

A CHAT WITH…

Katie Berry works with families and children in Nyack, New York

Adopting Knowledge:      If you google “Adoptive Mother,” you’ll find some scarily sentimental articles about how “special” we’re supposed to be. Why does the media idealize adoptive mothers?

Katie Berry:        We collectively–the media and culture–elevate adoptive parenting to some kind of sainthood status because there is something that feels “unnatural” about parenting a child that’s not born to your body.

There is nothing magical about being an adoptive or biological parent. The truth is, parenting is about loving, and that part is the same.

 AK:            But there are challenges unique to being an adoptive mother.

 KB:            Yes, there are. Not because your child didn’t come from your body, but because she suffered losses before she came to you. And those losses will touch her throughout her life—middle childhood, adolescence, when she marries, and when she has her own child.

We want to say it’s not different but it is different, and we are foolish if we don’t acknowledge it.

 Adopted kids come with another layer. It shouldn’t be front and center. But it’s an advantage to know it exists. There is a whole community to support you.  

 AK:            When does the difference start to manifest itself?

 KB:            In early childhood, it’s not an issue. Still, it’s good to tell your child’s story sooner rather than later. We want the words to be familiar. For younger children, adoption is an abstraction—a someone else—an unknown and unseen person who gave birth to them. In mid-childhood, between the ages of seven and ten, children understand cognitively what adoption means, and that it involves a loss.

 AK:            But no childhood is without loss. 50% of marriages end in divorce.      

 KB:            Anyone who gives birth to a child has no idea where the journey is going to take them. We all go through hills and valleys. Parenting is a challenging, difficult journey. It matters not how your child comes to you. Falling in love and loving are universal. They have nothing to do with biology or blood.

 AK:            Some adopted kids feel a greater sense of loss than others.

 KB:            Every child understands adoption in their own unique way. For some it is an uglier journey than others.

 AK:            How do you explain abuse?  Or why a child’s birthparents chose to parent two of their children, yet placed him for adoption?  

 KB:            How do you normalize something that’s so profoundly not normal? You can’t normalize it, that’s the answer.

 There are sometimes things that are unexplainable and unfair. They have no answer. You can’t make them sound good. You can just be there. We, as parents, are the safety net. We cannot take the pain away, but we can be present to help them get through it at this place in their life.  

In all the wisdom of our lives, the thing we treasure most is being seen and heard by someone who loves us.

 

A chat with…

Susan Kupferberg, LCS, Assistant Director, The Ametz Adoption Program of JCCA

Nervous about your home study? You’re not alone. Unless you’ve had one, you really don’t know what to expect.

Will the social worker fling open your closets? Peer under the bed? What kind of questions will she ask you? The week leading up to my home study, I scrubbed the floors clear into another time zone. By the morning of, I’d worked myself into a state of nerves worthy of Joe Pesci after five cups of espresso.

And guess what?

I actually enjoyed it. After submitting fingerprints, medical records and tax returns – after the FBI background check and the 40 pounds of paperwork we’d filled out, we were delighted to be treated like prospective parents. Chatting with our social worker about our background and how we planned to raise our child, reminded us of all the reasons we were adopting in the first place.

Flash forward 6 years. I called our social worker, Susan Kupferberg, who graciously allowed us to interview her.

Adopting Knowledge: Sue, did you know I spent an entire afternoon reorganizing our shelves to put the “smart” books in front?

Susan Kupferberg: And I never even looked!

AK: You didn’t open the closets either. Fortunately.

SK: Many people worry we will do that. Actually,  we’re not looking for clean closets or even perfect families. We’re looking for real families, for real children. We want to see loving parents who have the flexibility to meet a child’s needs.

AK: We didn’t even have a nursery yet. It was still just a guest room.

SK: But that’s okay. You just have to show you have room for a child, that he’ll have a bed or crib of his own and a safe space to grow, develop and explore.

One family we approved lived in a studio apartment, but they showed me how they were going to divide their space, to make room for a child.

AK: So, what do you look for in prospective parents?

SK: We want to make sure you know how having a child or adding another child to your home will change things. We will ask  how you grew up, where you grew up, your education, your relationship with your family. This gives us  a sense of the type of home and family life you bring to parenting.

We will discuss schedules and finances to make sure you have the resources to raise a child; neighborhood and community services, in case they are needed; family and social supports available to you, and whether your extended family knows about the adoption and how they feel about it.

We also have a discussion of  how you chose to build your family through adoption, including infertility treatments, if pursued.

AK: Yeah, you did ask us about that. I was a little surprised.

SK: We want to make sure you have worked through any  feelings about how you have come to parent through adoption. That you see adoption as a different way to form a family and not as “second best.”

AK: Does anyone say that kind of thing?

SK: We had one woman who told me, “If I started 25 years ago, I could’ve had a child of my own.”

AK: Oy.

SK: When you’re adopting, you have to understand, this is your child. This may not be the way you thought you would parent, but is a totally acceptable and wonderful way of forming a family.

AK: What else should prospective parents know about the home study?

SK: Withholding information is never a good idea. It’s important to be completely honest about medical, legal and financial issues from the start. If you omit something and we find out about it later, we would have to consider why you withheld the information and if there is more you are not telling us. If we know what the issue is, we can usually work a plan around it.

AK: I was worried because we have two big dogs.

SK: And I was glad you did not hide them. I actually took into consideration how you treated the dogs! It gave me a sense of your capacity to interact lovingly. Also, that you’re aware of the safety concerns, that you would never leave pets alone with children.

I also ask people how they decided to adopt domestically, or internationally. My job is to help you achieve the family you have always hoped for. Because part of our job is not just to get information, but to help prepare you for adoption. For instance, if you’re adopting a child from another culture, we can help families prepare, and work through some of the issues they might face living as a multicultural family.

AK: You also follow up, after a family adopts a child?

SK: Yes and these visits are the most fun. With post placement visits, we want to see how you are doing as a family, and be there to help and advise, if needed. It’s fun to see the difference in families. During the home study people are a bit more hesitant and afraid they will say the wrong thing. Once the kids arrive, it’s fun to see the new family adjusting and discuss how daily life has changed.

Susan C. Kupferberg, LCSW, Assistant Director, Ametz Adoption Program, JCAA.

She can be reached at kupferbergs@jccany.org