The Waiting Game

By Lisa Lovett, MSW

Whether you are waiting for a match with a birthmother, a referral or a travel date, here are some helpful suggestions about what to do with your time.

The journey to adoptive parenthood is peppered with waiting. The average wait from initial application to a child in your home is approximately fifteen months. During these months there are flurries of activity: filling out the initial application to WHFC, meetings with a social worker, the gathering of documents, trips to be fingerprinted, packing the suitcase, reading the travel guide, and, in some cases, traveling for a first trip to the country. Far harder is the time when there is nothing to do, the time when all you can do is wait.

Local Waiting Family Support Groups

Many WHFC clients have found the wait easier with the help of a Waiting Family Group. These groups are open to families after their homestudy is completed and up until their child comes home. All of the groups are facilitated by adoptive parents and in some regions they are co-facilitated by a WHFC social worker. These groups are one place where everyone in the room speaks the language of adoption.

Since March, I have had the honor of being a part of the Massachusetts Waiting Family Group. My co-facilitator, Betsy Abbott, adopted her son from Korea twelve years ago and her daughter from China two years later. She started the Waiting Family Group four years ago because she knows how important support from other adoptive families can be, both during the process and in the years of raising children. Her stories of her own wonderful family, gives the group a lovely window into their future as adoptive families.

Debbie McGungan, an adoptive parent and a facilitator for the Connecticut group says the Waiting Family Group gives families the opportunity to see the progress of families at different points in the process. She says that before a family's adoption they are "always looking for something to hold on to; some proof that it is going to happen". Seeing families come and then leave the group when their children come home provides the needed reassurance that their moment is coming.

Although waiting is hard, the Waiting Family Group is often a boisterous, funny place. Topics run the gamut from how do you politely tell your co-workers to stop the inquisition, what yahoo groups have the best information, and when is the ideal time to break down and decorate the baby's room. Last month, an adoptive mother told the story of standing in the check out line with two full carts of start-up baby supplies and seeing the clerk look back and forth from the cart to her and finally ask if she was going to a baby shower. Another prospective parent talked of buying a car seat and the salesperson's confusion when she didn't know how much her child weighed.

Waiting Family Group is always a place of stories. Even before the meeting officially begins, greetings are full of information: about programs, where families are in the process, where they live and whether this is their first time at a waiting group. The time-limited nature of the group means that families come and go and the veteran waiting group members are always happy to meet the next group of new families. Eventually everybody gets to play the role of "experienced waiting parent".

Waits in international adoption are not always smooth and predictable. Even small ripples like suddenly needing a new document or referrals slowing down a month, can be disappointing to a family that is anxiously waiting for the special day. Larger bumps in the road, like threats of a program closing or a much longer wait than a client expected, can be devastating. Bruce and Joanne Preston, from Massachusetts, are awaiting the referral of their second daughter from China. They had this to say about the support of the group during their first process "When one person was struggling with the wait or other pressures, the group inevitably stepped in to buoy spirits. For ourselves, we felt cherished by our waiting family friends during the sudden halt in adoption activities due to SARS [in China]."

Other Waiting Connections

What can you do if there is not a Waiting Family group in your area? First, the support of other pre-adoptive parents is still critical and can be found through email or phone connections. Some parents find that it is helpful to focus on other aspects of their lives. You might choose to plan your very last child-free vacation or eat out at all the restaurants where you wouldn't dare bring an infant. You can take a class in something unrelated to adoption or take a class in your child's birth language. Your wait certainly won't be long enough to be fluent in Mandarin, but it could make time fly. Many adoptive parents write a journal about their process or letters to their child, a child who is often already living somewhere in the world and waiting to come home.

Support From Your Social Worker

Always feel free to call your social worker. Last winter, a lovely client of mine was desperate for her long awaited referral from Guatemala. One day, the WHFC office was closed due to a snow storm. I called this client from home and found that she was quite distraught. She was imagining her child's photo waiting there in an unopened envelope. I couldn't do anything about the weather or the referral, but it was my role at the moment to listen to her and be a witness to how hard it was to wait. Just as it was my role to meet with her and her husband and share their joy as they looked at the first photo of their beautiful baby boy and my role this August to see him home in their arms. At this moment, when a parent holds their child for the first time, the memories of even the most difficult wait begin to fade away.

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