The Long Wait To Celebrate: Adoption and Mother's Day

Mother’s Day. It’s an occasion for celebrating moms, but what if you’re not one . . . yet? What if you want to be, but are stuck waiting for an adoption process you don’t control, to deliver what you want most of all?

Mom-in-waiting Leah T. from Ontario explains her work as a gift-store manager means a huge focus on Mother’s Day, and she reminds clients to include pregnant women.

“I do consider myself to be an expectant mom, but the lack of a growing belly and no proposed due date for my little bundle set me apart,” she says.

Pregnant women often receive “mom-to-be” Mother’s Day acknowledgements, but women waiting to adopt have nothing but a piece of paper to prove that they, too, will soon be moms.

It often makes them feel segregated from the festivities. Adoption can sometimes come with a long wait, and for some, a series of disappointments.

The agony of not knowing when
And for many mothers-in-waiting, commemorating motherhood when you have no idea when you will actually become a mother just doesn’t make sense.

“Before we adopted our daughter, I would feel depressed on Mother’s Day. I loved celebrating my own mother. I would see her look at her children and know that we were the most important parts of her life,” Kelly L. of New Brunswick shares.

“I could feel her love for me and see how we were her world and we completed her and my father, but I felt like every Mother’s Day just reminded me of something I longed for and didn’t have; a child.”

Certainly couples trying to conceive or undergoing fertility treatments experience similar emotions, as I did myself during my own two years of fertility treatments. Yet, for mothers who have started the adoption process, there is an additional layer—they know a child is coming at the end of their process, but often it’s the “when” that adds the extra burden.

Imagine being pregnant and not knowing if you will give birth in three months or three years—trust me, it’s agonizing.

‘A day for other women, not me’
Add to that the resentment that your exclusion is often for reasons completely beyond your control. Mother’s Day made me feel like the kid who wasn’t invited to the party, watching the fun from the outside looking in.

“I would attempt positive self-talk, telling myself I am blessed, I can be happy and I will smile and get through this day,” says Yukon mother Susan S. “Despite my best efforts, however, the day would arrive and I’d be doubled over in emotional pain; grief, anger, resentment, self-loathing and pity overtaking me.

“This day that was well-intended was an open, gaping wound, a day set aside for other women but not for me. It hurt. A lot.”

We don’t talk about it
I know what she means. Often, waiting moms feel they must suffer in silence. I did, afraid the perception would be that I should be celebrating my own mother and not dwelling on something I couldn’t control.

I worried people would consider my sadness to be selfish and jealous, when I knew that eventually my adoption would happen and that should be exciting, not a cause for negative sentiments.

Thankfully, the good thing about waiting for an adoption to happen is that eventually it does.

Newfoundland mother of two Heather P. describes her pre-adoption Mother’s Days as ones with “an emptiness longing to be filled.”

She says she didn’t feel angry, because she had a full life, but she longed for the day that a child of her own would call her mommy.

After 10 years trying put her feelings into perspective, she realized her desire was to be a mother, not for a biological link to her child.

“I love them just exactly as if I gave birth to them,” she says. “I did feel empty before them, but I was confident that my emptiness would be filled at some point.”

Heather arrived home on Mother’s Day from adopting her second child, so for her, the day represents the occasion when her family finally felt complete.

I agree. Looking back, those sad Mother’s Days I spent yearning for a child are now all worth it.

Like women who forget the pain of labour once their child is in their arms, I hold my daughter close every Mother’s Day and feel nothing but gratitude for the journey that led me to her.

Jackie Gillard is a Toronto-area freelance writer who composes stories about adoption, parenting, relationships, divorce, or any other part of life that strikes her interest between sips of coffee.

photo credit: DSC_0137 via photopin (license)