Adoption Choices of Missouri’s Tips to Survive the Holidays as a Birth Mother
The holidays can be tricky, especially if you are a birth mother who has recently placed her baby up for adoption. Don’t worry, though: Adoption Choices of Missouri is here to guide you through this time with tips and tricks to make the holiday season easier to cope with. One of the best ways to manage this time is to take the very best care of yourself. You are the priority.
Start New Adoption Traditions
Your Missouri adoption may not have been what you planned for your life, but you made the best decision you could for you and your baby. Now what? You can discover a whole new way to spend the holidays and incorporate your adoption into your traditions.
If your adoption is open, you may be able to spend time with your child and their adoptive parents. This is a great opportunity to start a new tradition and connect with your child. For example, you and the adoptive parents can decorate the tree together or make gingerbread houses; it does not matter what you do, as long as you spend time together.
If your adoption is semi-open or closed, you have fewer options, but that does not mean you can’t make this time festive. You can write your child a letter or send a gift through your adoption facilitator in a semi-open adoption or ask the adoptive parents for a photo of the child. You can hang a special ornament or light a candle in honor of the child. There is no right or wrong way to commemorate this time. Just make it special for you. The holidays are a time of celebration and opportunity.
The holidays can also be a great time to reconnect with family and friends. You can incorporate them into your holiday adoption traditions or talk about your feelings surrounding your adoption with them. Family and friends are excellent sources of support during the adoption process and after. Use your resources and remember you are not alone.
How Can I Take Care of Myself During the Holidays?
Fortunately for you, Adoption Choices of Missouri has a wide range of services available to their birth mothers, including supportive counseling. We have different types of counseling available to meet your needs. In addition, we offer one-on-one support groups and birth mother retreats supportive counseling to all birth mothers during and after the adoption.
One-on-one counseling is available if you want to vent or cry, or whatever else. These are your sessions, and you can do whatever you would like with them. Support group counseling allows you to connect with other birth mothers who have gone through or are going through a similar situation. It can be encouraging to talk to other birth mothers, and these sessions can remind you that you are not alone. Birth mother retreats are like support group counseling, but birth mother retreats allow you to “retreat” from your day-to-day life and focus on your feelings. Birth mother retreats can double as a kind of vacation, where you can get away while simultaneously focusing on your emotions.
What Else Can I Do?
Exercise is another great way to practice self-care. Not only does exercise benefit your physical body, but it also benefits your mind. Exercise releases endorphins that can improve your mood. Reading is another way you can take care of yourself during the holidays. Reading allows you to escape and disconnect from the world. Writing is also a great way to channel your feelings and energy; writing your feelings down can be therapeutic and help you during this difficult time.
Remember why you chose adoption for your child in the first place, whether it was because you felt you were not ready to parent or because you wanted to give someone else the gift of starting or adding to their own family. Adoption is a gift that birth mothers give to their child and adoptive parents. You are giving your child the opportunity to have a better life and be loved and cared for by people who can fully support them. You give the adoptive parents a child they can love. And adoption is a gift to you: it allows you to pursue your dreams and goals while ensuring that your child is adequately cared for.
Contact Us Today!
At Adoption Choices of Missouri, we take care of our birth mothers long after completing the adoption process. We do not abandon you after the baby is born and expect you to fend for yourself. Choosing adoption can be difficult, especially during the holidays. Call or email one of our adoption agencies in Kansas City, St. Louis, Springfield, Columbia, or Independence. You’ll be glad you did!
Meet the Author: Rayna Batiste is an alumna of the University of West Florida with a bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing. Having graduated with honors, she hopes to attend graduate school at New York University, majoring in Journalism. Rayna is also a United States Air Force veteran who enjoys watching documentaries about pretty much any subject, learning, and spending quality time with her family and friends. She is also a fitness enthusiast and an avid Peloton user.
Her hobbies include brunch (yes, brunch is a hobby), fashion, makeup, and of course, reading and writing. Rayna has a real passion for the written word and correct grammar and syntax. She enjoys manipulating sentence structure and experimenting with punctuation in her writing. She’s what you would call a “werd nerd.” She was also recently featured at the Pensacola Museum of Art for her work, entitled Triangular Geometry.