The Process of Adoptive Parenting

Abstract

Nurses assist families as they shift and change over their lifecycle. Maternity nurses work closely with biological families as they integrate the infant into the family unit; however, the nurse's role with adoptive families focuses on caring separately for the birth mother and the infant being relinquished for adoption. This study seeks to describe the process of adoptive parenting from the perspective of the adoptive parent. An exploratory field design based on grounded theory methodology was used. Sixteen participants, nine women and seven men, all adoptive parents were interviewed using an open-ended format.

The substantive theory generated accounted for the process of adoptive parenting and was described through three phases. The Expecting phase was described as the time during which adoptive parents worked through steps in the adoption procedure to attain a child, awaited the arrival of the child, and equipped themselves for the parenting role. In the Connecting phase, adoptive parents demonstrated efforts to form and strengthen the bond with the child while dealing with impacting forces that had a potential to either positively or negatively affect the bond. The Becoming phase, concurrent with the phase of Connecting, was characterized by the recognition of changes in self, relationships, and life in general. The core variable, Transcending Adoption, was described in attitudes and behaviors that helped the adoptive parents rise above and get beyond the challenges they faced in their journey to become parents.

Based on qualitative findings, the following conclusions were drawn: The process of adoptive parenting was complex. The phases of adoptive parenting were influenced by the experience of adoption. Adoptive parents face becoming parents with limited information regarding the impact parenting would have on them physically, emotionally, and socially. Adoptive parents viewed hospital staff as either adoption friendly or adoption unfriendly. As adoptive parents worked to assume their new identity as parents, they were confronted by positive overt acknowledgement of their new identity from others, as well as, comments that covertly illegitimized their new identity as parent.