Regrets are common after making big decisions, such as whether to move, where to live, or which job to take. Considering that adoption is a big decision, it stands to reason that some people will have regrets afterward.

You can feel adoption regret in a number of ways. For example, you might regret making compromises about the level of contact to which you agreed upon with your child's birthmother. You might have agreed to more contact than you really wanted because you had the opportunity to adopt a baby now, and after the dust has settled, you realize that you do not feel comfortable with the level of contact to which you have committed yourself. Or you might have been so guarded about contact that you chose a closed adoption and now regret not having access to information about your child's medical history.

Regrets might come in the form of compromises you made about the health risks you were willing to consider. Or your regret might come from trusting people who had a financial interest in your adoption decisions.

Regardless of the reasons for your regrets, if you have them, you must deal with them. Nobody is well served by your living in denial about having regrets. It is only through acknowledging them and healing them that you can move on with your life without regrets coloring your world.

A big part of moving on from regrets is forgiving yourself for making the choices that you did. We often think, "If I only knew then what I know now…" None of us has a crystal ball, and we can only proceed with the information that we had at the time. If you could go back in time and face the same decision again with the same information you had, you would most likely still make the same choice because you had no way of anticipating how things would turn out.

All we can do is make the best of our current circumstances and learn from our mistakes. We can also share our experiences with others so they will, hopefully, avoid the same pitfalls.

Over the next few posts, I will be writing about specific areas of regret in adoption from an adoptive parent perspective. I hope this series will help you feel less alone and less guilty about harboring regret. I also hope this series will help you move past your feelings of regret.

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Photo Credit: Lynda Bernhardt