Fear of loss of a wanted child: emotional accounts of Finnish prospective adoptive parents in pre-adoption services

Abstract

This qualitative study analyses the emotions of fear and anxiety as experienced by prospective adoptive parents receiving pre-adoption services. The article draws on 19 narrative interviews with men and women who have pursued an adoption process in seeking to adopt a child from overseas. The findings suggest that the experience of fear was connected with the risk of losing a wanted child through rejection in the assessment procedure or a termination of the process, and also with a loss of control in their position as clients. The prospective parents strive to balance anxiety and hope through their own emotional engagement, while the professionals involved play an important role in regulating those emotions. Further, the fear and anxiety in this situation lead to an inhibition of both negative emotions in interactions with professionals and of engaging with them in a truly open, trusting and reflective relationship.

Keywords

Pre-adoption services prospective adoptive parents emotions fear loss social work

Introduction

The process of adopting a child often signifies hope, joy, fulfilment and happiness. Simultaneously, the journey towards becoming an adoptive parent is also long and emotionally challenging, incorporating emotions of powerlessness, anxiety and even despair (Berástegui Pedro-Viejo, 2008; Daniluk and Hurtig-Mitchell, 2003; Högbacka, 2008). During the pre-adoption process, prospective adoptive parents meet several professionals who make crucial decisions. In this interaction between the prospective adoptive parent as a client and the adoption professionals, emotions as well as power are important forces (Layder, 2004). These relationships affect both the quality and outcome of social services (Holland, 2000). In most social work practice, the inequality of power between the client and the professional is acknowledged, whereas the role of the client’s emotions in their encounters and relationships with professionals has been overlooked (Gausel, 2011). In adoption, the situation is slightly different as prospective adoptive parents are seen as a powerful group (Simmonds and Haworth, 2000); hence their vulnerability often goes unrecognised and scant research has addressed the role that professionals play in the adoption process (Palacios, 2012; Willing, Fronek and Cuthbert 2012), especially their interaction with clients.

The emotional preparation for parenthood begins long before the child is placed. Therefore pre-adoption services become important for families both as a support leading up to adoption and as a promoter of willingness to seek and receive support later on.

Adoption raises some existential questions – for example, the right to parenthood and the meaning of life in cases of lost parenthood – and these bring everyone’s primary emotions to the surface. Although most adoptions are happy events, considerable fear can be experienced during the various stages of the process. It is therefore important to consider the effects of emotions in these situations, how they influence social interactions (Mesquita, Marinetti and Delvaux, 2012: 305) and their implications for relationships between clients and professionals.

This article focuses on the emotion of fear as experienced by prospective adoptive parents. It does so by analysing 19 narrative interviews with Finnish women and men who have been through the preparatory process to adopt a child from abroad. The two main components of this fear that emerged were the risk of losing a wanted child and the loss of control. Loss is a common theme in the adoption literature and mostly refers to the losses of the adopted child and the infertility of most adoptive parents (Brinich 1990; Brodzinsky, Schechter and Marantz Henig, 1992; Verrier 1991). This study adds to these factors the threat of the loss of a wanted child and feelings of losing control. It is proposed that such fear is associated to some extent with the background characteristics of the prospective adopters but also to their status as clients and their interactions with professionals. It is handled by internal emotional regulation that balances hope and anxiety, leading to emotional inhibition and hesitance in these interactions, both of which hinder the development of trust.

The context of pre-adoption services

In Finland adoptions are predominantly intercountry. The adoption process is strictly regulated to secure the rights of the child and pre-adoption services comprise two legislated phases: (1) the assessment of suitability (home study) and preparations for adoptive parenthood; and (2) a period of waiting as the prospective parent(s) are matched with a child in the sending country.

The first phase, known as pre-adoption counselling, assesses the suitability of applicants and prepares them for parenthood (Adoption Act 22/2012). The social work task is to act as both gatekeeper and supporter but as most applicants are middle class (Eriksson, et al., 2014), they encounter the new and uncomfortable experience of being controlled by the welfare state.

The second phase of the adoption process, the waiting period, follows when the prospective adoptive parents have been granted an adoption permit from the Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health in Finland. They then become clients of one of three licensed mediating adoption organisations that assist them in adopting a child from abroad. This phase usually stretches over several years, often beset with many insecurities and unpredictable factors along the way.

Studying emotions in social settings

Although different disciplines view the origin, display and universality of emotions differently, four primary emotions have been commonly identified: fear, anger, sorrow and happiness (Kemper, 1987; Turner, 2009). When perceived as being relational, dynamic and situated processes, shaped and defined in an interaction with the social environment, these emotions can be interpreted as an interplay between cognitive, motivational and physiological components, embedded in a wider cultural setting (Bogier and Mesquita 2012a; 2012b; Kemper, 1990; Thoits, 1989). While much research on adult emotion is experimental (Mesquita, Marinetti and Delvaux, 2012), less attention has been given to the dynamics of emotions in their social contexts (Bogier and Mesquita, 2012a; 2012b). To understand the emotional experiences of prospective adoptive parents, it is necessary to consider the multiplicity of factors that influence them (Layder, 2004).

Data and methods

Prospective adoptive parents are a very heterogeneous group with various backgrounds and motivations. In Finland, most adopters are childless, mainly due to infertility, but some also adopt by choice or to expand their family. The circumstances of the 19 interviewees are laid out in Table 1.

Table 1.

Characteristics of the interviewees.

Interview number	Outcome of process	Sex	Motivation	Prior children	Adopting with spouse
1,2,3	Finalised	F	infertility	childless	Yes
10	Finalised	F	primary choice	childless	Yes
4,5	Finalised	F	choice	biological child(ren)	Yes
17,18	Finalised	M	infertility	childless	Yes
15,16	Finalised	M	secondary infertility	biological child(ren)	Yes
12,13,19	Finalised	M	choice	biological child(ren)	Yes
11	Terminated	F	infertility	childless	No, single
6,7,8,9	Terminated	F	infertility	childless	Yes
14	Terminated	F	primary choice	childless	Yes

The children came from eight countries, each with different adoption policies. All those who had become adoptive parents had adopted a child less than four years prior to the interview (12 from abroad, one domestic). Of the six women who did not go on to adopt, three were rejected at some point during the process, two had become pregnant and one had had a major change in her family situation. The time between applying for counselling and the adoption varied from two to nine years.

Narrative interviews

The narrative interviews comprised a mixture of narration and specific questions about issues and events raised therein. The interviews therefore are retrospective accounts of past experiences that are organised and made meaningful in the narrative.

Naturally, any methodology has strengths and weaknesses and the use of narrative raises questions about the extent to which prevailing emotions affect autobiographical memory (e.g. Levine, 1997; Levine, et al., 2001), especially as some respondents were far more emotional than others. Indeed, there could be a gender bias in the data since all those for whom the process was terminated were women, mostly with a history of infertility.

As several readings of the data found emotions to be an important factor in pre-adoption services, the concept of emotion was chosen for further analysis. Initially, the emotions displayed during the narratives were inductively coded and then interpreted within their context. They were then classified into categories of four primary emotions (fear, anger, sorrow and happiness). Some straining emotions (anger, frustration, jealousy, disappointment, despair, sorrow) were also apparent but these were subsumed under primary emotions of fear and anxiety. It was found that fear stemmed from two situations: the fear of loss of a wanted child and loss of control. Thereafter, attention turned to the management of this fear, the influence exerted on it by professionals and its impact on the client’s interactions with them.

Risk of losing a wanted child

Given the emotional impact of losing a child, the division between loss through rejection and termination may seem artificial, but there is one important difference: fear of rejection is more likely to be perceived as resulting from deficiencies in personal characteristics, whereas termination of the process is usually seen as due to the impact of an external actor or event. The fear of rejection is most prevalent during the first assessment phase but persists throughout the process, usually shifting more in the waiting period towards a fear of termination. Fear can have different intensities (Turner, 2009) and the interviewees displayed mainly low and moderate levels, manifested as anxiety. According to Kemper (1987), it is a combination of fear and sorrow that creates anxiety, whereas one of fear tends to trigger hope. In pre-adoption settings, anxiety and hope are therefore interrelated, with perceived threats fostering anxiety and positive reassurance creating hope.

Fear of loss through rejection

The fear of loss through rejection is exemplified in the case of an adoptive mother (interview 3) with a background of infertility hoping to adopt her first child together with her partner. She was aware that age and health issues could lead to a possible rejection at any stage, which caused considerable anxiety:

First, there was this uncertainty about if we qualify. And then like, phew, we pass, and then like, what kind of papers are written about us so that we qualify for the sending country? And then again phew, we passed. There was all the time this kind of uncertainty and anxiety, and then relief again that we got the permit … // … when we have all these issues with age and health and other stuff. But nothing formed too big a barrier, so that the door would have closed; we have always made it to the next step.

She went on to describe her hope while waiting for a phone call with news of a child:

… this wishful time of waiting, when it was like, probably a little bit ‘rose-tinted’, and thinking a lot about the arrival, the arrival of the child, and about the phone call, and when the phone call comes.

Things are hopeful until she has an unpleasant surprise:

But then there was this major setback, a big disappointment, and the despair began, one much deeper than you can sink into … // … until then we had been eagerly waiting and thought that soon the child will come, and then the agency said that you can’t really be given a child before the husband has a job. And it was horrible, we lost the whole basis for waiting and thought, how is this going to end, since it felt like finding jobs were like finding a needle in a haystack and the same with the child … // … and my husband felt like he is no good for anything … // … and it just continued, continued and continued … And they just said that they are so strict with this in the sending country …

Her husband’s unemployment resulted in an unexpected loss of hope and caused anxiety, in a situation that they had not even considered or worried about but one that crushed their dreams. However, as the family’s waiting was put on hold, there was a sudden turning point when ‘the phone rang and [we] had a girl [sobbing]; it was really, really a surprise because [we] were not expecting it at all’, and she found they had been matched with a child, regardless of the unemployment issue.

In this narrative, the fear is visible in the uncertainty about whether the couple qualified at different stages, and at the same time a slight mistrust of the social worker is discernible in the uncertain notion of ‘what kind of papers are written about us’, suggesting a feeling of loss of control in an important matter. The interviewee also described a very formal social worker who did not communicate much, which increased her anxiety in the client role. The milestones of the adoption process became symbols of the approaching and hoped for goal, but fear was activated at differing intensities at every stage, only to be followed by relief and regained hope.

Fear of loss through termination

In intercountry adoptions, there is a constant uncertainty about changes in policy and practice that might hinder the process. The number of such adoptions has fallen in recent years (Selman, 2012) and this has reduced the chances of older applicants and those with health problems being successful. It has also extended the waiting time, making a failed adoption application more likely.

In the following narrative, a woman (interview 8) who went through ‘a pretty long and troublesome process’, with ‘constant waiting, waiting and waiting’ after spending years undergoing infertility treatments, describes the effects of policy changes in the sending country:

At first the situation in China was good, and then it changed and there were these sudden things that started to obstruct the process … And because of that, the waiting times extended … // … and then China started to tighten the criteria for adoptive parents, and we thought, are we ever going to have a child? … // … the Chinese authorities made these new requirements for adoptive parents, just as our papers arrived. They were already handled there but still there was this fear that somehow it will affect [us] and they will make a decision that – even with the application in place – means that the possibility would be taken away from us.

She went on to describe her frustration at ‘the heaviness of senseless bureaucracy’ and her feelings of vulnerability when ‘someone else is deciding for us’. The process was finally terminated by her and her husband, hence the presence of sorrow over a lost child in her story.

However, these decisions are still made by human actors; in the following excerpt an adoptive father (interview 13) describes a judge causing him and his wife fear of termination, even at a point when the adoption was set to be finalised in the sending country:

The judge hated adoptions. He went on vacation and put them all on hold. And we knew that after that he would probably sort them out last in his cases. Then, we were struck with a desperation that this was never going to work out, never! Because the country is totally run by judges and they can do anything they want. Seriously anything!

Fortunately, the long process had a happy ending when the child was placed with the family, but the narrative exemplifies that the fear of losing a wanted child can be triggered at any phase of the pre-adoption process by a variety of events at home and abroad.

Threat of loss

The fear of loss of a wanted child takes on a different intensity and shape, depending on both the nature of the threat and the prevalence of the danger of loss. This includes the prospective parent’s personal background as part of their motivation to adopt. Fear of not being accepted as a parent often lies deeper within those who have a history of infertility, and this group also expressed the most fear and anxiety. They often felt that they had been let down by their own bodies and been disappointed in failing infertility treatments (Greil, Slauson-Blevins and McQuillan, 2010). A rejection or termination of an adoption process can, therefore, be seen as an existential crisis, similar to infertility, which results in being denied the status of (adoptive) parenthood and experiencing the social exclusion and sense of shame that accompany it (Brinich 1990; Brodzinsky, Schechter and Marantz Henig, 1992; Verrier 1991). In contrast, those adopting as a first choice might experience fear of their first serious loss in the form of losing their desired role as adoptive parents, but for them, it is often also a question of the right of someone else to make a judgment about their suitability.

The prevalence of danger that is manifest in the requirements for adoption and the speed, smoothness and predictability of the process further influenced the experiences of fear and anxiety among prospective adopters by creating an unequal amount of obstacles and friction in the process. These experiences influenced the perception of how real the clients perceived the threat to be. The issues involved differ widely in the light of varying global situations regarding intercountry adoptions, the different practices in the sending countries’ procedures as well as the criteria set for adopters at different stages in the process.

Loss of control in clienthood

Loss of control can be understood in the light of Kemper’s (1990) model of fear and anger as related to power and status in interaction, which are very tangible in the client–professional relationship. The client’s power position is weak, which creates fear, and a drop in status triggers emotions of anger, shame and sorrow. In the study, the feeling of being questioned, misunderstood or mistreated by the social worker served not only to strengthen perceptions of fear but also sparked anger. This anger was mainly expressed as frustration and dissatisfaction although it was contained in actual interactions with professionals. In contrast, being given status and feeling accepted and supported by professionals promoted contentment.

Balancing hope and anxiety

Emotional engagement

The adoption process permeates life and, as one adoptive father (interview 15) said, it also dominates everything else. He was expecting his third child through adoption and described a ‘feeling of uncertainty as to whether this was going to happen’. He held on to a feeling that he was sure it would happen and this gave him a ‘gleaming hope’. Other areas of his life also centred on waiting for the adoption to complete, especially the fear of falling ill: ‘Not that sickness would be scary, but the adoption process would terminate.’ This fear also extended to the children:

[I was] hoping nothing would happen to the kids, because it could wreck the adoption process. These are the kind of funny thoughts that you have that somehow rule in the background. Rule life.

A few respondents, in contrast, were consciously able to focus on other areas of life during the waiting period, just going with the flow and not letting the process interfere with their lives:

It did not bother me. The process just lived its own life somewhere behind the scenes … I was like, it [the child] will come at some point. The queue advanced every now and then, and then stood still for three months. I did not notice it at all …

This father (interview 12), who had children of his own, had endured a long process but maintained an emotional distance until the child came into the family. He said that it was his wife who had been the active one throughout.

Yet for a few, the initial emotional engagement faded as hope was replaced by discouragement and exhaustion and the outcome of the adoption process began to look increasingly uncertain. One couple awaiting their first child realised that as the years passed, the possibilities of becoming parents diminished. Although a child was eventually placed with them, they said that they had given up all hope and had been on the verge of terminating the process years earlier.

Some prospective adoptive parents coped with this uncertainty by distancing themselves emotionally:

… it was like hovering in a state comparable to ecstasy and building all kinds of castles in the air, but now, afterwards I have to say that fortunately my husband is rational and told me all the time that we shouldn’t believe anything before we have seen it with our own eyes. And he said that I should ‘remember to keep my handbrake on’. If I hadn’t, what would have happened?

This woman (interview 6) had faced a sudden rejection and explained that although she had protected herself emotionally, the shock still hit her hard. Sorrow and bitterness were present in her story and she referred to the likely risk of an emotional breakdown if she had not kept herself from dreaming and hoping too much.

All of these prospective adopters strove to balance their hopes and fears through regulating their emotional investment during the process, but the prevalence of fear and anxiety was not always consciously controllable and was often influenced by other factors, such as the actions of professionals.

Professionals as regulators of anxiety

Another childless couple (interview 1) wanted to adopt their first child. The woman describes the fear she and her husband felt before interacting with the social worker, but then finding her to be ‘on the same side’:

… we thought that it [the assessment] was nit-picking, that it was a thorough examination and that they examined us and found out everything about us, not that we had anything particular to hide, but still that someone comes to our home and looks into our closets. And then, as we are both freelancers … // … we thought that we both have odd jobs and irregular working hours and have an unsure income, that they would judge us based on that …

Here, the role of the social worker became important in alleviating fear and reassuring and giving hope to the couple. When the social worker turned their concerns around and said that ‘On the other hand you have a great possibility to arrange time to be with the child,’ she demonstrated that she saw the situation ‘in a positive light’. In this case, the social worker conveyed her belief in the family as future adoptive parents, but was also shielding them from disappointment by not giving them false hope. The woman clearly perceived the social worker to be sympathetic and ‘on their side’, which calmed her down:

Then I was also diagnosed with a chronic disease and we thought that this was probably the roadblock, that we were never going to be accepted … // … [the social worker] said that we can examine the situation and the case might be that she cannot promise that we will ever have a child but we can try. And we decided that of course we are going to try … // … the social worker was very empathic … // … and then she again stressed that she could not promise anything and that we have to see with the permit and the adoption council and the sending country. And then we will see what happens to us …

In this narrative, there was an expression of acceptance of both the life situation and the setting of the pre-adoption assessment. Still, the fear of rejection is hidden amid feelings of anxiety. Her emotional engagement was kept under control to protect herself from possible loss by her acceptance of the possibility that they might continue as a two-person family. Eventually the couple’s process continued without major obstacles and they became adoptive parents.

Discussion and conclusions

Studying emotions as dynamic processes (Bogier and Mesquita 2012b: 237) in a complex social world is challenging, since emotions are fluid and all social interactions or events influence one another (Mesquita, Marinetti and Delvaux, 2012: 300). This study has shed light on some of the aspects of just one emotion – fear – and the effects that it has on interactions within pre-adoption services. It takes into account the complexity of the issue and draws on retrospective data concerning prospective adoptive parents’ emotional experiences during the process. It offers a glimpse into their emotional world as clients faced with a situation where professionals make crucial decisions about highly personal issues. It is therefore suggested that fear associated with a threat of loss should be considered as a significant general issue in pre-adoption services, not only relevant to those with a background of infertility.

The results show that anxiety and fear were present at some level of intensity in most of the narratives analysed. For some, the fear was more present during the assessment phase, while for others it was more salient during the waiting period. Since the threat of loss was more real and present for some than others, feelings of fear and anxiety may be seen as an individual experience: some face more obstacles in the process and sense it more closely, while others have a smooth process and experience less fear. The influence of past experiences, personal history, the social and agency settings, and the interactions clients have with professionals also influence the emotional engagement or emotional investment made in the process. Those who are more emotionally involved in the process of expecting an adoptive child are likely to have strong emotional reactions to potential obstacles that may crop up along the way, and may therefore experience the waiting time to be more stressful. Emotional engagement was sometimes lower in cases where clients already had children in the family. Some saw the adoption process as only one part of their everyday lives, but others had experienced discouragement that led to their insecurity and anxiety about achieving a positive outcome. The balance between ‘living while waiting’ and ‘living only to wait’ described earlier by Sandelowski, Harris and Holditch-Davis (1991) was present in the narratives. At the same time, the prospective adoptive parents were trying to keep their personal lives stable in order not to potentially delay the process, for example by avoiding moving house or changing jobs. Since the adoption process itself always seems to be uncertain and unpredictable, the role of the professionals in making this road less bumpy is of great importance; through their actions or passivity, fear and anxiety can be either aggravated or diminished.

In addition to being stressful, negative emotions have an inhibiting effect on the client’s interaction with professionals. The study suggests that this fear of expressing negative emotions, and also of being totally open and honest in the relationship with professionals, has significant effects. Fear in this controlled setting leads to a strategic action of hiding negative emotions and avoiding any expression of dissatisfaction. This subsequently leads to a prudence in the prospective adopters’ actions as they are acutely aware of the delicacy of the situation and the importance of ‘playing their cards right’ (Noordegraaf, Nijnatten and Elbers, 2010). This can result in strategies that maximise personal gain but hinder reflection and honesty. Yet the clients’ involvement, honesty and emotional engagement are needed for the professional to complete the evaluation task. This tension between support and control creates a situation where the clients put their best foot forward in interaction with professionals and strive to regulate their anxiety, while at the same time they are expected to establish trusting relationships with them. The narratives show how this leads to conflicting objectives on the part of the clients and professionals involved. Therefore more effort is needed to enable all clients to feel secure in the pre-adoption process since the emotional experiences they encounter in their relations with professionals can have long-term consequences for the family and child.

Footnotes

Pia Eriksson is a PhD candidate in the Department of Social Research/Social Work, University of Helsinki, Finland.

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