The Messy, Exhausting Truth About What It Takes To Adopt A Baby

I was sitting on the cold hexagonal bathroom tiles at 2:14 AM. The laptop was actually burning my thighs through Dave's gray Villanova sweatpants—the ones with the weird bleach stain on the knee from 2018. I had consumed three cups of lukewarm French press coffee since dinner, which was a categorically terrible life choice, and I was deep, deep in an internet spiral. We had been waiting for the adoption agency to call for nineteen months. Nineteen. Months. My brain was absolute mush.

Instead of researching car seat safety or reading up on developmental milestones or whatever a normal expectant mother does at that hour, I found myself typing did britney spears adopt a baby into Google. Why? I literally couldn't tell you. My brain was just desperate for any adoption-related content to soothe my anxiety. Ten minutes later, I was furiously clicking through a Reddit thread trying to figure out did millie bobby brown adopt a baby. And then, because I'm physically incapable of stopping once I start, I was reading a 40-comment debate about why did millie bobby brown adopt a baby—which, spoiler alert, she didn't. She just rescues a ton of dogs. Which is wonderful for the dogs, but horribly unhelpful for a woman having a minor breakdown about bringing home a human child.

Anyway, the point is, when you decide to adopt a baby, the waiting makes you lose your absolute mind. You think it's going to be like the movies. A sudden phone call, a dramatic rush to a hospital, instant tears of joy, and boom, you're a family. It's not like that. It's so much messier, and harder, and weirder than anyone tells you.

The brutal reality of the wait

Before we started the process with Leo, I honestly thought the hardest part of adoption was just making the decision to do it. Like, once you signed the papers, you were in the clear. But the reality is that the wait is basically a second, highly invasive full-time job that you pay thousands of dollars for.

First, there's the home study. You have a social worker come to your house to make sure you aren't a monster, which is totally fair, but it makes you insane. I remember panic-scrubbing the baseboards behind our guest toilet because I was convinced she was going to check for dust and declare me unfit for motherhood. Then you've to make this profile book to show expectant mothers how great your life is. Dave and I had to take all these staged photos looking blissfully happy at a farmer's market. We hate the farmer's market. It's crowded and the peaches are wildly overpriced. But you just smile and pretend you spend your weekends frolicking in the sun instead of watching Netflix in your pajamas.

You spend two years just existing in this agonizing limbo where every single time an unknown number pops up on your phone, your stomach drops into your shoes, only to find out it's a scam call about your car's extended warranty.

What the doctors forget to put on the glossy agency brochures

When we finally got the call and brought Leo home, I thought the medical side of things would just be standard baby stuff. You know, diapers and spit-up. But our doctor, Dr. Evans—who blessedly specializes in adoption medicine—sat us down and told us we needed to do all these specific screenings that I guess standard pediatricians might miss. We had to run a bunch of bloodwork to check his lead levels and test for random things like Hepatitis and intestinal parasites, because when you adopt, you just don't always have the full, perfect medical picture of the birth family's history.

And then there was the transition sickness. I had literally never heard of this before. Dr. Evans explained that it's super common for newly adopted babies to get minor colds or massive digestive upset just from changing houses. I guess there's some sort of link between the sudden change in their physical environment and their tiny immune systems freaking out over the new micro-flora in your house. I don't totally understand the science of it, but I do know that Leo threw up for three straight days when we brought him home, and I cried so hard I thought I was going to pass out.

His little body was under so much stress from the transition that he broke out in this horrible, angry red rash all over his chest and back. Which brings me to the absolute panic of trying to figure out what to put on his body when everything seemed to make him scream.

The gear that actually survived the first chaotic month

I'm not exaggerating when I say we tried every single outfit we had been gifted, and almost all of them made Leo's stress rash worse. Synthetic blends, cute little stiff denim overalls—forget it. The only thing that didn't irritate his skin during that awful transition week was the Organic Cotton Baby Bodysuit from Kianao.

My sister had ordered it for us right before we brought him home. Because it's 95% organic cotton without any of those harsh chemical dyes, it was ridiculously soft. Like, buttery, melt-in-your-hands soft. It didn't cling to his rash, and the sleeveless design meant he wasn't overheating while his tiny system tried to keep stable itself in a new environment. I ended up panic-ordering four more in the middle of the night because it was literally the only piece of clothing he could sleep in without thrashing around. Honestly, it was a total lifesaver for my sanity.

Of course, people buy you lots of other stuff when they find out you're adopting. Someone got us the Panda Silicone Baby Teether, and like... it's fine. It's a teether. It's cute, it's shaped like a panda, and when Leo eventually started getting his front teeth, he chewed on it. It didn't miraculously solve our teething nightmares or make him sleep through the night, but it gave him something to gnaw on that wasn't my actual finger, so I'll take it.

If you're looking for things to buy that actually help, focus on stuff that helps establish a routine. When Leo was a bit older and we were desperate for a safe space to put him down while I was sobbing into my coffee, the Rainbow Wooden Baby Gym was amazing. It's not one of those awful plastic monstrosities that aggressively flash neon lights and play tinny circus music. It's just calm, natural wood with these sweet, earthy-colored hanging toys. It gave him something gentle to focus on when the world felt too overwhelming, and it gave me five minutes to just sit on the floor and breathe.

If you're dealing with transition sickness or just want to avoid the synthetic junk that irritates newborn skin, you might want to check out some breathable organic options to make those first few weeks less awful.

My massive issue with the big secret

Okay, I need to talk about something that makes my blood really boil. Ever since we brought Leo home, well-meaning strangers and even some family members have constantly asked me, "So, when are you going to tell him?"

They ask it in this hushed, conspiratorial whisper, like we're hiding a body in the basement instead of raising a child. People are obsessed with the idea of the "Reveal Day." They think you're supposed to hide the fact that your kid is adopted, pretend you're a biological family for a decade, and then sit them down on their twelfth birthday and drop this massive psychological bomb on them. Which is just, like, the most ridiculous and damaging thing I've ever heard. Obviously.

When you wait to tell an adopted child their own story, you aren't protecting them, you're just lying to them. It makes it seem like adoption is this shameful, dirty secret that had to be hidden. We started reading Leo his "Lifebook"—which is basically this messy scrapbook we made that tells the story of his birth mom and how he came to us—when he was literally an infant in his crib. He didn't understand the words, but he understood the tone. He has just always known. Instead of acting weird and keeping secrets and waiting for some perfect moment to drop the bomb, you just have to weave their story into your daily life so they never remember a time they didn't know.

And while we're at it, please never ever expect an adopted kid to be "grateful" that you rescued them, because that's absolute toxic garbage.

Open adoption is a weird, beautiful mess

Most domestic infant adoptions today are open, which means you've some level of contact with the birth family. I used to be terrified of this. I thought it would be confusing, or that his birth mom would try to take him back. But Dave—my husband who usually just nods along when I spiral but was honestly fully participating in this particular emotional meltdown—reminded me that more love in Leo's life is never a bad thing.

Navigating an open adoption is clunky. It's texting photos on a random Tuesday, it's figuring out boundaries, it's acknowledging the deep grief his birth mom experienced so that we could become a family. It's not clean, and it's not simple. But it's real.

If you're in the agonizing waiting phase or you just brought your little one home and you feel like you're drowning, shop our complete baby essentials collection to make the transition a tiny bit easier on both of you.

Some messy answers to your adoption questions

Do adopted babies get sick when they change homes?

Yeah, they absolutely do, and it's terrifying if you aren't warned about it. It's called transition sickness. The stress of changing caregivers, plus being exposed to the entirely new bacteria and micro-flora in your specific house, can totally wreck their little digestive systems for a few days. Expect some vomiting, weird poops, and stress rashes. It's awful, but it passes.

What do you seriously put in an adoption profile?

You basically have to condense your entire life, personality, and capacity for love into a 20-page Shutterfly book. It's exhausting. We included lots of pictures of our family, our messy backyard, and our dog. Try not to make it look too perfect. Expectant moms want to see real people, not a sterile catalog ad. Tell them you eat pizza on the couch. Be human.

How does an open adoption genuinely work?

It completely depends on what you and the birth parents agree on, and it changes over time. For us, it looks like a private photo-sharing album that we update weekly, and a few texts on holidays. For others, it's in-person visits every year. It's less like a legal contract and more like navigating a relationship with a distant in-law that you really care about.

When should we tell our kid they're adopted?

From day one. Literally from the day you bring them home. Talk about their birth mom, use the word "adoption" normally, read them books about it. If there's a specific day where they "find out" they're adopted, you waited way too long. It should just be a boring, normal fact about their life that they've always known.

Do I need a special doctor for an adopted infant?

You don't technically need one, but if you can find a doctor who understands adoption medicine, grab them and never let them go. There are specific blood tests (like testing for FASD or unique nutritional deficiencies) that standard doctors might completely gloss over because they aren't used to looking at blank medical histories.