摘要：For the purposes of facilitating this investigation, stories of adoptive parents’ journey with grief, through infertility, adoption and post adoption are presented and analysed. The existence of any relationship between grief and adoptive experiences is explored. The narrative approach to gathering qualitative data was used to elicit stories from three sets of adoptive parents. The interviews were nondirective and produced rich research data useful in deepening knowledge about grief and its relationship with the adoption journey. The study involving only three sets of adoptive parents is limited in its generalizability. Data from further couples would be helpful in broadening the implications of the findings. Findings from my research suggest that grief is likely to be experienced by adoptive parents in their journey with infertility, adoption and post adoption tasks. The study found that a number of factors are helpful in managing this grief – for example, the role of spirituality in individual’s lives, the role of symbolism and the delivery of professional services. Factors that seem to obstruct the management of this grief include the use of a medical model when responding to situations of infertility and the expectation that all people manage grief in a similar manner and time frame. This research has provided information about adoptive parents’ experiences in Central Queensland and offers the first documented data about such experiences in this geographical region. A model for understanding the interplay between infertility, grief and adoption is presented as a result of the findings. The study also indicates the usefulness of the narrative approach in the social work assessment of adoptive parents and suggests that this methodology may assist prospective adoptive parents in their ongoing management of their grief.
关键词：Sociology; Family Studies;;Adoption; grief; parenting; adoptive parents; infertility
