Vivência materna por adoção à luz da teoria de Ramona Mercer

Abstract

Adoption, when realized, is an irrevocable action guaranteed by a substitute measure of parenthood for children or adolescents who have been deprived of the power of the biological family. Established in Law, it is provided for in the Statute of the Child and Adolescent. Faced with a biological family formation, the role of nursing in family health care is well consolidated with published studies on the period of pregnancy, childbirth, puerperium and childcare and general monitoring in health care. In this context, the Theory of becoming a mother has been applied in different contexts of motherhood. With regard to maternity by adoption, many studies in the area of nursing are not identified, including those anchored in medium-range nursing theories. Motivated by this problem, we sought to understand the experiences of mothers by adoption in the light of Ramona Mercer's theory. This is a qualitative and descriptive study conducted with adoption mothers linked to the Alagoas Adoption Support Group, with the approval of the Research Ethics Committee. The production of the information took place from June to July 2022 through a structured interview, conducted virtually by the Google Meet platform. For the organization of the information, the method proposed by Bardin was used and for the analysis, the reference of Ramona Mercer. Eight mothers participated in this study by adoption with a mean age of 42 years, three of them with a single-parent family constitution, and waiting time in line for adoption between three months and four years and ten months. The results were presented and discussed according to the four phases described by Ramona Mercer: commitment, attachment and preparation, with speeches permeated with anxieties related to the long waiting time, support and expectation; knowledge, learning and physical restoration, with the reports about the encounters with their children and the first moments together; moving toward a new normal, describing about the bond, attachment, and perceived characteristics in their children; and obtaining maternal identity, a phase in which feelings of happiness and fulfillment were perceived. The feelings of anxiety, aspects that motivated the adoptive parenting, the definition of the profile, what was done during the wait, the surprise at the emotion of the arrival of the children, the adaptation and the support received were concepts and feelings reported by most of the mothers. These experiences supported the elaboration of an illustration based on the Ramona Theory with the variables that are part of this singular experience. As final considerations, it was pointed out that the context of adoption can be determined in view of the characteristics of children and mothers according to their trajectories and the experiences contemplate the aspects addressed in the Theory Becomes a mother.