Adoption Class # 1 Update

Sorry we didn’t get a post right up after we went to the class on Monday. This week we had to wrap up a lot of things in California before we head out North Carolina. We are in route somewhere over Texas as I type.

Well the class was pretty amazing. We were thinking it would be a 3-hour lecture from their staff on Lifelong Adoption Issues, but most of our time we spent with a real live adoptive family, interacting with them, hearing stories, and bouncing questions around. It was great to get the mother’s perspective of what we’ll have to go through in our adoption process. Even more valuable was hearing from her three teenage girls (all who were adopted at various times along the way.)

Let me back up and give some details of the people there and I’ll return to some of the big issues we discussed. There were about 8 couples there, ranging in race. We were the youngest couple there, at least by 5-years. Most couples seemed to be in their mid-30s and all had come from infertility backgrounds. One of the couples had an interview with a prospective birth mother; it was interested hearing their experience. Another couple had an adopted 5-year-old girl and were in the process for her younger sibling arriving. Again, we gained a lot of insight from them.

So here is what we learned while there.

1.) We Can Do It
There was a sense of “can we really parent and gain the respect of a child that did not come from our biology?” The resounding answer is “Yes We Can!” (I know all our democratic friends will like that one.) The mom there was not super mom, but she was a loving caring parent. We can do the loving caring parent thing. We don’t have to be Betty Crocker, June Cleaver, Tim the toolman Taylor, Bill Cosby, Super Mom and Super Dad all in one.

2.) The Issue of Loss
They said it and we talked about it: loss. The pain, the grief, the healing, the thoughts of blame, and unworthiness. We talked about it. We realized that all parties enter into this relationship through a loss. For us, our loss has been infertility. For the child, it is not growing up in the history and subculture they were born into. For the birth mother, it is losing her baby. For a child, I likened the feelings to a parent’s divorce, and everything the child feels in that situation. There is loss throughout the process for everyone. The sooner we realize it, the better we can understand everyone else. The sooner we can emotionally deal with our loss, the sooner we will be ready to acknowledge the loss of others. Not easy steps, but glad we brought it out into the open.

3.) Respect
We have committed to each other not to denigrate or tarnish the image of the birth mother for any reason. At this stage we don’t even know her. But it is important to love and respect the child by respecting the birth mother. We have committed to do so.

4.) “Where Facts Flounder, Fantasy Flourishes”
They said that most kids make up a story as to why they were adopted. Some are putting themselves to blame and some are fantasy tales of arriving on the back of a dragon. The point is the more information you can give a child as to their history, the less they will have to make up. Confidence in who they are and who you are is everything; this is what will allow them to be comfortable with their being adopted. The daughters there were able to be open with us because they knew their own history, sometimes knew their birth parents and why they were adopted. It made us realize things we can do now to help in future years for our children to see the process we went through (how much we wanted them) and once we get matched with a birth mother, finding out as much about her, the child’s father, their talents and abilities, their weaknesses, everything.

5.) Ways to help adoption make sense to a young child.
Adoption can be a scary thing for a child (dealing with the issue of loss and within that guilt, ect.) We learned two phrases that will really help us discuss adoption to our kids and let them know they are/were loved and at the center of the process (in a good way.) So here they go: “While you were growing in your mommy’s tummy you were growing in my heart.” And “Your birth mommy knew she couldn’t be your everyday mommy, so she searched for a mommy like me to be your everyday mommy.” So I know the first is kind of cheesy, but it gets the point across, you are special and I love you. The second one just makes sense.

So it has been a lot of information. They gave us another stack of paper work to read concerning issues of adoption and the make up of children who are adopted. Melissa has been reading away, makes notes, underlining things all day throughout our travel. Our next class is late January.

We’ll keep you updated with events from our trip home. We’ll be having many conversations about adoption, all the issues so we’ll let you know of the relevant things there as well. I think we are over Georgia by now so North Carolina, here we come!