Lessons Learned

This past weekend Ron and I went to a traning seminar (mandatory) on adoption, more specifically we had classes on having a multi cultural family and also some classes about raising a child who is adopted. We did not go there with bad attitudes but we were not expecting much either. I can't say we were wowed by alot but we did learn some a few very valuable lessons. The main teacher was a Korean Adoptee herself and was able to relate alot of information on what is feels like to grow up adopted.
 We were not the only couple there, four other couples took this course with us and like us they are all anticipating adding to their family. All of the families that were there besides us were adopting from China and two of the families already had children set and were just waiting to go and get them. We were able to see pictures of both a little girl and a little boy who were absolutely adorable. That was so fun!!!
 One of the main things that really struck us througout the two days was an exercise we did. Our instructor pulled one of the men from the group up to the front and then gave the remainder of the people in their seats sticky notes. The man then told us a little about himself and we wrote down key words on our sticky not es regarding things that were important to him or that basically made him who he was. We then put the sticky notes on him and then the instructor made up a series of events that caused him to lose all his "sticky notes", the final sticky note she took off of him was his name. The instructor then said this is what the beginning of the process is like for your child, everything that they know will be taken from them and they will have to start over (yes I got choked up). How hard would that be? Not that we hadnt considered all of this before but we never really thought about the name part. We were planning on changing the name and that was that but after hearing this seminar I think we have decided to keep the first name as a second middle name. Meaning we will still use our name that we picked out but also the name that the birth parents picked out. We thought that this child will have no connection with it's birthparents but one of the only things the mother was involved in with her child's life was to give them a name. We want to honor that.

We also learned some other things that I think help you think outside the box, I think the most enjoyable part for me was when we were on a break form the class and I just looked around the room and thought " we are really doing this, we are really adopting a baby." Even though our wait is still long these classes made the process seem even more real.  I am so thankful for the lessons I learned this past week and I am so thankful for the baby that God has picked out for us!

Some good and bad

For any women who has been pregnant you understand that when your pregnant it seems that people's filters turn off and that they tell you whatever they want. Alot of times it is nice and they ask nice questions about your future child. Other times the things that come out of peoples mouth's makes you want to hit them. I remember being pregnant and hearing stories about terrible labors or how big I was getting...Really, who says that? In any case this does not change when people find out you are adopting. Mostly, I have received positive feedback and people always tell me of their friend,cousin, neighbor etc who has adopted and what a joy the child is but there has been a few people who have decided to tell me the horror stories. Yesterday at work I had someone ask me if we were ever going to have more children. I told her yes and that we were actually in the adoption process for South Korea. Well she had a story for me, people at her church had adopted from Haiti and the child had been with them for over a year and now they just received word that the child would have to go back (Im not sure how this is happening as you sign hundreds of documents and go to court to make the child officially yours and an american citizen)but in any case she went on and on about how they are fighting this and this is their worse nightmare and blah blah blah... Not really what I wanted to hear and if that is really happening my heart breaks for that family!

But then there are the people who tell you a story and when they do their face lights up and that type of story makes your own face light up. We had this happen to us last week. While at a open house for Greyson's preschool (yes my baby is old enough to go to preschool) we ran into a family friend and she has a cousin who is adopting from South Korea as well. She had told us about her cousin last May and at that time they had just been told their wait time was increased. In May her cousin's family was pretty bummed. Anyway,the other night, she asked how the adoption was going and then went on to tell us that her cousin who was not expecting to get her baby for a few more months received great news in September.They received their referral and they got a little girl who they brought home a few weeks ago. The baby was 11 months old. Amazing and Wonderful news. It made me so happy. I want to cut and paste their experience into my own life!

  In any account everyone has their story and it makes them unique and good or bad it is their story. I am just thrilled to have an adoption story even if I dont know the ending yet. He who began a good work is faithful to complete it. Can't wait till my story is complete!