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!