Adoption 101

It's funny, a year ago when I turned 30, Dave threw this amazing surprise party for me. I mean he really pulled out all the stops. He had flown out my mom, both my sisters, and my best friend Susan from UT out to VA. So while I thought we were going out to a nice dinner with some of our friends, instead when we dropped by to pick up our friends, I was completely surprised by probably 40 of my closest friends and family. It was really special.

Now a year later, we spent my birthday on a Friday night in three hours of adoption class. My sister Crystal was coming to town for the week so we sacrificed some "fun play time" to have her watch kids so we could get our "adoption training" classes done. Now we did stop for a really great dinner beforehand, so can't complain there.

We were in class Friday night from 6-9 and all day Saturday. We learned a lot about kids who are adopted and talked about becoming a multi racial family. While we've had quite a bit of parenting experience already in our lives, it did really open our eyes to many things--how these children have lost everything they've ever known, issues and challenges they'll encounter growing up, and how they'll fit into the community and our lives.

We were the unusual couple there as we already had kids. For me, I know I have to be sensitive to those who are adopting because they cannot have kids due to infertility. I am VERY grateful that I have had kids and am still able to adopt. The other couples in our class are adopting from the Philippines and another single woman from Haiti. They were great couples and we all share this special bond because of our adoption desires. Another great experience we had during the classes was to have another couple join us who is at the very end of the process. They actually just visited the two little girls they're going to adopt over in Kazakstan for nearly a month and now they will be returning to pick them up in just a couple weeks. Their story was moving and after feeling their sense of fulfillment and such anticipation, I can't wait until those days come for us.