We had our last visit with Christyn (our social worker) on Monday. At the beginning of our homestudy process we were assigned three books to read as well as an online course to complete as homework. We all know I like information and lots of it, so having homework wasn't a big deal to me. I'm not adopted and I am a first time adoptive parent. I want to know what's going to happen, how to talk to my child about how she came to be ours, what I can do to help her adjust to the fact that she's adopted throughout her lifetime. (I'm just going to pretend the baby is going to be girl from now on, okay? I'm tired of the s/he thing...very tedious to work with.) I want to know what open adoption looks like in other families so that I can know what we want for our family.
I had always planned to tell my child that she was chosen because she was special. I want her to know that she was always loved, before we even know who she is. I didn't realize the pressure that this could put on my daughter, that she might feel the weight of expectations in that statement. If she was chosen because she was special then she could be unchosen if she doesn't live up to that specialness. I'd never thought about it that way before but it made sense. We've decided instead to say that we were chosen to be her parents by her birth family who loved her deeply. This way it's us who live up to expectations and our baby who experiences love from all sides. That seems much better to me.
That's just a small segment of what we studied and discussed with Christyn. There's much more to parenting an adopted child than I can cover here but if you'd like to know more, I'd recommend Raising Adopted Children by Lois Melina. it's a quick read and funny in parts. Jeff and I both enjoyed it.
So, as of Monday we are offically done meeting with our social worker. We have a few loose ends to tie up, paperwork wise but the main thing we are waiting for are our criminal history and background checks. Once those come back Christyn will write our homestudy and our profile will be displayed in all Bethany offices and on their website. After that, we just wait to be selected. So, I guess I'm pregnant on paper.
Great news! The home study is completed. Thanks for suggesting a book for us to read. This baby will have lots of Aunts and Uncles and cousins that will love her. It will be helpful to read up on adoption so hopefully we won't say or do the wrong thing (at least not intentionally), I am sure we will still make some mistakes. I know you will make wonderful parents. And I think a clean house IS important, but of course only Aunt Lorrie would say that!!! ha, ha.( I kept my house clean so the babies could crawl around on the floor and still not ruin their clothes)!
ReplyDeleteLove, Aunt Lorrie