Official Adoption Class Graduates!

Woohoo! We are done! Last night was a 4th and final adoption class, so now we are on to the interviews with our social worker. The end is in sight and it feels kind of weird.

Last night was awesome. We talked a little about the assumptions people make about birth mothers (young, crazy, drug addicts, poor, etc) and what they actually are. Most of the birthmothers they work with are over 24-35. I was surprised by that, I had definately bought into the idea that adoptions are mostly from teen pregnancies. The sad truth is, most teens dont want to carry the baby for 9 months and just get an abortion, Sad.

The second half of the class they always have some kind of panel and this night it was birth moms. This was really awesome to me, because they were two perfectly normal women in their mid 30s. One had placed 12 years ago and the other 2 years ago. The second was pregnant again and was placing the new baby with the same family who has the 2 year old. How cool is that!
Both of these mothers have very open adoptions. They see the adoptive family once or twice a month, talk on the phone often, spend all major holidays together, etc. It was really impressive. There was a lot of talk about boundaries. They were both very adiment that they did not want to coparent and that they respected the parents decisions.

I think that is the most scary part of open adoption for people. The idea that there will be this other woman who has a very substantial connection with the child hanging around and intruding on your parentness. That the birth mom will have a deeper connection with the child, love her more, and want to really be with her. And that the birthmom will act like the parent, be judgemental of the way the child is being raised etc. These girls didnt have any of that, they saw that as a stereotype and were very focused on not doing those things. And they really didnt want to. They wanted their child to bond with the adoptive family, to want to be with them more than her. They understood the reality of the situation and worked for the good of it.

Oh and we went to Babies R Us and it was awesome, lots of fun and overwhelming looking at all the gadgets and stuff that "someone" says we need. If we bought everything we "needed" our house would be full of baby junk and we would be able to pay for our adoption! We did buy our first baby item: a blanket from the bedding set we picked, we went with bunny meadows. I love it and it looked fine in a white crib. Now I have the pattern and colors and cant wait to start painting the dresser!