Adoption 101

After all the planning and dreaming and anxiety, it feels good that we took the first tangible step toward adoption by taking the first of our four classes.

They covered a lot of material and it got a little emotional at times. I liked that it was a mix of people: black people, white people, straight people, gay people, single people, people who have adopted kids already, older people whose kids are grown and who are seeking to care for foster kids. It was encouraging to see people who have already been through the process who can share their experiences with the rest of the class.

We all had to share our stories of why we wanted to adopt and there were a range of answers. Some couples can't conceive, some wanted kids and didn't want to go through pregnancy again, and a few people were taking in relatives' kids who were in foster care and alluded to some of the abuse the kids had been through with their birth parents. And everyone's crying.

Steve and I had the least dramatic story of anyone there (because I assume it's all a competition and we're graded on drama, right?). We just wanted a kid and since neither one of us can bear a child, we thought we'd adopt a kid who needs parents.

They played a video illustrating what foster kids can go through. It was just text on the screen and some voice-overs of kids, scored to bagpipes so it had that Sarah-MacLachlan-abused animals-commercial-full-body-sob feel. "Did I do something wrong that my parents didn't want me?" the unseen child says. And, oops, everyone's crying again.

It was an eye-opener to the kind of issues kids in foster care have. They have problems with trust, fear, acting out and a whole host of potential problems, particularly those who have bounced from home to home. But as emotional and daunting as all the information was, I felt a sense of hope because I feel like we can help these kids and this is a good avenue for that. It's scary getting all this information but that's just parenthood, so we'll just find some steel in our spines, like all good parents, birth or adoptive, have to have.