Class #1

I"m sitting in my pjs doing that 'wfh' thing. Yes, indeedy, it's a very good day at Casa de Millie.

The mister and I have the second-in-a-series-of-five adoption classes tonight. I realized that once again I'm remiss in my posting so I thought I'd process a bit of last week's course by writing about it today.

We did make it on time (woo hoo) but apparently adoptive-parents-to-be are an early sort. No one told us that. The room was full of eager faces and only a few empty chairs. Another couple arrived after us, which always makes me feel like I'm not a total loser. Even though we were a couple of minutes early it seems like everyone else had been there for hours.

We had a substitute teacher for the night and we were much kinder to her than junior high kids would have been. She gave us an overview of the five weeks and then wanted us to 'share our stories' and what not. Nothing like a prompt like that to get a room of infertiles chomping at the bit.

I think there are a total of 9 couples in our lass. The first thing that struck me was how homogeneous the group was: 8 of the 9 couples are white-white-white-WHITE. That's not something that I see very often in the Bay Area. I live in a very diverse neighborhood in a very diverse city. Both the mister and I work in high tech for very diverse companies.  I wondered how this group was so not racially diverse, especially as the parent profiles on the website are much more diverse. Just chance, I guess?

There was one lesbian couple and one gay couple. Of course, the mister and I thought of The Kid right away with the gay couple and hoped the class wouldn't overly focus on things that might not apply to them. I'm worried that I'll start calling them Dan and Terry instead of their real names.

There were three other couples that are also really early on in the process. Like not yet written the autobiographies and submitted the application yet early. The other couples are all either finishing up their homestudy, revising their dear birthmom letter or just waiting to be matched. I think it's great there are some folks where we are and some much farther down the road.

We watched a great dvd that our agency put together as outreach for women thinking about making an adoption plan. There were several different birthmoms and adoptive families in the video and it gave a nice overview to the process but tied into real people and their stories. I'm sure it won't surprise anyone that there wasn't a dry eye in the room afterward.

Tonight we'll focus on adoptive parents, next week (which we'll miss and I'm bummed) there will be birth parents in attendance, then a break for the holidays. In January the first session will be adult adoptees and I think we finish up with more attachment and and parenting issues.

I think we'll look for/join a support group as we get further down this path. It's great to get information but honestly I can read up on stuff and find everyone online. I'm looking forward to the personal parts of the class and really hope to make some connections with people that are in the midst of it all. It will be good to check a few things off our list and that's the main reason we're taking the course now.

There were a couple of things that the facilitator said that seemed a bit old-school to me and annoyed me, but the beauty of waiting a week to write about it is I'm old and I've forgotten. I'll try to pay better attention this week so I have some dirt. Or at least a more interesting post.

Comments

[Sparkle]

I think this is similar to the two-day seminar Mr. S and I did. The course is a prerequisite for anyone pursuing either Int. or Local Adoption.

We made alot of the same observations - and of course we weren't the early to arrive people either!

There were alot of old-school elements to it - but I wonder if we find that because these days we've all been through so much 'new-school' stuff with IVF etc.?

We made connections with people then and are still in touch now - most on the same donor-egg journey as us.

It was definitely one of the most rewarding things we've done.

[Suz]

It sounds like it went well - and I'm glad. But meeting people, like face to face? That's insane! I mean, all you need is a computer....right? Right?

And yes, I loved reading the Kid.

[Louise]

Can't wait to hear abt class#2!

[Pamplemousse]

Sounds good although I don't understand the gay couple and their names?? Lost in translation, I think.

Mmm, sitting at home in PJs...my all time fave.