Adoptive Parent Training

Jared and I went to a two day workshop designed to help adoptive parents create a successful adoption experience. It was well worth our time. The best part was a panel of birth mothers who were gracious enough to describe their intense experiences to our group. These courageous women have been through a lot! I knew their stories would make me cry, and they did.

We learned that these mothers very carefully, and prayerfully, searched for a mother and father who they believed would provide the kind of care they wanted for their precious baby. It makes sense to describe adoption as placement, not “giving up” a child. They are acting for their child, not for themselves, not even for adoptive couples.

Saturday influenced our opinions about openness in adoption. Overall it is usually better for the child AND the birth mother (and even for the adoptive parents) to have contact after placement. Another speaker at the training who was herself adopted, said that with a totally closed adoption as hers had been for a long time, she had nothing but questions – no answers, no people to help finish her personal story. Now I feel we can happily provide a birth mother with the links to her baby that she will likely want. This may mean an ongoing blog with pictures, it could mean phone calls, and could mean in-person visits. That is okay – I understand that the child we would hope to have in our family will have another special person (maybe many people) who are indeed an important part of their lives.