Swim Lessons

You know that whole "throw them in the deep water" school of teaching kids how to swim?  The one method that is guaranteed to make a non-swimmer?  Yeah, that one.  Adoption training can feel like being tossed in the deep waters of negativity.  At our adoption orientation meeting,  we learned that there are two schools of thought regarding adoption training: Cram everything into one 14 hour weekend, or a series of 6-8 weeks of classes.  The two hour adoption orientation meeting was enough to make us feel like we were floundering in the deep water, and so, we have decided to pursue the long, "relaxed" version of classes.*  We still very much like "our" agency, but we're going to pursue the next segment of training with DHS directly, then return to our agency.   We learned a lot about ourselves last night:

• We are so lucky to live in this state, with its pioneering attitude on adoption/foster-adopt/and case planning.  It is not perfect, but we are so much more impressed than with the Midwest state we come from.
• We are the annoying tag-team question asking duo all other adoptive parents love to hate.  (This is a major reason why we are opting out of this weekend.  Spend a full weekend with us, with our hands in the air, and you might need something stronger than the bottles of water and quaker oats bars which are offered).
• I have an almost unlimited capacity to be snarky about the process. 
• Foster-adopt is heavily weighted towards experienced parents. Our trainer focused on integrating children with existing children, and seemed to assume that most people were not first timers like us.   
• Nearly half of all placements are sibling groups.  We didn't realize how unprepared we are for a sibling group until we learned this. 
• The vast majority of placements are not anywhere close to our target age range. 
• Stretching is a major theme in foster-adopt.  We're not sure how far we can stretch beyond what we currently think we can handle. 
• When others warn you that training focuses on the negative, they are not kidding.  I was wreck last night and Freak wasn't much better. 
• We absorb information slowly.  As individuals, we are voracious readers and fast learners, so this was a big surprise.  But, our couple style means that we need small bits of information to talk over and not overwhelm us.  I had a great conversation this morning with a coordinator, and I no longer feel guilty about admitting that the fast-track, intensive process is not for us.  It doesn't mean we want to be parents any less, but we need to deal with each facet of the process individually.   
• We are a small lake apart on openness right now.  Not miles or oceans, but we need time to refine our mutual concept of a situation that will meet everyone's needs.   
• Surprise, surprise, the dual program may actually turn out to be our best bet.  The coordinator likes our willingness to work with DHS diversions and other higher-than-average risk infant placements and felt like we would be a good fit for dual listing, with a concentration on special situations that meet both criteria.   

So, we're actually slowing the good ship adoption down a bit, taking small deliberate steps as we learn more about the whole process and about us in the process. This slow-route to project kid feels right, which is strange for my type-A, full-steam ahead persona to be saying, but it really does. I need time to focus on the important work I am doing towards healing my depression issues (more on that later), we need more time to work out a financial plan, and we want time to discuss each possible special need in depth together, as we learn to swim in the murky waters of foster-adopt.

*I'm not dissing this intensive method for others, and indeed it might fit our needs later.    

Comments

[Margaret]

It's so hard to know what special needs you can parent effectively and those that you can't. My list of "will considers" is huge... there are very few issues I'm not willing to consider. Still, there have been several kids that have made me think I'm being too restrictive. "Stretching" is definitely a must in this adoption arena.

[Carrie]

Smart woman. I admire you greatly.

[Esther]

Hey, we are in the domestic adoption plan as well. I just jumped into blogger land this month with my own blog, and found your blog. From your entry here, looks like we are at the same place in the process. Nice to find some waiters in the mix ;o)

We had two failed Russian adoptions (due to our schmucky agency), one of those adoptions we actually traveled to Russia to adopt the little girl. Criminal activity got in the way of the adoption, and now no one is allowed to adopt this little girl. So we forage on....with domestic adoption.

My blog is
www.crownedwithlaurel.blogspot.com

I'll keep checking back on yours. Have fun with the PRIDE training. We're doing the weekend version at the end of March....

[Jessie]

Oh I remember how overwhelming my orientation meeting was. That was almost a year ago now but I remember feeling like my brain was so overloaded!! Good luck in your journey.