Adoption Training in MPLS

Two Wednesdays ago, I cancelled my evening guitar students and Kari and I drove to Minneapolis to do the training that Lutheran Social Services mandates for everyone adopting through them.

The training was all day Thursday and started at 8AM, so making the 4 hour drive the night before and paying for a hotel room was WELL worth it. Our hotel room turned out to have been vastly misrepresented by the pictures on the hotel website – not only was it extremely cramped and dingy; it also had, mounted directly over the head of the bed, a charcoal-tinted mirror that looked suspiciously like it might have, in another life, protected the identity of a witness identifying a suspect from a lineup. We were pretty amused. Weirdness notwithstanding, the sheets were clean, the bed was comfortable, and we woke up more or less ready to go the next day.

By the time we were actually headed to the training Kari’s nerves had settled some and I was actually getting kind of excited, not so much because I thought that the training would be really exciting (though it a way it was) but because it brings us one step closer to a baby of our own. I have to say, I was not expecting LSS headquarters to be nearly as nice/modern as it was. All the natural light, open spaces, etc. put me at ease. We arrived early and sat in the foyer until the LSS staff doing the training showed up, gave us a packet of training materials, and ushered us into the room where the training was held.

We were by far the youngest couple there. Seating for trainees was at smallish tables seating 8 people each, and we were the first to arrive at ours. With these types of things you never know who you’ll sit with, but we were fortunate enough to be joined by two couples who were really friendly, had gone through some of the same stuff we have, and just made the day a lot more fun.

The training itself was really good. There were quite a few topics covered, including how to deal with your child’s sense of loss and other identity issues adopted children deal with, how to deal with the issues involved in raising a child from another race/culture, how to effectively communicate with and relate to the adopted child’s birth parents, and a bunch of other stuff. At the end there was a panel-type discussion and Q&A session with three families with adopted children, as well as two of the birth mothers of those children. I think most people realize that the adoption process is a complicated and sometimes messy one, but I came away from the training with a lot to think about. Some of the things we learned were things that either I had heard before or was easy enough to see through a little common sense, but a lot of the issues involved are things I would never have thought of on my own, especially regarding the loss felt by adopted children even when they know their birth parents as well as all the issues involved in parenting a child of another race or culture.

Overall it was a really great experience. In addition to learning a ton of stuff that will help us be better parents we met some really great people who we will hopefully keep in contact with throughout the process. Most of the people were from the Twin Cities area so it will be tough to get together with them on a regular basis but we want to try to meet up with some of the couples we met from time to time, because it’s unbelievably nice to talk to people who are going through a lot of the same things as we are.