Parent In Process Class

One thing that China requires is that we take a Parent In Process class. Eric and I went to Omaha the first weekend in December to complete part of the class. We were excited for our class but also excited to have a weekend away together.

We were in the class with 3 other couples. Two of the couples are in the process of adopting from Ethiopia and the other couple is adopting from China. This is their second time adopting from China so it was fun to have their insights. One of the gals in our class was from my hometown. Eric is pretty sure where ever we go I run into someone I know. We had such a great weekend. It was so eye opening as we talked through various aspects of what we will be dealing with. There were a couple huge things I feel like Eric and I came away with. First, we realized we will be adjusting our parenting and discipline style. Some of those things we never thought we would do like having a child sleep with us may just be thrown out the window. We also talked a lot about not only will our child deal with issues that come with adoption but also trans racial issues, trans cultural issues and issues that come with being in an orphanage. WOW it was a lot to process but I know the awareness and talking through things will be so helpful. I think the biggest realization that Eric and I walked away with is to really grasp what our little boy is going to be going through in the process. We know we will be offering him love, a family, opportunity and everything we see as a blessing for him. What really hit was how in the process of gaining these things he will be losing absolutely everything. Our teacher made us write down the 10 things that were the most important things and people to us. It was the 1o things that really make us who we are. We were asked to slowly cross off things that we can live without. We struggled through the exercise as we didn't feel like we could live without these things. When every single thing was crossed off our list our teacher talked about how that represented what was happening to our little boy. He will be losing everything that is familiar to him and makes him who he is. It makes my heart break for him. We realized the importance of the process of rebuilding that for him as he becomes our son.

Eric and I loved eating at some of our favorite restaurants with out kids. It was such a blessing to be away, spend time together and it gave us time to process and talk through everything we were taking in during the class. This weekend was another affirmation of God's hand in this process. I felt like he really unified us in mind and spirit on our discussions and how we want to approach different things with the adoption.

On Friday after our class we decided to grab a movie. We don't get to the movies too often. We looked at what was showing and saw that Blind Side was showing. Now if you don't know me I have to preface this with I am clueless about movies, actors and actresses. I had heard from someone that the movie was good but had no clue what it was about. Eric had not heard of it. He said well let's try it. We had no clue the move was about trans racial adoption. Needless to say after spending a day in a class about trans racial adoption it hit home and we should have had a box of Kleenex. We had a wonderful dinner with amazing conversation and headed back to the hotel. We decided to head down to the hot tub. To our surprise the other couple from our class that had adopted a little girl from China and now is adopting a little boy was in the hot tub. It was such a blessing to be able to ask them questions and have them share their journey with us. We had a wonderful weekend and it was nice to check another thing off our to do list!