Orientation Class | Family Dynamics of Open Adoption

Tonight was our first "Orientation" Class...which was supposed to be LAST Thursday, but instead Mother Nature interrupted those plans by bringing us the first snow storm of the winter season (gotta love Midwestern winters!).

The class size was larger than I expected, if I remember correctly there were 8 other couples besides us.  Due to last week's class being cancelled, in this week's class we covered topics that are normally covered in week 2 because the guest speakers were already booked for this week.  So, tonight we met an adoptive family that consisted of dad, mom, their 9 yr. old biological son, and their 1 yr. old adopted son...plus the birth mom, who is currently a high school senior.  We found it to be very interesting and informative!

The birth mom spoke about things such as: what brought her to adoption, how difficult it was, how things are going for her now,  what made her choose this family over the other 2 profiles she viewed, among other things.  The adoptive parents spoke about what brought them to adoption after having a biological child, how the open adoption process has worked (and continues to work) for them, how long their wait was before being matched, and many other things.  Plus we were all given a chance to ask questions of both the adoptive parents and the birth mom.  This took up a majority of the class, then after this family left, the caseworkers explained a little more background on this family, discussed a few other topics and then we had a quick discussion on when our "make up" class will be in place of the class time we missed last week.  We were also given more paperwork that needs to be filled out...I know there will be MUCH more paperwork to come!

Overall, I thought tonight's session was great, and I can't wait for the next one!  The caseworkers will be in contact with each of us for confirm the reschedule date for this....so, for right now, we just have to hang tight for a few days before we have more info!

First snow fall...

So, today was supposed to be our first orientation class. Mother Nature had other plans. After going this far into the winter with no snow, and almost hitting a record on the latest in the season for a snow fall (not just flurries), today of all days we get SNOW.

It's been snowing here since early this morning (6AM) and it's STILL snowing (at 6PM)!!  Needless to say, we got a call around 11AM from our case worker letting us know that they were canceling tonight's class. :(

As much as I love snow days, I'm going to pray that next Thursday there is NO SNOW!!!  I want to get this ball rolling!!!!