Oh, the irony...

So the irony wasn't lost on me that we sat in 2 days worth of adoption education classes, Friday and Saturday night, and were there when my BFF's baby was born. Classic.

The classes were actually pretty good and interesting. On Friday night there were two speakers, the first being so fun and upbeat. I turned to L and said, "Why couldn't SHE have been our social worker?"

And then (cue music, dun dun dun DUN....) was our social worker. Seriously, such a debbie downer, making everything so negative. there were about 20 of us in the class and I think we all felt that way after she spoke. It made me feel a little vindicated afterwards...

She kept talking about the pervasive loss her children feel as a result of their adoption, and maybe it will come with time, but I do not fully understand it. Older child adoption, international adoption, foster children, THAT I fully understand. But her children were domestic adoption, and with her since they were 36 hours old. I certainly don't remember anything from 36 hours old, do you? While I do understand a general feeling of loss from being adopted, that your mother did not necessarily give birth to you, but your birth mother chose to make the best decision for you to have someone else raise you, I don't understand a pervasive sense because those kids have never known anything else. If they were adopted at 6 years old and knew other families, or were in an orphanage in Russia, or the foster care system, shuttled back and forth, then it would make sense.

In fact, the first speaker (whom I loved) spoke about her older child adoption from Russia. She adopted the child at 8years old. At 6, the child and her full blooded sibling were adopted by an American family, but the family ended up keeping the sibling and sending the older daughter back to Russia, where she was adopted 2 years later by the first speaker. Pervasive sense of loss? Oh yes! How horrible that must have been to have been sent back, and as a kid, not really understanding why (and as an adult, I may not be able to understand it either). My social worker's kids? Not at all the same, in my honest opinion.

Anyway, for the most part the class(es) were nice. Some we didn't need because we're done with our homestudy and profile now, and it would have been nice to have done this several months ago. But most of the classes are 5 hours away from us and we got lucky that they were doing a weekend near us so we jumped on it. They also showed us examples of profiles and I have to admit (braggy here) I thought ours is so much better. I hope it works for us, anyway.