Wednesday, August 02, 2006

The Broken Heart

I attended my first adoption parenting class last night and there were a fee bits of wisdom/advice for me to chew on. The nurse who teaches the class is a pediatric nurse and also an adoptive parent of two. She shared something that was imparted to her at an adoption workshop that she went to years and years ago when she had adopted her children--who are now adults. On the board there was a big heart drawn on the board with a break down the middle. The workshop leader had told them that was an important image because all adopted children (regardless of age) come to their adoptive parent(s) with a broken heart. This really hit me. I have already thought about the loss that my little boy has been through and the way that might affect him, but something about the broken heart really hit me. All babies/kids lose their first love--mom--when given up for adoption. I am not sure how this will affect our family and I now understand that we might not know how it will affect our family until much later in life. As the nurse reminded us--"you never know what you are going to get with a baby."

In the class we also talked about adoption in general and the importance of talking about adoption with the kids and the fact that they are adopted should just be a matter of fact, it is part of them just like their hair color, etc. The nurse also imparted something else that she learned. She said it is important NOT to tell the baby that the birthmother loved the child so much that they gave him/her up because of that love. The reason for not saying this is then the kids will associate love with loss and will have a fear that everyone who loves them or "claims" to love will eventually leave them because that is what they believe is best for them. She was big proponet of honesty. To honestly tell the child of the circumstances of thier adoptions. Because anything written down or in the adoption paperwork will be something that they will see someday and they will eventually find out. Don't worry she did stress to only tell a child what they are capable of understanding at their age. Something else I hadn't thought about was pictures of parents/relatives if possible. This is important because adopted children want to know where they came from. Unfortunately we won't be able to do that for our son as we don't know anything about his parents. We will travel to the village/town where we came from so we will atleast have pictures of where he is from.

I guess these were all things I thought about, but it was important to hear this from another adoptive mom. I now know that there will be issues--mild to severe. My son may have issues with being adopted and there is nothing I can do to prevent that it is all dependent on his personality, etc. It will all be okay. I feel lucky that my son is being cared for where he is. Overall I am glad that I am taking the class. There was a lot of info that was helpful, interms of feeding, sleeping, etc. There are many things that I am no longer nervous about and others that I now wonder how I will handle and deal with it. But time is moving regardless and the day is getting closer and closer.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, I was wondering where you took this class/who offered it. Will you email me?

Fizzle said...

Man, simple but powerful imagery. (the heart)...

I'd love to hear more about your classes. We're going through some, too, altho have yet to touch on adoption.

writex3 said...

Hi Ms. Fin - I read your post a while ago, and it stuck with me all afternoon. Couldn't help but borrow from it for my blog today as I kept thinking about it...hope you don't mind (-: