Yippee Skippee! We have finished step 6!

Yay! We are finished Step 6. 50 hours of adoption education. While I feel like I have been able to add some valuable tools to our parenting toolbox, it still seems a little like stockpiling a bunch of tools we are not sure we will need for a project we have still not been given.

On our drive home from each class, we have to remind ourselves that we are being presented with worst case scenarios and that our children will not necessarily have ALL of the challenges we have learned about in the last month. While I worried that I would end this program full of doubt and maybe reconsider our decision to adopt through MCFD, I find that I am eager to move forward and, actually, feel refreshed. After leaving so many classes feeling like I was dragging my popped balloon bouquet behind me, I actually feel like I left the last class with my balloon bouquet fully inflated and a little light on my feet.

While I recognize that we did not make any lifelong friends during our education program - and we have still not joined a church - I am glad to have made some connections within the adoption community and look forward to catching up with these families at AFABC events in the future. We are having a harder time saying good-bye to the social worker who taught the course; we have become attached to her. She laughs at my jokes - surely this is a sign she "gets" us as a couple. Unlike choosing your ObGyn or midwife, we are not able to "shop around" for a social worker but we keep our fingers crossed that we will be able to continue our journey working with this woman who is like a beautiful bouquet of colourful balloons on a sunny day.

We are moving forward cautiously optimistic and even made the first move to forwarding a profile description of a sibling group to our social worker. While we logically understand that it is a long shot, it is hard not to start talking and planning about changes needed to be made to our home and our schedules to welcome new children into our family.

Is this the beginning of our "gestation" period? Only 11 more steps to go until the adoption journey will be complete...