The Year of Learning (about open adoption)

It was this time last year we started our home study process. I remember setting up the first appointment with our social worker. She said there would be a lot of paperwork to go through for the first meeting. So I didn't stress about the meeting too much.

However once we got there, the "interview" began. She hit us with questions about our infertility struggle on the very first meeting. I wasn't expecting this. It was probably a good thing. I didn't have time to over think it. There were tears. It had been about 2 years since had finished our last Invitro fertilization round(IVF). But, we got through the initial interview and set up our next appointment in which we would be interviewed separately.

That was the one that gave me a headache. The questions delved deeply into our marriage, into our individual upbringings and our relationships with our families. Our social worker was always kind. But it was a very long session and I had to have an aspirin afterwards. We got in the car and I told Hunter how the session had given me a headache. He confessed to the same.

We went on to have the home visit. I swear, by that time I was happy to just clean the house. I thought the meeting would be free of questions. Wrong! But they were mostly about how we would react to certain scenarios concerning an open adoption. I, like most people, was wary of the contact with the birth mother. Then all these situations were presented to us like contact with grandparents or contact with siblings. These were situations I never even contemplated and the thought of it all definitely overwhelmed me. We answered very conservatively about such contacts. After our home study was approved our social worker suggested I start blogging and sent me two examples of adoption blogs.

So I started reading and reading and reading. I was glad to be exposed to people writing about their experiences with adoption. I try to regularly read blogs by people on all sides of the adoption equation. Through reading these experiences, I have learned so much and am now firmly a believer of open adoptions.

What a difference a year makes!