Three weeks ago I started the final piece of the adoption approval puzzle, the Adoption Education Program (AEP) run by the Adoptive Families Association of BC (AFABC) – https://www.bcadoption.com/education.

While I cant reproduce the content, or talk about it specifically – as I signed a nondisclosure agreement at the beginning of the course – I would still like to share how I’m feeling abut the things that I’m learning.

So far, the past weeks have been powerful, challenging, and sometimes confronting.

I’ve gained a clearer understanding of the loss involved in adoption for the child, for the biological family, the foster parents, and even for the adoptive parents.

These new understandings have come in ways that were either guided through the content or self-discovery based on my responses to the content.

One video from the course so far drove the picture home with words alone, and demonstrated the viewpoint of children living in the disruptive world of foster care and adoption. The perspective of the child and how often their experiences make it easier to shut down than to be open to the possibility that this time it will work out.

I believe I can print this title and link here as it is available online for purchase at infant-parent.com: Multiple Transitions, by Michael Trout, http://www.infant-parent.com/collections/transitions/products/multiple-transitions-a-young-child-s-point-of-view-on-foster-care-and-adoption

It is no wonder these children are angry. If you do not open your heart to something or someone, then there is nothing to lose.

Love takes courage – as a very good friend of mine often says.

And if you have been burned many times by courageously opening your heart to new people and possibilities (especially as a child) only to be hurt again and again, then it’s much, much easier to close off to everything and everyone.

This course is also helping me to define more clearly the children that I hope will become my family, although I acknowledge that this is an emotional decision that is constantly shifting and changing with me as I grow and learn.

Something that keeps coming up is that the more disruptions the child has had (moving from home to home) the more likely the child will have longer lasting difficulties with connecting with their new forever parent/s.

Another video stream that I watched as a part of this course showed an interview with an adoptee. His story and description of his life and his feeling toward his adoptive parents for the bulk of his childhood with them – gave me pause to consider how I would cope with his situation.

He expressed having no emotion toward his adopted parents, being switched off to the humanness of them, and not feeling any emotion behind the names “mom & dad”. These were just words, just names of objects like chair and table, nothing but a label for the people he lived with. There were no cuddles, no hugs, there was no love in his heart for these objects. And he felt this way for many, many, many years.

I found this idea really confronting, and while it was just one voice in 1000’s, and while it did eventually work out for the family and he eventually opened up to them, accepting them, and feeling love for them – mom and dad eventually became more than labels – the thought of living with a child for so many years as a caregiver instead of a parent, breaks my heart.

I am not sure I would be equipped to cope with a long-term affection-less relationship with a child that I love.

It might be selfish of me to say – and at this point I’m only me, talking about what my needs are – but I don’t know how I would cope with an emotionally distant child for potentially ‘ever’.

I want to feel connected with my children, I won’t care if they are different to the norm – I will absolutely support whoever they are as individuals even if no one else understands them – but I will care if there is no reciprocal love between us long term. Long term, that would be very tough for me.

Of course, as any future mom would feel, I want to be sure that the circumstances will be the most ideal for me personally so I can give all that I have to give to my kids and we can be off to the best start possible. I truly want for us to become a family, not just a caregiver and child, but to really become a stable loving family.

It’s funny how sometimes I feel the need to explain that as a pre-adoptive parent. This is definitely one way in which adoption is different to pregnancy.

No pregnant mother worries that her child is not going to love her back – at least not as a real/tangible/proven possibility. She might entertain it as a fleeting fear in her moments of irrational panic about the future…but they would be just that, irrational and fleeting fears.

It seems in the adoption world a pre-adoptive parent is constantly being prepared for the worst case scenario and anything better than that is considered a gift.

So sometimes I find myself feeling guilty that I’m hoping for the best case scenario, that I idealize my future with my children when I imagine our lives together, that I’m hopeful for a loving happy family – as an internal unit – even if we are quirky or different to the outside world.

Please don’t misunderstand…I am not delusional, I expect there will be a period of adjustment for all involved, I know that attachment and connection will take time, and I know it will be a gradual change for us – as with all relationships. We don’t jump instantly into knowing each other, or loving each other, or trusting each other. Of course, there will be a gradual growth. But I do want to feel that there is progress, I want to feel that we will get there to the place that connected families feel: loved, secure, permanent.

The AEP has changed my perspective over the past few weeks as far as what I believed I could handle as an adoptive parent and I am sure I will continue to grow and change over the next 10 weeks of the course too.

The only constant that has stayed the same over the past 12 months of this adoption approval journey has been that I want to ensure that I set myself up to be the best possible mom that I can be to children who have not had a stable, loving family.

And in order to ensure that I can succeed as the best parent I can be, I want to start with the most ideal situation.  As I’m sure every expectant mother would choose!

If that means changing my choices, or narrowing my field of selection to set myself up for the highest possible success… then so be it.

A note on the AEP:

If you are considering adoption in BC (or Canada, I believe this is a Canada-wide requirement), I would recommend getting into this course as soon as you can because the information provided so far in just a few weeks has been invaluable to my development as a pre-adoptive parent and to my understanding of adoption… period.

Talk with your social worker, find out more about the AEP in your area – or in your country – enroll in the course and be ready to be open to a whole range of emotions that will explode from your heart and wrap around your soul.

As the weeks progress I will provide more updates.

How about you? Have you completed the AEP? Was there another course in your country, if you are not in Canada?

What did you feel about the things you were learning? Did it change your perspective as a pre-adoptive parent?

Warm smiles and Love,

Ali Jayne 🙂