Adoption expectaions

I have been talking to a Mom via message boards and Email and just last night found out She too as a child from the same orphanage as Little M. I can't think the last time I was this excited. Wow So cool Yippie! she also has a rainbow family (Adopted from more than just one country).  It made me soooo happy To know of another Adoptee just like my adoptee... now if we ever get them together, will it be oil and water? can we make mayonaise??  

Sometimes we can feel so alone with our problems, I know I far to often think "No one else feels how I feel" or "No one else has been through what I have been through."  I know this is just a big fat lie from the pit of H..E...  double toothpicks. Yet I still fall into false thinking, and the downward spiral starts yet again.  I Do love it when you make a connection that has Gods fingerprints all over it.

I also hate I when you see someone on the road you have driven on and you warn them hey the bridge is really shaky, I'd take this detour around it...  And you can just see they are not in a place to listen, they decide to cross the shaky bridge. Then while they are on the bridge they freak out because it is so shaky.  You think to yourself  Man I was just like that!!  to proud, to sleep deprived, to unsure of myself to listen. My expectations were way out of whack with reality.

You know when you Adopt you have expectations, especially if you have parented before.  When we adopted a second time we had to take a class about International Adoption. We tried to get out of it because we had previously adopted but it was faster to just do the 2 day class. Our Social worker was actually running it. She was so happy to have us there.  I soon figured out why.

As she would bring up a scenario (usually one we had lived through)  and present it to the group.  Those who had birth children would talk about how they would handle it (with confidence).  Those adopting but had no children would listen or add what worked for them when they were kids.  The social worker never let us talk till everyone else had gone first. It was so funny.  We wouldn't look at it from how would we handle it but rather how badly all the things they just offered didn't work. Then the only thing that did work for us was... Over and over and over again. The social worker managed to drive home to some our adoption was not unusual. this was normal... I could see about half those in our group started to have paradigm shifts in their expectation.  Others did not listen. They were still in that place of it won't happen to me, your exaggerating.

 I can remember those early days of adoption When my attitudes were "These horror stories won't happen to me. God loves me. He won't let that happen to me. I'll be such a great mom. "  I am no longer in that place. Something works for you Yippie let me try it too! And being Mom is such fun but I'm just doing the best I can.