What a Wonderful Weekend of "We-ness Wellness"...Wow, Wow, Wow!

It's a strange feeling to be done with our required training. I thought I'd be so happy to have another step taken care of. I intended to just check it off of a list. Clearly, I was acting from my head. My emotions feel differently about it. On the way home last night, I felt a little sad, a little apprehensive and a lot excited.

To recap, we did some serious work in preparing our souls for this new adventure on weekend one. On weekend two, we moved beyond the focus on ourselves and our fellow group members and into the world of our birth mothers and the experience of being adopted from our kids' point of view. This weekend brought it all together to fold the lessons we've learned into the fabric of all three perspectives. We learned to focus on the "we" instead of the "I" or the "you". We acquired skills to make sure we're creating wellness for the whole and that led to the aptly dubbed concept of We-ness Wellness! (Say it out loud. If you don't giggle, you'll know you had to be there.)

We learned about parenting a newborn and the next steps in our journey to welcoming those little ones home. It was extremely inspiring to be shown how to swaddle, books that we might read to our kids about their story, tools to teach our family principles to each other and the kiddos. It was all so practical. It was all so real. It was all so confirming. We had to clap at one point when Tammy, one of the agency's birth mother counselors, started her next teaching with "You're all going to have a baby." What a proclamation!

We wrote letters again this weekend, but there was a much different tone. This time, they were welcome letters to our anticipated little ones. We each shared our unique version of our hopes and dreams about what kind of lives we'll offer them. I wrote to ours about what a fantastic set of grandparents and friends await them. I lost it when I was reading aloud how awesome their daddy is and how much we look forward to meeting them. Josh shared a similar vision and that they should take their time in finding us, but to hurry up! :-)

What hit me was that as I watched each person read their welcome letter, I know that each of these sets of parents are going to be just awesome. I can't wait for each of us to begin our families and I feel as excited for them as I do for the two of us...and all of you waiting with us!

One session was led by a family that adopted their baby six weeks ago and we got to see that it really does happen. Then, as if on queue, we were visited by another family just dropping by with their kids on their way to the birthday party of one of the kids in their adoptive parent group. Also, a text came in with the picture of a three-year-old's birthday cake face letting the agency ladies know they were still in the family's heart three years later. All of this served to assuage any concerns our group had about the genuineness of the agency's promise that we've made lifelong friends with our group members. There was a bittersweet sentiment in the air as we all realized that the safety of being understood each weekend among these other people sharing in our journey was no longer going to be scheduled for us. As we left, the plans for our first monthly potluck were already underway. Thank goodness.

We received a bag of gifts from the agency that are already in use in our home. Each couple received a soft, cuddly teddy bear, a journal and a gorgeous candle. We all lit our candles and the light that was shared with seven couples' hope is sure to reach our babies' souls and let them know that we're ready. We placed our candle in the nursery at home. We'll focus on drawing our baby to us through this light of hope often. In the journal, we'll write love letters to bring them to us. We're sharing openly about the dream of our family and our kids will get to read all about it when they are growing up.

Appropriately, we ended the training with an ice cream bar, complete with waffle cones...my favorite!

For us, the next step is a meeting with the agency to discuss our openness to an open adoption, children of other races, special needs, sex of the baby, and we don't know what else. As we understand it, after that time, we'll be waiting for a connection to be made and our love story to begin.