Adoption Conference

This is coming a little bit late and I have wanted to post on it for awhile and I just haven't had the chance. On August 9th I attended an adoption conference through LDS family services. Let me just say this it was one of the best conferences I have been to. It was so spiritual, emotional, educational and uplifting. It started out with a broadcast from Salt Lake City that was very uplifing. After that there were many classes that we could attend and I decided to attend one on "chronicling your adoption journey". The class was great and very informative for me. I just haven't had a chance to update scrapbooks and this gave me not only that motivation, but also a few other resources I can use and some other ideas. I have decided that I am going to do photobooks online because I think those will not be as time consuming as scrapbooking. We were given quite a few websites that do them and I have researched them and I am excited and anxious to start. There was also talk about adoption Life Books. I have never heard of them before and I was sold on them the second I learned about them. They are amazing and a much needed book for adopted children. When I got home from the conference I got on the internet and ordered the book "Lifebooks- Creating a Treasure For The Adopted Child", let me just say I HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone that has adopted it's amazing and very informative. I cannot wait to get started on them for Hollie and Ethan. Hollie is at the perfect stage and I want her to know everything about how she came to our family and why. This is going to be an emotional project for me because this all is so special to me, but I am excited to do it and cannot wait.
Another one of the classes that I attended was the Adult and Teen Adoptee Panel. This was great also because there were 3 people on the panel who were adopted and they answered many questions most of us had.
The last class I went to was called, Raising your adopted children. So much information was given in this class and it was all very helpful. We received many handouts on how to deal with certain situations, ideas, books for adopted children, how to address teasing, how teachers can help etc.. The man that tought the class brought his wife and son, who they adopted and it was great to hear him speak. He gave some experiences growing up that dealt with his adoption and the best part about it was that he was so grateful to his birthmom for making the choice that she did for him. She knew she couldn't care for him and wanted him to have a good life, a life she could not provide him with. She was not a member of the church and dropped him off at 10 days old to LDS family services and knew that a mormon family would give him a good life. It was very touching to see the gratitude he has for his birthmom for making such a tough decision, but a decision she knew was best for him. It was amazing.
At lunch there was a presentation by a woman and her husband and their journey to adoption. It was so touching. She is a song writer and singer and wrote a few songs about her life and her journey to their daughter. Everyone's adoption story is different and yet they all have such an amazing spirit with them. I don't think there was a dry eye in the audience throughout her performance. It was amazing and I am so grateful to her for sharing her story with us. I LOVE hearing about other people's adoption stories and sharing ours. Every one is so different and such a miracle in and of itself, it's such a spritual experience.
At the end of the conference there was a birthmother who spoke. I am speachless as to what to say about that because I just cried through the whole thing. She went through and told us about her adoption plan from start to finish and ALL that she went through between. It was an amazing story and she reminds me a lot of our birthmother. Those woman are simply amazing and have done something so unselfish and have put themselves aside and sacrificed so much for a child, in our case two. There are not any words to express my feelings for them and about them. The only person that Ryan and I can compare them to is Mary. Having a child and giving them up is something I could never comprehend and yet, there are woman out there doing it for the better of their child(ren)-they are simply amazing and the love I have for them is indescribable.
I am so grateful that I was able to attend this conference. It came at a perfect time for me and I am so grateful for the spirit that was there all day. If I was smart I would have not worn any make-up because it was all off by the end of the day. It was absolutely fantastic!