Training and Outreach

Let's be honest.. Who is ever excited to go to training? I WAS! We met some great people and learned so much in the last two days. 

Yesterday was our adoption education training. We went in depth of the feelings of all parties involved in the adoption process: birth parents, child, and adoptive parents. We even had two families that had finished their adoption process within the last two years come and speak to us about their journey. We had a lot of questions answered. Both of these families' adoption plans are pretty open. One child gets to see her birth mother once a month and is even in her birth mother's wedding as a flower girl! 

We hope one day we will have that great relationship with our child's birth mother!

Our beloved name tags! There is a story behind these... 

On both days we got to know the other families in the training with us. It was so nice to meet people that are going through the same adventures as us! We all actually have each other's contact information and hope to keep in touch to watch each other go through the journey of growing their family through adoption.

This is us with Matt and Beth, our table mates! 

We had to fight to keep these name tags! Yesterday our educators had told us to leave them  for today's training and  we were crushed to find out that they had thrown them away! Matt had them reprint them for keepsakes!

Today was our outreach training. Waiting families reach out to their friends/community/professional lives and ask them to spread the word that they are in search of an expecting couple and child to embrace through open adoption. We enjoyed learning about the unique ideas some families used to find their expecting couple. One family found their match by wearing t-shirts to the state fair stating "Hopeful Adoptive Parent."

These were some examples of outreach families had done!

We have so many ideas for outreach and we are so excited to get started! Just think, 

you may be the one that finds us the greatest gift of our lives!