part 2 : supporting adoptive families

Posting Part 2 of one of my favorite blog posts ever.  I posted Part 1 back here, but wanted to do the next installment as we are now waiting.

Millions of Miles: Supporting Adoptive Families

2. Once families are in process:

•Check in with the adoptive family's (from here on out called A.F.) emotions! Adoption can be a very emotional process. There are days where you are in the dumps and days when you want to celebrate. Give the A.F. the space to talk about their feelings and their frustrations. When they call super excited and say, "I got my I-171h", pretend like you know what they are talking about and jump up and down and throw a party.

• Throw a baby shower just as if the A.F. was pregnant. Make a big stinkin' deal over the mom to be. Obviously, don't play the how big is your belly game. But do everything else the same!

•Support A.F. fundraisers. They need your help! Better yet- host a fundraising dinner, pancake breakfast, auction, raffle, etc. to help the family raise the money to bring their child home.

•If there are other children already in the A.F. offer to babysit them leading up to traveling so that mom and dad get a few last dates in before the new addition.

•If the adoption is international, educate yourself about the child's birth country.

•If the adopted child will be of a different race, educate yourself about transracial families by reading articles, books, etc. Just googling transracial families will bring up a wealth of information. Also (and no one should do this anyway!) do NOT make derogatory comments about the child's race, birth country, or culture.

•Offer to keep siblings, pets and housesit for the A.F. when they are traveling.

See the whole post here.