Yesterday was our first day of PRIDE (Parent Resources for Information, Development and Education) training. PRIDE training is a mandatory training course for anyone who plans to adopt in Ontario.
We didn't really know what to expect when we arrived in Burlington at 9 am yesterday but we were both excited to get the process started. Our training session was lead by to co-leaders. One is an adoption professional and the other is an experienced adoptive parent. There were 9 other couples in the session with us. We introduced ourselves and our reasons for choosing adoption fairly early on in the morning. That is when we felt much more at ease. Although most of the people in the room have chose adoption because they cannot have children on their own, we still felt some comfort knowing that most of the people in the room are likely going through the same things we are and are probably feeling the same as well. It was hard to listen to people who have struggled with infertility share their stories. It made me feel bad at times because our reasons for adopting are so different. It's hard to explain what I mean but because our story of adoption has always been a happy one I found it hard to listen to couples that have tried for years to have children and have now turned to adoption because some of them have no other choice. It doesn't make any one's reason for adoption any better or worse it just makes our journeys a bit different. We didn't discuss what types of adoption the other couples were pursuing (whether private or international etc) because some of the people attending are still not sure what they want to do and the sessions are designed to help people make an informed decision. We do know that the couple that was sitting with us also have a daughter and are adopting internationally. Although our stories are a bit different it was nice to know that someone else in the room is just as focused on the international adoption information as we are.
The information we received yesterday was more of an overview of the different types of adoption and the processes and laws surrounding the process. Some of the information was relevant and some was not but overall we felt that the session was helpful and we weren't dreading coming back for the next 3 weekends. I am personally looking forward to the next session because we will be talking about attachment and loss issues in adoption. These are issues that come with any adoption whether international or not so it should be very interesting.
I will try to keep everyone posted as we proceed through our training. For those of you who are following us please let me know if you received an email when I updated the blog.
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