First Post-Placement Visit

Last Friday, the Kosior Three trooped down to Richmond to meet with Beth at JFS for our first post-placement meeting. We weren't sure what to expect, but it was a great meeting.

First off, it was exciting to introduce Leah to Beth. It's hard to believe, but it hasn't even been a year since we had our first meeting with her. Our adoption has gone so well that none of us can believe how quickly and smoothly it went.

The meeting was a mixture of checking in on Leah, checking in on us, and giving us advice and information about transracial adoption.

The Leah stuff was pretty straight forward--how much she weighs, how long she is, her head circumference, how she's been sleeping and eating, how she is interacting with us and with other people. Had we heard from Tasha, how that was going.

The us stuff was a little unexpected and gave me some things to think about! We talked about how adoptive families often don't feel they have the right to complain if they are tired or just having a bad day, because people say, "Well, this is what you wanted for so long, how can you complain about it?" I mentioned feeling pressure because I was aware of what Tasha had given up and how much faith and trust she was putting in us to raise Leah in her place. When things go wrong or not exactly as I had planned, I feel like I'm letting down everyone who believed in us as parents--the people who wrote us references, Tasha, Beth, Colleen, ourselves... But Beth helped me to put things into perspective and kind of admonished me not to be so hard on myself--which was a message I needed to hear!

We talked about transracial adoption a bit as well. Beth made a couple of recommendations for us--the DVD Adopted by Bob Lee and the book Beyond Good Intentions by Cheri Register. She had already given us some information from the Rainbow Kids website. It's hard to think of these types of issues popping up. When I look at Leah, I see Leah--I don't see black Leah and at this point, I don't think she sees white Mama. But we do have to be prepared because eventually the world will impress upon her the differences between us and better that she be ready and we be ready to help guide her through it. I've found a number of books, articles, and websites on transracial adoption and it looks like we've got an interesting road ahead of us, no matter if we have the best case scenario or the worst. Time to get ready for whatever comes our way!

So that was it! We set up our next appointment for August 29th at our house. When Beth was here last, there was a rabbit living in Leah's bedroom so it'll be nice to show her the new digs! (Hopefully Joe gets the mural painted before then.) I wasn't really nervous about it and now I'm glad I wasn't. It was like a conversation with a much wiser friend.