However, right now I am finding out "What To Expect" on my own, so I thought I would share some of my insight with all of you while we complete our reading requirements and wait for our blood work to come back. Many of you have told me you also hope to adopt someday, so I hope you find this information humerous and helpful.
During the adoption process you can expect to read many books, some will likely be better than others. I would like to point out a book I would avoid if I was someone new into the adoption process:
Why you ask? Because it has grammatical errors ALL OVER IT! I cannot believe it, I am only on page 62 and I've found 4 errors already. Now, I do not claim to be a writing expert by any stretch, but for goodness sakes, they mixed up the spelling of "won" and "now." I cannot tell you how confused I was when I came across that particular error since it was the first one I found. I also think the author is overly opinionated and the content is very dated since it was written in 1998. The author barely talks about the Internet (and when she does, she forgets to capitalize the "I") and I personally believe the Internet has changed the process of adoption drastically. Alright, I'll get off my soap box now.
You can also expect to find strange ways to honor your future child's home country. For me, I decided that I would plant the flowers around my house in the colors of the Ethiopian flag. Yes, I really bought them because the Ethiopian flag is green, yellow and red. Here's a photo of some of my work:
I'm also learning there are some great benefits of "expecting" without a pregnancy. Like continuing with my running and not getting morning sickness. However, the author of the book previously mentioned in this post says being "psychologically pregnant" means you should give up this for the duration of your adoption process:
Did I mention I don't really care for that book?
And finally, you can expect to try and change your dogs habits since they have been the only child for so long. My little Louie is the closest thing I have to a "baby" right now, but I'm currently trying to re-train him not to bark because of future naps that I won't want interrupted. It's not going so well, but who can really get mad at this little face?
I hope you enjoyed this episode of: "What To Expect When Your Adopting" By Amy Post. :)
