Newborn Care class

arbutusbride

DH and I went to a newborn care class last night at a local hospital.  Of course we were the only adoptive parents in the class of 14 and said so during the introductions.  The instructor was a lactation consultant so she had an agenda to push breastfeeding as much as possible. Throughout the class, we were not acknowledged even once that our situation may be a bit different when it comes to feeding.  (She could have thrown us a bone and talked a little bit about how to prepare the formula or how to promote attachment during feeding, something like that.)

When it came to talking about post partum depression, not a word that it could happen to us too.  

I am learning that we will always be second to biological parents (even though we are not) when it comes to classes like that or how some people view us.  I will do my best to make myself not be treated like one. 

We would have been better off observing someone with a baby.  Luckily, the class was only $40 but still...

maryoosa

arbutus--- huh. I wonder if you went to the same class we did. We had a very similar situation. It was a horrible experience. I left the room crying at one point because I just felt like the fact that the expectant mom we are matched with is going to nurse in hospital and is going to get that"golden hour" with the baby would kill her adoption plan. (Likely not a rational thought but...) Our instructor was also a lactation consultant and she spent 3/4 of the class talking about breast feeding and nursing and the golden hour. I was SO angry. I left at the break before they moved on to infant CPR. I wrote a horrible evaluation of them. One of the educators called me, they offered a refund which I accepted. Then, I received an email asking for an email request of the refund, so I wrote a whole letter. The Director of Parent Education called me and asked me to discuss the situation with her--- I think I dropped the ball at that point. But yeah- not an unfamiliar experience. I'm so sorry.

jackieo1309

Sorry you had to go through that. DH and I signed up for an infant care class when we were matched and then found out the day before the class about a bunch of legal issues and we knew we would have to back out of the match. I was so worried about going to this class because I was already a mess (we'd been matched for 4 months already) but we couldn't have gotten a refund for it at the last minute so decided to go. While it was obvious we were the only couple there adopting (and DH got some of the "yea we'll definitely go the easy adoption route next time- this is too much work" comments from the men in the room with pregnant wives) it actually went really well. The instructor did talk about the benefits of breastfeeding but also spent extra time with us at the end talking about things that might be specific to adoption (formula feeding and bonding with an adopted baby, inducing lactation/getting donated milk also because I asked about that). From some of the experiences others have had, it looks like we were really lucky to have the class that we did (although it does still kind of hurt knowing that everyone in that class with us is a parent right now, and we're still not). I don't know what area you're in but if you (or anyone else) wants the name of the place we went to  in NYC just PM me. Sorry again you had such a bad experience

Dr.Loretta

We had a somewhat similar experience, but not quite so overt. There were no intros, so no one knew we were adopting. The regular instructor wasn't there, so the lactation consultant taught the night we went. She literally told us BFing cures cancer

Luckily for us, she did mention formula feeding in passing, and we learned how much/how often newborns should eat, and how often to bathe them. She even showed how big a nb stomach is, so don't freak if they only eat an ounce at a time at first.

I left the class telling DH that FFing was the second hand smoke of the 21st century.

Keri Marie

Some people just don't know how to react and everyone has their own "agenda" about parenting. It's horrible that she made you feel that way. You should complain and ask that the people teaching those classes have an "adoption parenting" plan that could be inserted in to their class when needed.