School

You know I was pretty tempted to take a picture of Marcus and I on our first day of school but everything was so hectic in the morning it just did not happen.  I had to rush off to my internship and he had to get to his first class of the day.  School is going well for me.  I really am enjoying my classes and the different perspective social work has than psychology.  I am finding the switch up to be very refreshing.  I also love the people in my cohort.  They are pretty awesome.  The only thing that kinda stinks is that a handful of people don't even live in Cache Valley, so trying to hang out with them on occasion is out of the question really.  The rest of my cohort have families and work full time jobs along with their practicum and studying.  Hopefully as time goes onward I can make some lasting friendships.  My practicum with LDS Family Services is going so well.  I love everything about it.  I am actually getting really excited at the prospect of having clients.  I'm kind of disappointed that I won't really have any until next semester.  But we will see about that.  Maybe they will let me start into it a bit early.  So pretty much what I am doing there is familiarizing and learning about adoption as much as I can and from anything I can.  I read articles, pamphlets, books, policies, files, case notes, talk to the caseworkers, and my supervisor, and observe any sessions that the client will allow me to sit in on.  I have been able to sit in on two sessions with girls who are in the beginning stages of pregnancy.  I have also had the opportunity to sit in on a follow up with a new adoptive mom of about a month.  I have also had the opportunity to attend a birth mother panel.  We went to the local high school and had two of our birth moms who have placed talk about their experience with placing their babies for adoption.  Very quickly I'm going to explain why I said "placing" rather than "giving up".  I have learned that the term giving up for adoption has a more negative connotation.  It indicates that the mother is giving something away that she doesn't want and from a majority of the birth mothers I have read up on and had the pleasure to talk with, that is simply not the case.  As the birth moms talk about their experience of literally placing their baby in the arms of another mother I was moved to tears.  The amount of love it takes for those Birth moms to give up their rights to parent takes an extreme amount of selfless love.  All of them have stated, "If I would have been thinking about myself, that baby would be with me right now.  The only reason I was able to place them is because I wanted them to have more than I could give them."  I have learned so much in such a short period of time.  I cannot wait to see how much more knowledge and wisdom I gain from this internship.  Marcus is also doing pretty well.  I know he enjoys his classes but is a little freaked out sometimes with balancing his full time job with his classes and me.  We are still seeing if he will be ok or if we should start looking into a job with less hours.  Well hope that was a pretty good update.