We interrupt this blog to provide a public service announcement to the socially inept

I need to vent a little

For my real friends and family, this is not directed at you. If you say something hurtful or unintentionally stupid, I’ll tell you. I’m not afraid to educate you in person :-). This is for the general population that just doesn’t get it. To be fair, I’m sure the majority of the general public doesn’t intend to be stupid or hurtful either but I thought maybe I could educate them a little for future encounters with adoptive families.

Alyson and I were at a birthday party not too long ago where we met the husband of a friend of mine (a pretty new friend, hence my inability to “educate” them). So here’s how the conversation went:

Him: So Jana tells me you adopted your little girl from China?
Me: yes, we did (big proud smile)
Him: We thought about doing that once.
Me: (silence while I fiddle with Alyson’s ponytail so I can pretend I didn’t hear him.)
But on the inside I’m saying: No you didn’t. You might have thought of dyeing your hair once. You might have thought of taking up figure skating once but you don’t think about adopting “once.”

He continues: I always thought that would be neat.
Me: (nod and smile) But on the inside: No, bungee jumping would be neat. Taking an Alaskan cruise would be neat. Committing your life to raising a child, especially one that has suffered multiple losses in her first 15 months of life, is not “neat.” It’s amazing, rewarding, and glorious but it’s not “neat.”

Him: Is she your first?
Me: No, we have an 8 year old son (another big proud grin)
Him: Is he adopted?
Me: No.
But on the inside: Did I ask you how your children were conceived or brought into your family? Just because I have an obviously adopted child, what gives you the right to ask about my other child? If Andrew and I were out somewhere without Alyson, no one in their right mind would think it’s ok to ask if he was adopted or not. How is that fair to him, to suddenly question his background just because he has a sister from China? Seriously. What if he is adopted but we haven’t told him yet? Do you think it’s ok for a stranger to start that conversation for us?
(Ok, that’s pretty extreme seeing as how he’s almost 9 years old. That would be pretty irresponsible of us to have not told him yet but that’s beside the point. And no, he’s NOT adopted.)

Now I know this gentleman was asking totally innocent questions out of genuine curiosity but it got under my skin anyway.

On to a different vent…
I can’t stand it when people say “We always said that if we couldn’t have children of our own, we would adopt.”
Sigh.
I’m not going to deny that it’s totally natural to try for an old fashioned conception/pregnancy first when starting a family. It’s easier, it’s cheaper, and it’s more fun (well, the first 100 or so tries anyway).

That’s fine to feel that adoption is a second choice after pregnancy. Just don’t ever say that in front of my daughter.

One of these days she’s going to understand those words and I don’t EVER want her to feel like the way she was brought into our family was a last resort. Alyson was a choice we pursued with all our hearts. She is a miracle that we prayed for as fervently as we did for Andrew. And she is a gift, not a last resort.

Another thing wrong with “We always said that if we couldn’t have children of our own, we would adopt,” is when people say it like they want to make us feel better. It’s as if they’re saying “we would have done the same thing if we were in that situation.” Like it somehow validates our choice. We don’t need you to validate our choice. We’re thrilled with our choice. We weren’t in a ‘situation.’ We were at a fork in the road and we, along with God’s guidance, chose our path. (Little did we know at the time that our ‘path’ was an ice covered mountain pass with dangerous twists and turns every 2 miles along the 400 mile stretch, but I digress…)

Ok, last vent. Along the lines of the “last resort” sentiment. It’s when people who are trying to get pregnant say “well, if it doesn’t work out, we can always adopt.”
Umm, hate to break it to you…no you can’t. Well, maybe you can but it’s not as simple as you think.
We can’t adopt from China again. We no longer qualify under their new rules. Who am I kidding, we can’t adopt from practically anywhere ever again. We can’t afford it. Good news is, we’re done. Our family is complete, so we don’t need to worry about it.
Just a caution that just because we made adoption look easy, doesn’t mean anyone can do it.

I’m sure the people who know us well are saying, “is she insane? She didn’t make adoption look easy. She complained constantly.” And they’re right. It’s just easy for people to forget the process when they see Alyson’s beautiful face so they say stupid things like “we could always adopt if we have to.”
It’s like labor. They say you’ll forget the pain, otherwise no one would do it more than once. They’re right, it’s been almost 9 years and the memory of the pain of delivering Andrew has faded some. I’m sure someday the pain and stress of the icy mountain path to Alyson will fade too.

I’m done. We will now get back to our regularly scheduled cheerful blogging…