[Snugglebug]

How wonderful that you are going to adopt this little one! We are adopting my husbands cousin's baby as well. Unfortunately it is not an open adoption because bmom is a drug addict and the baby was taken by cps. We have had her since she was 3 months old and we love her every bit as much as our bio sons. And she is spoiled because she is our only girl!

I experienced some negativity from my family when we told them we were getting custody of the baby. Some of it was because I come from a family of only two kids, and my mom could not believe we were going to have another baby in the house! But we also got comments about the baby being a "crack baby" (she tested negative at birth and is developmentally on target) and even some racist comments because she is 1/4 black, which were REALLY unexpected. I told my mom and brother that I would not tolerate any negative comments about MY baby and that if they could not keep thier comments to themselves, I would not bring my kids around them at all.

I think some of the negativity from my brother was jealousy (he had the only girl in our family), and my Mom later admitted that she was afraid the baby would go back to the bparents and I would be crushed. Now that we have had the baby for 6+ months, they are totally in love with her and only see her as our child. Hopefully this will be the case with your family as well.

As far as who in the family should know, I think you are right to let your Aunt handle that for now. It is not your responsiblillity to call your entire family and let them know what is going on.

I hope that your attorney is able to find the birth father, I know the adoption could take longer if they can not find him. And it would be nice for your future child to have some information about him.

Hopefully when you have your little bundle home your family will fall in love with him/her just like you will!