[NDN]

We planned to start the fost/adopt program last year. Lost of things happened...didn't get done. However, we are back on track now. Our classes and homestudy are schduled for next month and we should be well on our way to getting certified after that.

So now the BIG question...

When do we tell our families?

We told them that we planned to do this before we started talking to the worker last year. After receiving responses that ranged from the misinformed to just plain dumb, we stopped telling them. Our friends know when each step happens and what to expect...but our family is clueless.

We will probably wait until after the classes and homestudy to tell them...but when? I'm thinking that it may not be such a great idea to show up one day with another child and just hope they don't ask.

See, they aren't very supportive...and they were downright hurtful and dumb when it came to the births of our two boys...so you can just imagine compounding that with all the stereotypes that they have about foster. So, like big babies, we are practicing avoidance in order to preserve our sanity. Anyone else dealt with this? When did you tell?

[jaenelle]

We are gradually telling people now that we are in the homestudy process. My mom and dad and friends have been very supportive, DH's parents were like, "Oh, that's nice." But then again I never expected them to be that excited -- their daughter is pregnant and they already have to little grandsons by their other son -- so our children are going to be pretty far down on their priority list, I'm sure.

[773-mom-to-be]

My heart goes out to anybody who doesn't get support when they tell of their plans. We're just finishing the home study process, so we've been slowly but surely telling parents (all are ecstatic), siblilngs, grandparents, then close friends. All our female friends cried on the spot. My mother-in-law is absolutely *twitching* to be a grandmother. (My husband's only sibling recently passed with no children.) Our close friends know what we've been through with treatments, as does the family, so I guess they're all thrilled to hear that we're moving toward the family we've always wanted. I feel really blessed for their support.

But therein lies my point -- it's the supportive reactions we got from the first friends and family we told that make us comfortable -- excited -- to tell other people. Had we felt persecuted or doubted or had people seemed apathetic....I think we'd sit on the news a while longer.

Maybe the trick is to find and tell the people you *know* will be excited for you, and run on their support when it comes time to tell people who might be less great about the news....

[LisaCA]

we chose to tell almost no one and show up with the baby.my little sister knew and so did her son, but that's it. so we flew out of town and poof! a baby. didn't really want to deal with all the weirdness, and I found they're the most weird when they feel they can "talk you out of it." sometimes it's best to wait, unless of course you don't mind the incessant "comments."

[Hopefulaz]

We have just started telling my family about our plans to adopt, we told our closest friends right from the beginning and they were all very excited - one of them still cries whenever I bring it up.

I was not sure what kind of reaction I would get from my family and I guess thats why I held off. I knew in my heart that they would be supportive of me, they always are. But I wasn't sure about how to broach the subject. Anyway this week I finally did it, our home study is underway and it is all starting to feel more real.

I told both my dad and my sister in separate phone calls and was surprised by their reactions both said the same thing first - "but is there no possibility that you will have any more of your own" maybe this shouldn't of bothered me and I know it was just because they were taken by surprise, but the fact is to me - and I am sure most other people on this site, an adopted child will be my own and their own family.

I guess now having educated myself about adoption, I must now begin the campaign to educate my family!

[NDN]

Originally Posted by FH-LisaCA

we chose to tell almost no one and show up with the baby.my little sister knew and so did her son, but that's it. so we flew out of town and poof! a baby. didn't really want to deal with all the weirdness, and I found they're the most weird when they feel they can "talk you out of it." sometimes it's best to wait, unless of course you don't mind the incessant "comments."

So how did it work out when you brought new baby into meet family? Were they all freaked that you didn't tell them? I don't want to deal with the non stop comments and "helpfulness" that will seem to drag on forever. However, I'm not sure how to deal with the, "why didn't you tell us?" I mean...I can't exactly tell them "because you acted stupid when we brought it up so we didn't want to talk to you about it"...or at least not in front of the kids (since calling people stupid is a big NO at our house)

[LisaCA]

when we were asked why we didn't tell them, my exact words were "because we didn't want to hear about it". family knew what we meant and most were fine with it, lol. A few agreed it was the only way to do something like this. only my inlaws got a tad huffy, but hey, not my problem! the idea of a newborn baby girl in a family of all boys (on dh's side) tended to ruffle the feathers. That and the fact that they never expected us to give them grandkids .

i'd do it again in an instant. it was ever so much easier dealing with the "why didn't you tell us" than the endless questions and the "get a baby yet?" phone calls, lol.

you can always say "it was a decision we wanted to keep private until we knew it was going forward" or something like that. No need to be snarky like me .

[krystalkisses]

Hi,
My dh and I are new to adoption. We're closing in on having our homestudy done probably in the next few weeks and I couldn't help but notice this post. I have to give some background first so as to understand why this post caught my eye.

You see, my dh has a son from a previous marriage and that relationship is well, for lack of a better word, a joke. The lovely prior-wife made sure "her son" as she puts it never cries, gets what he wants when he wants it and even before he asks for it and unfortunately she's also made him turn against his father and me...gotta love the Ex's who haven't gotten over themselves. Anyhooo, in his family there are two nieces and his son.

My dh's family WORSHIPS boys for some reason -I mean we just look at each other in astonishment when we see how my MIL acts around his son -it's ridiculous. We are absolutely dumbfounded as to why and we have seen the youngest neice (close in age to his son) get a major shaft deal when it comes to family attention and love. And it's clear she sees how it works when her cousin is around.

Now after all our history with this whole "triangle" I have to admit I am not the least bit surprised to feel that my MIL absolutely revels in the idea that we can't have children of our own. And well I've always been worried if we did how they'd be treated because it appears as though my dh's son is GOD.

So, now that we've decided to adopt and we're closing in the finalizing the process to begin looking we have talked and agree not to tell family. More specifically we would have no problem telling my family and they would be overjoyed -they love all kids, have very welcoming hearts and were there years back (before dh) when I had my ectopic pregnancy and the toll it took on me.

But....with his family it's a whole other story. We have been disrespected as parents with his own son amongst a ton of other family poop and well we just don't see them offering or giving the support we would expect from them. And we do still have concerns about how they will treat our children -because they're not "biological" -again, we don't have a clue as to why they act the way they do with the grandson but we are left with some pretty big worries.

We are able to chuckle about it today but who knows what will actually come on the day we introduce our children...which really could be a year or more from now.

[NDN]

Ok...so here's the deal.

We live about 5 miles from our families. Sometimes, like with this situation, I wonder why we moved back.

We still haven't told them, and would really prefer not to. My dad, as much as he loves my kids, already gives me a hard time about stuff I do with the kids. It's not the way he would do it...so, well, you get it.

BUT, we have to go to the training in the middle of May. The Nation does their training in 3 full days. You have to go to the hotel and stay there because they have to pack all their certification courses into that friday, saturday, and sunday. While I like the idea of getting it all over with that quickly, I'm faced with a problem. How are we supposed to go out of town without them ALL wanting to know where we are going and why. I don't want to lie to them...ok, that's not true...dh doesn't want me to lie to them and he also doesn't want me to tell them it's none of their business (my preferred response). Now, I could probably get by with just telling them we are going out of town if they weren't having to take care of stuff for us but...I have dogs and chickens that need to be tended to while I'm gone. This is sooooo gonna turn into a..."well, we're helping you out, the least you could do it tell us where you are going." I swear, sometimes that my family all belings in junior high. This would all be so much easier if they could be supportive...or, at the very least, take advice from Thumper. "If you can't say nothing nice...don't say nothin at all."

[Canadamom92]

My family knows we're done our homestudy, but couldn't care less what the process is. They can't figure out why we would want more children (we have 3 bio) - especially ones that weren't born to us. My mother is the type that has to worry about everything and focus on bad stuff. She knows two couples who adopted from China, and they got divorced - so now obviously when we do a public adoption, our marriage will go down the tubes.

We know that his parents will feel the same, so we just decided not to tell them until we are matched - and maybe even later. We see both sets of parents almost daily.

So, my family doesn't know we're considering a sib group of up to 4 (maybe 5), and his family doesn't know we're even considering adoption. We figure it'll be easier to tell them these specific children are coming to live with us, rather than give them the time to find fault with the entire idea. In essence, we feel it will be more difficult for them to reject actual children rather than just an idea.

[TheQueen]

You COULD just show up one day with another child and HOPE no one asks any questions!

We haven't told too many people yet...we're still in the application process tho. We told my parents and some of our friends (the ones we plan to use for personal references mostly )

When I was pregnant with the oldest, his Dad was terrified to tell his parents. We told them I was pregnant 2 weeks before his expected arrival date! You could do this too! Call and tell everyone when you get the call for placement! LOL