[amyfk]

Hi to the List,

I hope everyone is well and everyone(who celebrates) have happy holidays. I also wish those who are traveling well.

We have told all of our friends most of our family that we are adopting. We have been in process since fall '04.

When we first started the process we were very excited, felt adoption would end all of our childlessness, my health woes, etc and come quickly. We were very excited to share with everyone.

Well time has been passing by. We still havent gone on trip one. We're not sure when we'll get another referral.

Folks always are and mean to be polite. Some days I just dont want to keep answering the question "did you adopt yet?" " Did you receive another referral yet?" When is the baby coming?" One jokester friend of ours said on the gender checklist you should check off
male female other so maybe things will move faster LOL

Is it best to answer folks politely and say we're still waiting? Is it best to tell folks we'll tell you when we hear of anything? Or is it best to tell folks based on our mood of the day or just say, today I just don't want to talk about it?

How did you folks answer this? Did anyone else feel this way through a lengthy process?

Thanks,
Amy K, NJ

[Kama]

Hi Amy,

Visiting from the Poland forum... Happy Passover/Easter to everyone who celebrates as well!

I face the same thing, but I have not waited as long as you have (so far!). People do ask me "are you still going through the adoption process?" sometimes and I simply say, yes, "we are at this or that point," but I explain that it is a long process and may take years. I think telling people that it is a long process and can take a few years helps. Perhaps next time they will not ask specific questions and wait for me to update, if I want.

Best wishes,

[DaniJ]

UGH! yes! it was 11 months before our first trip, and while we were going through it we lost a referral, and the FBI was investigating our agency, but we couldn't talk about it. When people asked how things were going, I'd give a quick, curt reply with a smile, something like "
nope, nothing yet!" and keep walking. It was friendly, but also didn't engage the topic in conversation. If they ask when the baby's coming, I'd say "who knows!", or if they ask if you adopted yet: "nope".
Be grateful that the people do ask, though. My other experience was that co-workers who were pregnant at the time got a lot of attention, and people didn't acknowledge that I was expecting a son to, via adoption. It can be a thorn in your side when they ask sometimes, and a sword through your heart when they don't! What a crazy thing this process does to our emotions!

[amyfk]

Hi Ladies

thanks very much for your constructive suggestions and your ideas.

DaniJ, I never thought of it that way---that folks always ask about the pregnancy but not as much attention for the adoption-even when we dont want to discuss it in detail.
Both of your ideas are great. Thanks and happy holidays.

Amy K, NJ

[GCS]

Amy -
You know, its a catch-22. If people don't ask they feel like they are not addressing how very important this is. Like they do not care. But they feel awkward asking all the time after awhile because they figure since you havent mentioned anything there is no news.
I just always tried to stay positive to the people who asked, figuring they were trying to be kind and stay involved. I would say "Its a long process, we hope we'll be a family this year! No news yet!"
I also put together an email list of people so that when we got the call and accepted our referrals we could let them know we were going to be traveling. I did this because at the time there were a lot of people traveling with so little notice.
In the end we had 9 days from getting our referrals to traveling for trip one. Thank goodness I put that database together! And letting people know they were on the "list" to be notified made them feel included.

I know the wait is hard. I am sorry its been so long for you! I hope you get good news soon!

Christina

[amyfk]

Hi Christina

Thanks for your excellent advice! I like the idea of notifying folks by email.

Amy K, NJ

[votemom]

i too, sent out e-updates. it's a good way to keep people informed - even though there may be little to say - and it does decrease the number of people asking.

as someone who has dealt with this for a very long time (21 months since our first trip), i empathize completely. it is so hard. you don't want to be rude or appear unappreciative of other people's support, but it gets so tiresome to try and explain the unexplainable.

and most people, through no fault of their own, just don't get it. heck, most of us don't completely get it!!

that's why having this forum is so great.... we speak the same language and can really, REALLY understand each other.

i try to remember that every time a person asks, it's because they care. that really does help me. people care about our future son and about us.

hang in.

[lovestruck]

The other day I baby sat my 16 month old niece. I had to take her with me when I went to pick my younger son up from the preschool he attends a couple of times a week. I was so dreading it! I begged my husband to pick him up because I just didn't want to "go there"! I knew the people who i don't talk to regularly but know about the adoption were going to think she was my little one. WEll he couldn't, so I showed up a little late and when anyone even started to smile I me I smiled and said, no, no, no, she's my niece.
Most people just smiled and said she was cute and we'd have ours home soon and it ultimately went fine. But oh, I just dreaded it.

[amyfk]

Hi Votemom and lovestruck,

Thanks very much for the letters. Lovestruck, even though it sounded like a hard situation for you, I'm glad you came out ok on the other end of the situation.
Votemom-I hope you get to take trip #2 soon.

I think youre all correct-everyone means well. I sincerely believe that. Although I believe that I just feel sometimes like I dont want to answer. LOL.
I think Ill just do the polite thing and say it's a long process--da da da dum.

Later on I'd like to do the email notification thing.

Thanks and good luck to you both as well. I'll be thinking of you.

Amy K, NJ

[Dad79]

We didn't tell the vast majority of our acquaintances about it until it was REAL. My co-workers found out the day before our flight for our 2nd trip to pick up Nicole. That was for my sanity, I didn't want to talk about it until it felt REAL. I didn't want something bad to happen, like the Russian Duma banning adoptions and have people "feeling bad", I just didn't want it to be a topic of discussion period, except with my brother and a few very close friends.

[k8c]

I've got a blog on which I post updates--and education! Maybe something like that would help? It lets people check in with you (and gauge your emotional mood) before asking questions. When I've got news I WANT everyone to know, I just send an e-mail to my entire address book that says, "Check the blog!"

Kate

[DelMarie]

Hi Amy:

My thoughts and prayers go out to you. Our adoption process was about 19 months. Not as long as you have been waiting but we had some difficult times during the wait too! I work in a large department of surgery-about 150 nurses who all want to give you support, ask questions, etc....We took our first trip 10 months into the process and recieved our second trip travel dates very quickly. We were to travel in Dec 2005. I recieved many cute christmas type outfits for our daughter and were on cloud nine. Every day I went to work it was difficult to get anything done-we were so excited. Our trip #2 was cancelled one day before our scheduled departure. I had to go back to work-face 150 people and try to explain what happened. I couldn't speak without crying. AFter a while people just stopped asking. Depending upon my mood I might explain or might just say I didn't want to talk. As more months went by people again started asking-when are you going back. It was very hard. Just do what you can to get through the day. Our second trip finally took place 7 months after our first. It was the hardest time of our wait. My husband sometimes wanted to throw in the towel. I am so glad we didn't. I couldn't imagine life now without our little one.

MY PRAYERS to you for your continued strength and perseverance.

DelMarie

[LilyMoon]

YES! During our over 2 year process, there were days I couldn't stand the questions as well meaning as they were. I just wanted to scream "NO! stop asking!" But I would smile and say "Thanks for your concern, but we haven't heard anything yet." Sometimes I would add "I'll be sure to let you know if I hear anything." Some people were sensitive enough to know to stop asking. Others not. Chalk it up to part of the torture of a long process and when you are finally home with your child you can call these people and say "Yes! I have my child, you can stop asking now!" (only kidding)

Hang in there....I know it's tough.

[tchr_678]

It's a touchy subject. I know that I didn't WANT people asking me all the time, but at the same time, I didn't want them to ignore it either. I never really wanted to bring it up to someone, even if it was good news, so sometimes I wanted the questions, but other times I didn't? Make sense? Probably not, and that's the screwy thing about it. Wouldn't it just be nice if peopel could read our minds and just KNOW when we want to talk about it and when we don't want to talk about it?

Hang in there ... it's tough, but you'll be so thankful when people ask and you have something good to report.

[lakimnafite]

After 2 years and 7 months.. all I do now is roll my eyes and shake my head. I don't even answer any more. Of course, in the last couple of weeks we have had good news and it was great to share - but there were those long long months before that I totally understand!