Having said that, pinterest does have some redeeming qualities. For example, there are those moments when Ashley hands me her phone and says, "Read this. It's funny." when pinterest makes me hate it a little less than I did before. Last Sunday night was one of those times. Ashley handed me her phone to show me that someone had posted a list of top ten things not to say to an adoptive parent. I have to say, some of these were some pretty odd questions. Things like "Aren't you afraid of what they'll inherit from their birth parents?" or "Aren't you worried the birth parents will stalk you?" were high on the list. It was strange that people are asked things like that, but we had a good laugh from it.
Here's the thing, sometimes you get questions that mean well, but aren't phrased well. Those we can deal with because they're said with the best of intentions, but questions like these 2 are just crazy. For the record, no, I'm not worried about what they'll inherit from their birth parents. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty excited for our kid. I've got a big head and huge ears, my kid is hitting the genetic lottery by not having any of my DNA. And no, we're not afraid of having a "birth-parent stalker." (I think those exist mostly in Lifetime movies anyway.)
But as strange and prying as these statements seemed when we read them, it was even more startling when one was directed to Ashley last week. There it was, almost word for word from the list of statements on the web, "You're having a baby the easy way." Wow. I mean I honestly didn't know how to react to that. Luckily, my wife is more composed than I am and she was able to just let it go, but I still can't understand it. I mean, if by "easy" you mean filling out paperwork every night for weeks until your hands ache, submitting yourselves to have every aspect of your life, marriage, home, finances, faith, and family questioned and probed all the while dealing the the paranoia of trying to come up with a perfect answer to every question and praying you don't fill out a form incorrectly? Then yeah, that's pretty easy.
Oh, then there's also the waiting for a potential placement match and, since we're not pushing babies out of factories or anything, that can take a while. But after the find a potential match, you get all the fun and excitement of meeting with the birth mother. This is where you get to convince to someone that this child she's carrying and wants the absolute best for, belongs in your home. (Yeah, I'm sure that won't be nerve-wracking. I'm just hoping I don't throw up.) But assuming you make a match, you get to spend the next few months worrying about your unborn child and praying that he's doing ok and their birth mother is doing all she needs to do to take care of him. So there's that, but that part is pretty easy, I suppose.
But then he's born and it's all good from there. Except for that whole thing of the birth mother signing papers to relinquish this child that she's now carried and cared for for the last 9 months to these strangers. Then we just get to have social workers stop in a few more times to make sure we're doing things right and wait until the adoption is final. Of course, until it's final, there's always the (however remote) chance that the birth parents are rethinking this and want to dispute it in court, so our hearts will stop every time the phone rings between the day he comes home and the day we finalize. And for the pleasure of doing all that, we get to pay fees for applications, placement, visits, profile book, background checks, etc. up into the tens of thousands of dollars. But yeah, that's pretty easy.
Look, I'm not about to say that childbirth is easy. It's not. But the process we're about to go through isn't either. As a matter of fact, I think it will be one of the most difficult things we'll ever do, but it's what we're doing because it's what we're called to do. And after going through it, our family, all 3 of us (plus any "players to be named later"), will be stronger.
We know there will always be people who aren't necessarily on board with this whole thing, and we're ok with that. And I'm sure that's not the last comment we hear that will get on our nerves. But we've been so overwhelmed by all the people who have been supportive and helpful with what we're doing that drowning out the negative people isn't really that hard. Still, if you're going to have something negative to say and you absolutely can't hold your tongue, it's probably best to say it around Ashley. After all, I've got huge ears and they don't miss much.
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