Day 9: Announcing adoption Ann style...

2 random points unrelated to this post, but floating around my head anyway.

1.  Today is my old girl's 13th birthday (that's 96 in human years) so I thought I should include her somehow.  We're pretty sure she is stubborn and defiant enough to live forever.  Her antsy it's walk time NOW song and dance has just started which gives me about 30 minutes before the arm nudging and full fledged floor pacing begins.  You don't mess with the routine here, people.

2.  Dearest Blogger, please stop eating comments - both the ones that kind folk have taken the time to write here as well as all the ones I have left all over the blogosphere.  K.  Thanks.  Bye.  Jackass.

And on with it...

This telling thing seems to be slightly trickier than expected.  Way back in the day I had elaborate plans on how I would tell everyone that our family was expanding.  I kept a secret growing list stashed away in an Excel spreadsheet and named it detailed_period_diary.xls as a preventative measure that MJ would be too horrified to even think about opening it.  I saved ideas for how to tell MJ, our families, our friends, and even some for coworkers.  Looking at it early on made me downright giddy.  I could remember my own (pre-infertility) screaming and crying reactions to so many of their announcements and couldn't wait to be on the receiving end.

As time marched on and my body became a voodoo witchcraft open science experiment for anyone who wanted to get a gloved hand or dildocam up in my business, the list grew stagnant.   It was draining enough just to wait for that pregnant/not pregnant phone call from my RE's nurse without figuring out a quick way to make MJ a meal comprised of baby-back ribs, baby carrots, and baby's apple juice served in little sippy cups all while shoving an Endometrin up my lady bits and a fistful of pills down my throat.

I knew some of the announcements would be confusing for those who were not part of the in-crowd on the general dysfunction of my ovaries.  I honestly wasn't sure what to expect.  I didn't even bother taking a look over my old list before making some phone calls.  I was led to believe that announcing in some cutesy way that we are going to be parents would drive people to instantly believe we are expecting (in my over-imaginative-slightly-over-processed-but-assumed-to-be-pretty-damn-accurate-because-I-too-once-thought-like-a-fertile-and-I-have-Excel-lists-to-prove-it brain).  I imagined it going something like this:

Cutesy grandma-uncle-blah-blah whatever old Excel list idea of my choosing...

"OMG, you're pregnant!  Congratulations!  Oh, I can't believe this!!  How exciting!  How do you feel?!  When are you due?!" 

Cue in "No, I'm not pregnant.  We're adopting!"

"Oh...  Well that's exciting too."

Or something slightly less dramatic, but with the kicker being that adoption is not where their minds would first go at the hint of a baby.  I knew I had to pretty much just spell out what we are doing from the get-go without leaving any room for pregnancy assumptions. 

Left to my own on-the-fly devices without a plan paved the way for a 1 hour 39 minute phone call in which my announcement was made at 1 hour 34 minutes.  I'm breezy like that, ya know.

"I wanted to let you know that MJ and I are in the beginning stages of starting the adoption process!"

Spontaneous enginerd creativity at it's finest right there folks.

While the general consensus is that people are happy for us and our exciting news, what some hear when we say "We are adopting" is "So you're infertile."...and I'm going to need to ask some slightly invasive questions about this to make sure.  And the excited over the moon because we are adopting conversation becomes clouded with round about specific types of infertility questions for which vague answers are provided followed with my switchback to how excited we are to be adopting.  It was a bit emotionally charged and draining.

And I just now realized that I am the adoption newbie equivalent to the, "OMG we tried for 3 whole months and it worked so now I'm going to tell anyone who will listen before my peestick dries." clueless fertile.  I'm thinking we might just let the ink on the paperwork dry a bit more and wait until we are further along in the process with more substance and details to add to our spiel before continuing this announcement love fest.  Hopefully that will not leave any room for the infertility speak.

I've officially gone from infertility expert to adoption fresh out overnight.  This should be a fun train wreck learning curve to follow.  Here we go again...

Welcome.  Back.