In Which I'm A Tad Bit Oversensitive And Whine A Lot

Last night I went a little crazy and started rearranging our office.

We're not very far into this whole adoption process yet, and already I'm going nuts with the waiting, which isn't a good sign.  The office will eventually be Sylvie's room, and I was thinking about how we'll be sending her a photo album of the house.  We'll have pictures of our room, with its big comfy-looking bed, Connor's room with his toys, little comfy-looking bed and swing hanging from the ceiling, and her room, which before last night contained a futon and a computer desk.

Cozy.

Sure, it's way, way early to be doing her room; the kid won't be coming home any time before Christmas.  But I want to make sure we're giving her the right idea; that she'll be sleeping in a room with, you know, a bed in it and whatnot, and that we're not adopting her to be our personal secretary or something.  I started thinking about it, as we'll have to take these pictures relatively soon and start putting our book together, and as a result I went a little nuts and Jeremy came home from his workout to discover me hauling the furniture around.  I won't do anything about the futon just yet because I don't have anything to replace it with as of right now and that room is currently our guest room, but the second I find an adorable trundle bed on craigslist you can bet I'll be recruiting help to haul that out of there too.

The way I explained my behavior to a rather bemused Jer is that I'm comparing this whole thing to a pregnancy.  I'm not nuts; I'm nesting.  I mean, yeah, sure, I don't have all of the hormones involved, but I'm still trying to bond to a kid I haven't met yet, and the time frame is about the same.  I don't have to put up with any of the inconveniences of pregnancy, of course-- the nausea, the weight gain, the stretch marks, etc.-- but I also get very few of the perks.  You tell people that you're pregnant and for the most part they get really excited for you, often sharing stories about their own pregnancies and asking about your plans.  The reaction when I announced my pregnancy with Connor was overwhelmingly positive.  Being just as excited about the adoption as I was about my pregnancy with Connor, I've announced the adoption in the same way (enthusiastically to both friends and perfect strangers), and these are some of the reactions I've gotten:

"That's nice, but why are you adopting a foreign kid?"
"Don't you already have your hands full raising your own child?"
"That's so good of you.  I could never do that."
"Awww, don't worry.  I'm sure you'll get pregnant soon."

Few people have reacted with the same sort of joy that I'd hear if I was pregnant, and that's sort of a hard reality, because to my mind in many ways we are expecting and it would be wonderful to get the same reaction.  I mean sure, my daughter will come with a history and another set of parents, but we're still adding a member to our family.  I know it's unrealistic to expect other people to see things the same way, but it would at least be nice if they'd at least quit assuming that we're either adopting because we've exhausted all of our other options or adopting because we want to rescue some poor, pitiful child and give them a "good home."  I could certainly do without the horror stories people seem to need to tell about their acquaintances who adopted children they "thought were normal" but then turned out to be serial killers or something.  I'm aware that I'm being oversensitive, but it's really hard to compare the universally positive reaction I got while pregnant to the decidedly mixed reaction I get when I say we're adopting.  I never had anyone tell me when I was pregnant that I should "rethink this whole thing" because "most of those kids are really screwed up and will ruin your life."  

There's not a whole lot that I can do about how other people react to our intention to adopt, but I want to make sure that Sylvie knows she is wanted and will be celebrated in our household just as much as Connor has been and continues to be.  So I'll continue my overhaul of her space, and hopefully by the time she gets her photo book there'll be a picture in there of a room with a pretty little trundle bed just waiting for her.

It's going to be a long year.

~Jess