Keeping a secret

By the time we decided to begin the licensing process, we had already talked about it for years, prayed about, received counsel, and tried to predict resources for doing so. The next step was thinking about how to tell our friends and family. One of the things I imagined was unnecessary criticism.

We knew that the classes would be quite taxing on us emotionally. So we decided that it would be best to wait to let everyone know. Except for just a select few, we didn't see a reason to announce something and have to deal with harsh opinions that didn't matter. After all, we had already done the difficult work of giving it considerable thought. It's not like someone would have a good argument not to go forward so any negative judgments would just be wasted words that we didn't need in our ears.

Telling people you're adopting is different than telling people you're pregnant. When you joyously announce you're pregnant, no one is going to look at you wide-eyed and ask you why you would do such a thing. It's not as though they can talk you into changing your mind and not being pregnant anymore.

It's not the same story with adoption. The second the "A" word comes out of your mouth, you get a look as though you just said your belly button fell off. Questions like "why would you do that?" and "do you know how messed up those kids are?" bubble over as if they feel if they weren't said, they'd explode. Whether it's shock, ignorance, surprise, disgust, I don't know. Although not meant to be intentionally rude or uncalled for, it tends to be. And by God's grace, we had decided from the start to keep it to a minimum.

Of course keeping something a secret is a lot easier when you don't have kids that are dying to shout it out! They "accidentally" told quite a few people. In hindsight, we should have offered to pay them for their silence. My little worker bees will do anything for a buck.

But now that the secret's out, I got less work to do. No more needing to leave work early and not say why so I can make it to class on time. Hoping no one starts to wonder why the social worker is always at my house. And now that it's out, I pray that everyone will support us in this new area and rejoice with us when we eventually announce the homecoming of new additions.