How to tell the family and when?

butterflyroy78

We have scheduled our training classes and will hopefully start the home study soon. How soon did you tell your family you are starting the adoption process and did you have a cute way of doing it like the pregnant momies have gotten so clever with? I was considering having them open a onsie that says "adoption saves lives" or something similar.

Dr.Loretta

With my family it was an orgaic shift to adoption.

DH told his mom and let her spread the word. We also gave her a copy of "Aadoption for Dummies" We told her when we chose an agency

Not a cutesy person, sorry.

bumpuser794640

Since our families knew about our IF, we told them as soon as we decided to adopt instead of pursue IF treatments.  We didn't do anything cute, just brought up the subject in casual conversation.

ellekae

I've talked about adoption my whole life, so telling my family was just sort of a "hey, heads up, we're starting the process" and they all did a happy dance.

Telling DH's family... well, that was a little different. It came up at dinner a week or two before we started our application, and MIL was a bit negative. I wish that I had done something cute instead of just bringing it up... maybe then she would have gotten excited rather than immediately questioning our motives ("why would you want some kid with all kinds of problems" blah blah blah).

Foster1Mom

We did not do anything fancy. They kind of new it was coming or something was coming.

notsure12

ellekae:

I wish that I had done something cute instead of just bringing it up... maybe then she would have gotten excited rather than immediately questioning our motives ("why would you want some kid with all kinds of problems" blah blah blah).

Ugh. That is terrible. You didn't do anything wrong. She needs to sit in time out for that comment. 

jackieo1309

We had thought about doing something cute, but I'm glad we didn't. It would have made the terrible reactions we got (mostly from MIL) just that much worse. We were kind of surprised at how our parents reacted and I'm still hurt by it a little ("Why would do that?", "Why don't you just do IVF?", "Don't you just want to try longer to have one of your own? Don't give up.", "The kids usually have behavior problems."). We told them a few weeks after starting the homestudy and right before we had to travel to orientation with our agency. I think it's best to just hope for the best but be prepared if they are not as excited as you are. They may need some time to get used to the idea. I'm pretty sure my MIL still isn't used to the idea 4 months later. Good luck!

ETA: That sounded really negative, sorry. I know most people on this board had much better experiences telling their family than we did! 

butterflyroy78

This is the exact reason I want to do something cute. To start out on a positive note. I know we will get much of the same reaction as you got. I am going to do this. We are buying white onsies and doing an iron on the says "superman was adopted too". I hope to thwart SOME of the negativity with it! LOL! If they are going to be negative, we will deal with it. Thank you for the feedback!