My Mother In Law

Last night my husband finally called to tell his parents about our decision to adopt a toddler.

Apparently, the conversation did not go well.

My husband described her as "crestfallen." He said, "she acted like I had just told her that we were going to sell Gabe to another family."

THEN she asked why we had not considered hiring a surrogate mother.

A SURROGATE MOTHER.

No, I am NOT making this up.

Of course she assumes that we are choosing adoption as a last resort. That we are making a "second best" decision. She cannot fathom that we are choosing this option.

THEN she wants to know why we won't adopt from the Ukraine or Russia or Poland. (I'm not really sure that American families adopt from Poland much, but, that's beside the point.)

Okay, I will give her one point here - my mother-in-law is Polish and my father-in-law is Ukranian. So, I am going to assume that the point she was making was that, if we were going to adopt a stranger's child, why not adopt one that shares an ethnic background with my husband, rather than assuming that she was trying to convince us to adopt a WHITE child.

Although it's possible that that may have been her point. But, in order for me to not want to strangle her, I am going to go with the "ethnic heritage" motivation.

It's not like this should come as a shock to her. We have brought it up in passing several times in the last three years.

Apparently she was hoping we were blowing smoke.

She has mentioned to my sister-in-law that she thinks it is selfish of me to not have another baby. SELFISH.

Heaven help us.

Law Mommy