Family Making Me Want To Beat Myself Silly With a Stick

I've been gone for three days and when I got home yesterday afternoon I anticipated posting about our mini-vacation/family reunion.

But, instead I came home to a sh*t-storm in the shape of my sister-in-law (my husband's brother's wife) who was mad as hell and hurt and p*ssed and several other things.

You see, on Thursday morning, when I wanted to tell the whole world that we had found our daugther, Husband was hesitant to tell his family.

He didn't want to tell his family until we had something "more" than a verbal approval. Paperwork. A letter of intent to sign. He didn't want to share the news with them and have it fall through. (His family has been the most hesitant about this process, whereas my family is very excited and wanting to know every detail.)

And so, on Thursday morning, I sent an email to everyone, except members of my Husband's immediate family - I removed his brother, his mom, his aunt, and the aforementioned sister-in-law, and sent the email to everyone else. Like, my immigration professor from law school. Sorority sisters I hear from almost weekly (ladies, you know who you are and I am eternally grateful for your support through this crazy time) and sorority sisters I hear from less than once a year. Friends who are important to me, both far and near. In essense, anyone who I thought would be interested in hearing about our news - except my husband's family, because A. he wanted to tell them himself and B. because we only had verbal approval and nothing on paper and Husband just didn't want to tell them without having that paper.

Unfortunately, among those I copied with the email was my ex-sister-in-law. My husband's younger brother's ex-wife.

WHO KNEW? WHO F*CKING KNEW that she will call her ex-husband to congratulate him and say she was happy for us? And who knew that he would call his parents on Father's Day and tell them our news, which he got from his ex-wife.

OY VEY and HOLY CRAP and all that SH*T.

Husband called his parents on Father's Day, from our hotel room, to share our good news, but, the cat was already out of the bag and all hell broke loose.

Among the accusations flying from my sister-in-law is that we think Husband's family is "crap" and we "don't care" about them and how could we "betray" them this way, and how could we share this information with NON-FAMILY before FAMILY and on and on...

I tried to explain to her that Husband didn't want to tell them and get their hopes up and have the whole stupid thing fall through. We didn't have the papers until Friday, and then we left town, and he wanted to tell his parents we were going to have a daugther on Father's Day, and none of this was meant to hurt sister-in-law or make her feel less important to us.

I tried to tell her that Lan's birthday is the same day as J~'s (sister-in-law's daugther) and I thought that was special and important, and she basically said that I was nothing to her and that I have slapped her in the face and shown my "true colors"* and that she sees where Husband's family stands and that our adoption is "no longer in her heart".

That last thing is what sent me almost over the edge. Because none of this is Lan's fault. It's my fault, obviously, for including ex-sister-in-law on the my mass email. But, it's not Lan's fault. So, to hear, basically, that she doesn't think she can care about Lan because of the way she found out about her...it makes me want to cry.

Anyway, I wanted to scream and yell and throw things at her. But, instead, I sat down and swallowed my pride and wrote her a letter apologizing for hurting her feelings. I said it was not my intention to hurt her, but, obviously she was hurt, and I was sorry for the hurt that caused.

I do not know if she will read it.

Husband called his parents and smoothed things over with them, and I emailed the brother who was formerly married to the ex-sister-in-law, and since he is sitting in Seattle and far away from all the sh*t storm in Detroit, he said he was glad he was in Seattle, and sorry that the fact that he mentioned his ex-wife's call to his dad when he called to say Happy Father's Day, and sorry about the sh*t storm, and he said congratulations and was looking forward to meeting Lan.

Anyway, my head hurts and I feel sad, and generally annoyed that I feel sad on a day when I should still be feeling joyful. (Which, I am joyful. But, my sadness at knowing how my sister-in-law feels about this is kind of clouding my day.)

I'm going to try to post pictures from our mini-vacation/family reunion later today...

LM

*I am not sure exactly how she could have failed to see my "true colors" before, in the ten years she has known me