When to tell?

[frenchteachermama]

I know we are just at the beginning of this process...but DH and I have decided on an agency to go with and will "officially" start the process next week!  Our home study (from a seperate agency) will be complete in a week or two.

When did you all share with your family and friends that you were starting the adoption process?  After 2+ years of dealing with unsuccessful infertility treatments I've really made my inner circle much smaller. 

Also, if you have children, when did you talk to them about the process?  I know my girls are going to be very excited about adopting a sibling (they ask about it all of the time), but I don't think a 4 and 7 year old will understand how long the wait really could be.  

[gnomesweetgnome]

We told our families as soon as we had really decided to adopt, and then slowly told our friends as we got further along in the process. We didn't have any kids yet back then, but we've been telling our son that he might be getting a brother or sister sometime soon, and they may just stay a little while or they might stay a long time/forever. He's only two, so I don't think he really gets it yet.

[lizblue]

We've been an open book since the very beginning. When we were matched (very quickly), lots of people knew. We are fine with that but we made sure everyone understood the revocation period.

I liked talking to friends and family about the process. Some people say clueless things but they usually just don't know anything about adoption so we use it as an educational opportunity.

I'm waiting until Oct 1 (when 30 days are up) to announce on FB. I'm excited to do that.

[drl]

My family knew all along. We told DH's family once we picked an agency. We told most friends after we went active

[pinkie]

We told just my immediate family and our best friends when we decided to pursue adoption and then after we were actively waiting we told the world (including FB). We were so excited and positive about it that we wanted to tell everyone plus we knew word of mouth can lead to a match.

Now we were very different about talking about our matches. Especially the first time we were nervous wrecks it wouldn't work out so we didn't tell many people until TPR was complete.

[chicago]

We told our close friends early (as they were our references). We told our family, friends & FB once we were waiting.
Now that we are matched (she's due in a week, we have told close family and friends. I have also told work since I need to prepare.
We always talk about the possibility of the expectant parent deciding to parent to try to temper people's excitement.
This is our first match. If the time between the match and birth was longer, we may have waited longer to tell people.

[shemarie82]

We told close friends that we were doing foster care right away because we needed them as references. We didn't go fb official until we had our license last month. It was not a secret, but there are so many factors beyond our control that we wanted to keep it a little quieter. We basically announced that we were fostering, and had a placement within 2 weeks time.

[nobb14]

We were very upfront from the get-go. After a year of 3 losses, we leaned heavily on friends and family for support- so we very desperately wanted to share good news. We are really glad we did--- we got matched very quickly (two months into waiting) with only 6 weeks to prepare for the delivery. It would have totally shocked everyone if we rolled up and said "oh hi we will have a baby next month from this crazy thing called adoption." on the flip side, we declined a baby shower, though. you will find there are many decisions you can make to control what people know about your journey based on your own comfort level.

[hootiemommytobe]

We told our immediate families right away and the people who were our references. We were going to wait until after the Home Study to announce to the world that we were adopting, but it was just too exciting not too. We made it a couple of months and then made an announcement on FB. We get questions every now and then, but we really thought we were going to be bombarded, and we never were. Now, everyone knows it's a waiting game, so every once in a while, we'll get the "have you heard anything" question.

You just do what feels right for you. Everyone is different. I really think when we go for baby number 2 (yes, we're already planning on adopting another and we don't have our first yet), we will wait until after the Home Study before we tell anyone. But, of course that could change.

[delenire]

Once we finished our classes we sent out a letter to everyone in the family, there were a few people we did speak to personally about it first. The letter helped because it allowed people to process in their own time. For the most part it went ok. We are waiting for the home study to be finished before we announce it to the world. I am a photographer and so I really want to do a cute photo session to document it. Do you do the "Paper Pregnant" photos when you are matched or when you are "actively looking"

Thank you for posting it because I was wondering when was the best time to share the news too.

[shemarie82]

Sept 15, 2015 8:41:12 GMT -5 delenire said:

Once we finished our classes we sent out a letter to everyone in the family, there were a few people we did speak to personally about it first. The letter helped because it allowed people to process in their own time. For the most part it went ok. We are waiting for the home study to be finished before we announce it to the world. I am a photographer and so I really want to do a cute photo session to document it. Do you do the "Paper Pregnant" photos when you are matched or when you are "actively looking"

Thank you for posting it because I was wondering when was the best time to share the news too.

I spent hours and hours on Pinterest trying to decide on how to do our announcement. In the end, I ended up making a stick figure family.  Since we will likely never have birth children, it was important to me that we do something special.

[ceejay]

Sept 14, 2015 12:37:25 GMT -5 shemarie82 said:

We told close friends that we were doing foster care right away because we needed them as references. We didn't go fb official until we had our license last month. It was not a secret, but there are so many factors beyond our control that we wanted to keep it a little quieter. We basically announced that we were fostering, and had a placement within 2 weeks time.

We did almost the exact same as you guys.  We told our close friends and family early on, but waited until we had our license to announce on facebook. Then we shared that we had a placement when we got the boys last week, but didn't do any additional formal announcement.

[delenire]

Sept 15, 2015 9:49:20 GMT -5 shemarie82 said:

Sept 15, 2015 8:41:12 GMT -5 delenire said:

Once we finished our classes we sent out a letter to everyone in the family, there were a few people we did speak to personally about it first. The letter helped because it allowed people to process in their own time. For the most part it went ok. We are waiting for the home study to be finished before we announce it to the world. I am a photographer and so I really want to do a cute photo session to document it. Do you do the "Paper Pregnant" photos when you are matched or when you are "actively looking"

Thank you for posting it because I was wondering when was the best time to share the news too.

I spent hours and hours on Pinterest trying to decide on how to do our announcement. In the end, I ended up making a stick figure family.  Since we will likely never have birth children, it was important to me that we do something special.

There isn't enough on Pinterest about adoption! It is doubly frustrating when you search "Adoption" and then all the pregnancy stuff comes up. There is even less on adoption via foster care.