Unsupportive People

Hi Abba. My heart is hurting and I'm going to come to You with it. We went to a family gathering today for Andy's cousin, Rachel. She's going to Arizona to go to college and leaves on Wednesday, so it was a good-bye party for her. We had sent out our adoption letters on Friday morning (well Round 1 anyway...I didn't have time to address the rest, so Round 2 is going out tomorrow). Well, apparently the family had received theirs. I had no way of knowing as nobody really said anything to our faces about it. However, we were sitting on the couch with Deidra playing with her and the other cousins and I happened to overhear Andy's Dad talking to Andy's step grandmother, Ila. They were talking about Deidra and she had asked if we left her with him while we were at work and he said that she went to daycare during the day. This whole conversation unfolded then about how she was surprised to get the letter that we were going to adopt while we were still living with him and how he needed to be charging us rent and all this other stuff. I sat there hearing bits and pieces and the tears just started brimming in my eyes. From the very get go, we've offered to pay rent and half the utilities. FIL has always refused our offers saying that as long as we kept the house clean for him and took care of things, that that was paying for our keep as he really didn't have time for all that when he had to sleep during the day. Anyway, all this stuff came out from both of them that was extremely hurtful to me and I looked at Andy (him unknowing this conversation was even going on) and said "we need to go." He asked me why, thinking I was having bleeding problems. I said that we needed to go to the grocery store and basically played it off. We got out to the car and said "you know that house on the end of the road that we were going to call about and see how much they wanted for rent, well it's time to do that." And I told him some of the things that I heard and some of the things that I thought I heard but may have understood. He was completely quiet for awhile and I told him that it took everything that I had to not stand up in that room and scream at them that we were right there and if they had problems with some things that we wanted to do that they could say it to our faces rather than talk about us behind our backs." I will not stay in a house that can not support us. His family has done plenty of hurtful things to me and towards our family, not caring about what they've caused or done and I've continually tried to mend the fences and support them even if I didn't necessarily agree with things.

We have some things to figure out monetary wise with me working. If D doesn't go to KinderCare, that's a rent payment right there, but we have some things to figure out. But, it's time for us to move out. I told Andy that I was stupid for thinking that if we stayed here until the adoption was complete that we could just put more away for the adoptions and that maybe we should just throw in the towel now since everyone seems to be against us doing this because of the hard times that we've had financially. He looked at me and said that we're not giving up and that our feet are planted firmly on the ground again and that if we have to do this without any help from our families then we will. Our friends have always been there for us. I sat and cried. I told him that we're talking to his Dad tonight, I want to get everything out on the table and I want to know why he told us that our plans were ok with him and then for me to overhear him saying things to Ila that just stabbed me to the core...unless I heard something wrong, but I honestly don't think that's the case. Andy told me that we'll keep fundraising for the adoption and keep putting money away for it and we'll figure out some way for me to drop down to part-time so that D won't have to go to school as much and we'll have the money for the rent payment or for the house payment. If we can buy something cheap enough, we'll just do that with the goal of doing what we really want to do with the land and the house we really want and wanted to build once the babies came in 2-5 years. I'm just glad that I truly have Andy's support, but it doesn't stop the hurt that I feel deep down. I should have known though that his family has never truly supported us in anything that we did or do. I should have known better. But, it's truly time for us to go on our way. It feels like a setback in our adoption timeframe, but I know that we'll still accomplish our goals...with or without support...we will do this.