Long version

So, my sister is pregnant. Thank you to those who sent congratulations -- it's a joyous thing, but it's also not. It's complicated, as these things often are. So let me see if I can enumerate some of what's going on for us.

Issue #1: Infertility, the stupid. I would like to say that embarking on the adoption plan has taken the sting out of everyone else getting knocked up, but it hasn't. Once we have a kid in arms, I suspect the hurt will dissolve (at least some of it), but right now, not so much. It's been over two years since we started trying, and people who started trying at the same time not only have a toddler, they're talking about having a second kid, and the repeated reminders that things didn't work out for us, that we don't have a kid, take their toll. By the time we have a kid, the kids born of those early attempts will be in preschool or kindergarten, and they're likely to have younger siblings. Add that to knowing that domestic adoption wait-time averages have lengthened by about a year because those programs have been absorbing the people closed out of international adoptions, and well, it sucks. If we're lucky, we'll have a kid two years from now. If we're lucky.

Issue #2: She didn't tell us. I don't know when we would have found out if my parents hadn't called Saturday morning to chat and I hadn't brought up my sister. (More on this in a minute.) The charitable explanation is that she was worried about our feelings, but when she told me in May that she'd been trying for a year and hadn't told anyone (more on THIS in a minute, too!), I was nothing but supportive, excited, etc. But the bottom line is, she didn't tell us. And I suspect she told my parents over email.

Issue #3: My parents think this is just! amazing! So, issue #3 part a: my sister is being no more traditional than I am, what with her being single and using frozen sperm and never (to my knowledge anyway) having been in a relationship. But where I get painted with the "what will the neighbors think" brush every time I make a decision that isn't "usual" (i.e., marrying Ms. P, adopting) my sister is getting a free pass.

Part b: My parents don't talk about our adoption the way they talk about this. Around this, they're excited and making plans to be here in mid-March because they've already been invited! When I talk about the adoption, my father stays silent and my mother's voice goes tight and quiet and they change the subject quickly. Yet again, the younger sibling's bio-kid will arrive before our adopted kid, and I'm worried that both sides of the family, especially mine, will treat our kid differently, because they're already treating the adoption itself differently than they've treated pregnancies.

Issue #4: My family is more than slightly repressed. So, remember how I said my parents told me? Well, here's how the conversation went.

• Ms. P answers phone, spends ten minutes talking about work and our life.
• I take phone, listen to mom tell me about the record number of deliveries her L&D ward did in August. She talks about the dog. She talks about the hurricane. We talk about my lack of cooking skills. My father throws in the odd comment.
• I say I haven't talked to my sister recently; how is she?
• They tell me she's 11.5 weeks pregnant, they aren't sure how this happened, she decided she's tired of waiting for a man to come along, she's got the disposable income to have the kid, so she's having the kid. They're coming in March. I ooh and aah.
• I talk about the adoption. My mom asks what the process is, I answer, and she drops the subject.
• She talks more about work and weather and we hang up.

Seriously? They clearly assumed I knew already, and if they assumed I knew, wouldn't that have been, I don't know, the BEGINNING of the conversation? Isn't this big news?

But that's my family. My sister didn't tell ANYONE she was trying -- not even her own best friend, with whom she's been best friends since they were 9 and whom she sees probably every other day -- for over a year, and she only told a few of us then because she was having a lap to see if she has endo as well since it hadn't yet worked. My mother hasn't told even close family members about our adoption plan. When my sister was diagnosed with severe depression in her early teens, my mother didn't tell me. Since my grandmother's funeral a year ago, my mother has mentioned her to me ONCE.

Sometimes I think my family is only run-of-the-mill dysfunctional, the kind of dysfunctional that everyone's family is. But no. The level of repression, denial, ignoring, and just plain not-talking about things is truly awesome. It's like my family has no interior lives, which I don't buy for a second. But you'd think so too, if you spent any time with them.

Issue #5: My sister lives across town. And so all of this -- including my parents' excitement and their inability to talk about anything -- is going to be inescapable. Baby showers, the birth, the post-birth support -- it's all in my backyard (sort of). There will be no way out, and there's no way to talk to my family about any of this, because 1) note the "not-talking" above, and 2) if I tried to talk about it, I would be dismissed, my feelings minimized, told that family is family and that's all that matters, indulged briefly only to have that conversation have no bearing on any future conversation or interaction. You think I'm kidding or exaggerating, but this has been the pattern in my family for a very long time. It's why I don't talk to them about anything important to me, but it also means that I can't talk to them about anything important to me. It doesn't DO anything.

I have concerns about my sister (lack of emotional support much?), but right now, we're still in the shock and anger and grief that all of this is bringing up -- the not being told, the differential treatment, the being lapped, again. I'm sure we'll love that baby fiercely when he or she arrives, and we'll be good aunties, because hell, we've got experience being the good aunties. We'll keep showing up, because that's what we do. But privately, alone and with people we love and trust and who love us, we will acknowledge that this is hard and strange and alienating and painful.

Comments

[dale]

Oh, I'm so sorry. Hugs, and hugs.

[frog]

Lord, above.