Heartbroken on Father´s day

My heart is still numb after Saturday. What should have been a very happy weekend turned into a reminder of our IF and that not everybody is as ex ited as us about our adoption.

We are ecstatic that we are about to adopt and all is well in this regard. I do not want anybody to misunderstand this, yet something happened this last Satuday that made clear how fragile we still are regarding our IF and what is about to happen and about our families.

Its also a stressful time and I am sure my heart is far more sensitive than normal. I get emotional with many things quite unexpectedly, yet I really think that my feelings last Saturday were not out of proportion.

Sunday also was Father´s day here in Mexico and we decided to invite my FIL for lunch at home on Saturday.

We wanted to celebrate him and we also wanted to have the chance to celebrate our coming adoption with him. A pre fathers day celebration for my DH also.

We told him as much.


It was not to be.

My DH had already shared with my FIL that we had been accepted. He said he was happy and that he was eagerly awaiting the coming of his latest grandchild.

But it was a very cautious congratulations, like it was not real to him and he did not even congratulate me. Only my DH with a few words. My DH was hurt, yet decided on Saturday to emphasise to him that the baby was real and it was coming.

I am sure he did not want to get his hopes up to much, he really does not know what to expect and he is still afraid. Adoption is not something that he really understands and he does not know how to behave around us regarding this subject.

My DH is the good son and perhaps the closest to him. The only one he confides in and the only one trusts with everything, money, information, etc. My DH is the middle child of 5. Four boys and then one girl.

Both my FIL and my MIL always said that he is the gentlest, the most loving of all their children. He is the one that brings peace to everybody. Both told me time and time again that he was very, very special in their hearts and that they felt they could trust him with anything.

My political family is very outspoken and loud and my DH is quiet so he kind of gets lost in the noise. Yet everybody knows when he is hurting and they know that our IF has been a very very heavy cross.

Since he is one that always was close to God, the faithful one, the only one that really follows the Church nobody can comprehend why he was asked to carry the IF cross. He of all of them.

Our IF is the big elephant in the room.

Nobody speaks about it and nobody asks.

This very noisy family does not say anything.

We only knew how much they worried about us when we announced our pregnancy.

Most of them cried of happiness, but when we lost Miguel there was silence. Nobody knew what to say and I can understand it, yet it hurts.

Our adoption has not been discussed much and we also have not shared perhaps enough, but we were not sure how everything would turn out and we wanted to wait until we had confirmation. Miscarriage does this to you I have learned.

We wanted to celebrate with all of them this weekend. Openly and shout it from the rooftops that we were going to be parents really soon

On Saturday we were beginning with my FIL since we wanted to make sure he understood 100% that a baby was on its way.

That we will have a baby in our family in the coming days or weeks or months and its 100% it will happen. Its really like we were pregnant and about to leave for the hospital

As we were sitting down to speak about everything in detail (we had begun previously, but wanted to answer any of his doubts) and to celebrate in earnest my DH got up to answer a call from a repairman and my FIL received an unexpected call.

It was a call from Europe, where my BIL is currently living. This is the BIL that was married to another person and during the divorce proceedings got his girlfriend of 3 weeks pregnant.

Right after he got divorced they got married hastily and now have a beautiful 2 year old.

Well….. they had just gotten news from a HPT that they were again expecting. On what they say is their first try in their new country to which they moved to 4 weeks ago.

They even sent that same afternoon the photo of their test saying PREGNANT and now my email is filled with comments and congratulations.

This of course always hurts deep down in our hearts where our IF has cost us so much emotionally, financially and spiritually and where nothing has been easy, but what really hurt us was my FIL reaction.

The pain of news like this is much less than before, but it still there and I cannot deny it.

My DH was truly happy for his brother, yet the reaction that accompanied the news by my FIl broke his heart.

As my BIL told him the news my FIL began to scream, cry and shout from the rooftops that he was ecstatic, so very happy and proud of them. It was like forever. That they had made him so very, very proud. He even mentioned that X, BIL´s, wife was amazing, that she always did things at the right time.

I have never seen him happier.

Never.

This screams could be heard from several houses away.

Only here I can say how much the words: "she always does everything at the right time" hurt my IF heart.

The contrast to this reaction and to our news was like night and day. One filled with fear, not really wanting to hope and one that did not have any doubts that everything would be perfect again.

I cannot share this with anybody, but here. Nobody I think would really understand how this hurt me and my DH specially.

How I did not end up crying devastated right then and there I do not know. It hurt me to the deepest of my heart to see my DH suffer that his own father could not celebrate equally our adoption.

We ended up not speaking about our adoption. About our baby.

My FIL suddenly got up and said he needed to leave. HE had to pack for a trip on Monday. No questions about us, no continued conversation. Our conversation was completly forgotten and all he could talk about was this pregnancy.

My DH was devastated.

Why could not be he as happy about our news?

About his good son having a baby?

I can completly understand that he would be happy about a new baby, anybody would and I can say that my DH really was for his brother, but this reaction was so much in contrast to his news that he had no words and then the words that my BILs wife always did everything at the rigth time hurt him deeply and specially knowing how I would later feel.

The son that has never ever failed him. The one that has suffered in silence for 4 full years.

Why this happened at the very same time that we wanted to celebrate with my FIL, the very same day that my DH wanted to officially announce to his family that after 4 years of the most horrible trials and sufferings he was going to be a father I do not know.

After my FIl left the tears did not stop.