Everyone has a story...

My husband mentioned to some people at church last night that we were adopting, and they were all gushing about how excited they were for us. And each one of them had a story about adopting or someone they knew who had adopted. And then, of course, comes the advice. Ah, the advice.

I've learned that it doesn't matter what intimate detail of your life you are sharing, someone will always have advice for you. For those few who learned about our fertility struggles, there were the suggestions of things to try, or articles they'd read. For those finding out about our adoption, it's all stories and advice on adopting from this country or that (which don't mean a hill of beans to us right now), and then the advice on whether or not to tell her she's adopted. Obviously, those bits come from people who've never adopted...and certainly have never adopted a child who didn't share their racial or ethnic features. I've come to find these bits of advice funny and usually just laugh them off. They used to irritate me, but then I realized that I was once the type to offer such advice, so I guess I can't fault people too much.