Adoption decision nobody’s business

Dear Carolyn: My husband and I have decided to start a family through adoption. A childhood illness left me unable to have biological children. My husband knew this before we ever started dating, and his parents have known for years as well. No one – until now – has led me to feel ashamed.

We’ve been talking about our adoption plans with friends and our immediate families, but recently my mother-in-law advised that we not discuss it with her extended family and should hide our adoption books when they are visiting. When I declined to put away the books, she hid them herself! She says she wants to break the news about our adoption plans to her parents gently because it’s not how they expect to have a great-grandchild and they’ll be shocked and need an explanation.

Should I tell my mother-in-law how I feel or just let it pass? I refuse to feel ashamed because of infertility and don’t want our child to carry a stigma associated with adoption. I’m worried that by ignoring the situation, I will end up perpetuating this outcome. – M.

It is not your mother-in-law’s place to referee the relationship between you and this set of grandparents.

It’s also not your place, it’s your husband’s, since it’s his mother and it’s your back he needs to have, publicly and definitively.

You’re a grown woman who can speak for herself, of course. But when you’re the in-law and when the topic is something that might trigger abrasive commentary, your being the one to speak up leaves an opening for blaming you. Having your husband own this can be the difference between “This is the thing she forced on our precious relative” and “This is the thing our precious relative chose.”

Your husband might have no interest in the spokeshusband role, and that’s fine – there’s no one way to solve this – as long as you talk your way to an alternate plan together. You two are all that matter, and the approach that works here is by definition the approach you both embrace.