wow. just...wow.

Still no baby.

BUT- at least I went to bed BEFORE 9:00 last night and slept the WHOLE ENTIRE NIGHT!!! Woooo! It was a major accomplishment and I'm sure it will revolutionize my entire outlook on life today. Which is good, because I woke up to a less-than-pleasant situation. Or comment, as the case may be. 

Before we get to that- I heard that my post yesterday wasn't showing up in people's feed readers for some reason? Several people emailed/tweeted/texted wondering what was up and thinking that my non-blogging meant something had happened. Sadly...nothing's happened and I did blog at the exact same time I always do...only it wasn't showing up for some reason? No idea how to fix that, but in case you missed it-- I blogged yesterday. There was no major news or excitement, which is apparently why Blogger thought it wasn't worth letting folks know about the new post or something. Who knows. 

At any rate, I woke up this morning to a lengthy and vitriolic comment on yesterday's post. It really wasn't the best way to wake up. I only had about two seconds to enjoy the fact that I'd slept for over nine hours and then BAM- comment notification in the inbox. This should teach me to read emails in bed...

The screen shot is a little hard to read, but the comment is still live on the post if you want to go read it there. 

I must admit-- I haven't gotten a whole lot of negative comments in all of my years blogging. I know it's supposedly par for the course, but I guess my 'course' has been pretty non-controversial and since I have a relatively small 'audience,' I haven't been met with much negativity yet. But there's a first time for everything, I suppose. While my initial inclination was to just ignore and delete the comment, I ultimately (obviously) decided not to. While I don't think that the author of the comment was really looking to open up a dialogue (given the fact that he/she remained anonymous), I feel like she (for the sake of ease here, I'll pretend the commenter is female) did raise some valid points that are worth responding to. I would probably suggest that using a little bit less judgment, anger, and name-calling would go a long way in helping her 'cause', but I'll try my best to ignore all of that and hopefully clear up any misunderstandings about the things she mentioned.

First of all, I can only guess that the commenter isn't a regular reader here. I say that because I honestly feel like (and can/will 'cite' my sources) I have addressed both of her issues. But that's okay. I don't expect people to read through years (or weeks, as the case may be, since both of these issues have risen during the past month) of my writing...but then again, if you're going to attack someone, I would at least think you'd want to make sure you were making valid 'attack points,' right? 

The Birth Father Issue 

I think she makes a very good point in general. So often, we (and I mean a general, community-as-a-whole "we") do really run over the birth father and his rights/feelings/place in the adoption discussion. It is something that I personally am very aware of and concerned about. In fact, it's something I directly addressed a number of weeks ago, which is why I said: 

In my humble opinion, that is not "ignoring the fact that this baby has a birth father." It is not "too selfish to acknowledge that someone else is this baby's REAL parent." I am the first person that will admit it isn't my place to judge whether her birth father loves HIS. OWN. DAUGHTER or not. I have never stated that he didn't, nor attempted to villanize or judge his ability to parent. We do not know much about him at all, and we would never try to 'truck over' him just because we are "desperate for a baby." 

The fact is that-- and this is due to the laws in our state, not anything that Matt and I or anyone else has 'done'-- at this point, the birth father does not have any legal rights to the baby. As I discussed (and gave references to outside sources) here, at this point, the birth father could not take custody of the baby when she is born, whether or not Matt and I (or any other adoptive family) were in the picture. So if we 'back out', it's not like he 'gets' her. The baby would go to the state. The birth father does and will have the opportunity to proceed with the process of legitimization once the baby is born no matter where the baby is. It's true that in this state, birth fathers have a humongous lack of rights by virtue of their DNA, compared to birth mothers. However, I am not personally responsible for that and would suggest that contacting the Georgia Legislature would probably go much further towards correcting that issue than attacking random bloggers will. 

For the record, Matt and I are in 100% agreement that we could never in good conscious proceed with the adoption if we find that the baby's father is willing and able to raise her. How could we live with ourselves and tell our daughter we did what we thought was best if...we didn't? But at this point we don't know, so I would ask that you give us a little grace to figure things out. 

The Crib Bumpers Issue

First of all, the commenter begins by stating that "no one else here seems to be willing to say it..." ("it"=crib bumpers are dangerous, etc.) Well, that isn't true. I have had a number of commenters leave non-hate-filled, kind comments gently stating the exact same thing. Feel free to check out the comment thread on this post-- several people kindly suggest that I reconsider the bumper thing, as they are in fact not considered safe. I appreciate the willingness of these girls to point that out in such a mature and loving way-- they use a tone that can lead to adult discussion and dialogue. On this issue (or any issue), I certainly don't expect everyone in the world to agree with me and I don't expect that what I think is 100% correct or best-- but pointing out the truth in love is always the best way to start a conversation. Attacking rarely is. But anyway-- just so Anonymous knows-- people ARE willing to say they have a differing opinion, and I am thankful for that.

However, the fact remains that I also have already addressed this issue:

I know that bumpers are unnecessary and potentially dangerous! Of COURSE I know that! Good grief. I would never risk my future child's health and safety over something ridiculous like bumpers. Like many parents, I want the bumpers right now because they are CUTE. And because the baby won't be sleeping in her crib (once we even GET a crib, ha) for quite some time! She will be sleeping in our room (in a 100% safe, non-recalled Moses basket and/or pack and play) for the first few months, most likely. The crib will be a large piece of furniture taking up real estate in the nursery and I plan to have it cutely decorated so that it's nicer to look at. Once she actually starts sleeping in the crib, I will remove the bumpers. I will probably reattach them if we have a 'crib photo shoot' or something. But I really think that declaring me to be making a 'horrible parenting mistake' at this point is a little bit premature. Let's save that judgment for a situation that actually merits it.

Anyways. I think I've spent enough time on this. I really do not want this to turn into any name-calling or anything-- I think that while Anonymous's tone and choice of words leaves something to be desired, she obviously cares a great deal about babies, so I wanted to address the issues just in case anyone else was thinking the same thing. 

With that, I'm off to embark on another day of work. Have a good day!