So the discussion about giving gifts at a first meeting between potential adoptive parents and expectant parents has come up AGAIN.
So first off of course they are already birthparents in this discussion, but I digress, semantics aside, how the heck is some body wash and lotion going to make me feel better about placing my child for adoption. I mean really, come on now people, a baby is not the equivalent of a bottle of junk from Bath and Body Works. You’d think that people that have experienced IF would realize this, but they don’t seem to, because they are always worried about giving gifts.
For goodness sake, I didn’t want a gift from my son’s adoptive parents then or now. Leave it alone already, giving a gift is about making yourself feel better. Does anyone really think that something as impersonal as a bottle of body wash is going to make someone feel that much better when they are probably experiencing one of the hardest things they will ever go through.
The sentimental gifts don’t bother me as much, like a necklace with a birthstone, or a photo album.
Let’s be real though, a bottle of body wash and some fuzzy slippers, nearly as classy as the cheese basket I got one year.
When we adopted Woob, I worried so much about it and stressed aobut it and in the end did nothing and felt like a big schlub about it…I mean, how hard would it have been to send flowers? I have no idea if N. cared one way or another…I didn’t even know her at that time. But I think there is so much advice and anxiety going around, and worries about legality of gifts that no one really knows what to do. Its nice now that we know N., to be able to send her practical things we know she’ll need or things she’ll like , it just seems more genuine that wya.