Picnic day

Today we headed down to Columbus for our adoption agencies annual picnic. We heard it was quite an event and they were right. The park is huge and beautiful. They have a pavilion, pond, massive play ground and grassy fields as far as you can see. I've been dreading this picnic because today was the day we were supposed to see Ellies birth parents for the first time since leaving the hospital. I wasn't sure how they would act--happy to see she is doing so well, sad they gave her up or 1,000 other possibilities. All that worrying was for nothing. They didn't show up. I don't know what happened to them, but no one has heard from them in a while. That left us to focus on Ellie and all the other adorable babies. It was actually amazing. We were surrounded by tons of white couples with AA and biracial babies. Of course we saw plenty of cute white babies too, but we were definitely attracted to the "mixed" families. We saw a family from our training class. We met a couple that used to live two streets away from us and a few other great families from all over the state. It was so nice to not have to explain Ellie is adopted or that we aren't crazy because we are 8 months pregnant. Everyone just got it and we met several couples that have been in our same situation. It made me realize how much the looks and the dumb questions strangers throw at you really bother me. It was a whole new community that I didn't realize I was missing out on. Now that I've experienced it, I'm almost sad we're not still with them. Everyone fell in love with Ellie (thats a given) and she loved all the attention---when she wasn't sleeping on me! We had a great time and I'm definitely looking forward to connecting with some families we met today and to next years picnic!