continued from previous post...

"Oh no." I thought. "Don't say it. Please, don't say it. Whatever it is that you're thinking right now, please. Just don't say it. Hark back to your bedside manner 101 class, if they even taught you such a thing and figure out how to handle this tactfully. You have no idea the kind of week I've had around all of this very kind of stuff."

Well, folks. She said it.

Her full faced smile turned to a stone faced stare. She let out something that was somewhere in between a gasp and a sigh. Then she lowered her voice conspiratorially and leaned in close to me.

"You mean she's, she's...adopted?"
"Yes, she's adopted."
"Oh, well, that's_____" She caught herself.

That's what? I wondered. What? Wonderful? Incredible? Extraordinary? Beautiful?

She never finished her statement. Instead, she went into hyperefficient mode. No longer playing cutesy-cutesy with my daughter. She asked me a slew of other questions that I did have the answers too, but which I will forgo writing about for privacy's sake. It was those answers that nailed it for her. The look of pity in her eyes was unmistakable.

I am telling you I could see the change in the doctor's attitude toward my daughter right before my very eyes. That is not me being overly-sensitive. That is me being eagle-eyed perceptive. (Or, is it?)

A few days ago, I read another blog at www.adoptionblogs.com that carried a couple of posts about this very experience. I just went back through to try to find the exact ones but now I can't. The blogger (if anyone can remind me who it was please do so) wrote a post where she went around sharing with people who didn't know her very well that she was adopted. She isn't adopted. But she wanted to see how people responded to her and it was quite an eye-opener. Darnit! I wish I could remember who wrote that. When I first wrote this post, I attributed it to two different people blogging on two different blogs, but when I went to confirm I couldn't find it on either of them. Anyway, my experience in the doctor's office made me think back to what I had read.

Two simple words: She's adopted. And all of a sudden. My precocious, beautiful, intelligent, brown-skinned, cornrowed, little girl didn't seem to tickle the doctor's fancy anymore.

That turned out not to be so short. Sorry about that. I'll write more about other things the doctor could have been thinking when I return from NYC. In all fairness, there are probably a hundred other explanations for the way that exchange went and I will examine some of them when I get back.