Fingerprints and some real annoyance!

Ok, so we are in the process of gathering documents for the dossier, getting our clearances, and completing fingerprints etc. Happy time,right? Last week I went in to our local police department and had my prints done, followed closely that afternoon by my husband once he finished work. It seemed to go smooth and my 8 yr old thought it was "cool"- of course, there was no one actually in holding at the time thank goodness! lol Anyway, after I got home and compared our cards, I decided that my fingerprints are not as clear as Brian's so I'm going to go back and have them re-done, rather than wait for the FBI to kick them out. Just one of those adoption related things in making it all perfect I know, so no biggie.

But that's not the annoying thing. Even though our town is rather small (about 6000), the police department has always seemed professional etc. I really had no problems going in for the first set of prints and was actually quite impressed they were so efficient and nice. That is until yesterday. The notary we have helping us in my husband's office told him that she heard some of the women talking about our adoption. Hmmmm, interesting since we had decided to not tell anyone the specifics yet because we just got the dossier requirements and didn't want Brian's partners to freak out about him being gone and leaving his patients etc etc- they tend to overreact at times but are good guys). Still, it seemed the whole office knew and rather than us breaking/sharing the news, gossip took care of that. Now, this woman is totally honest and was quite annoyed herself because she had not told anyone and I believe her. Of course, people thought we were leaving, like, tomorrow (not the sharpest tools in the shed) and there was a little bit of damage control to be done- not much, but some without a doubt.

So needless to say, I'm a bit miffed and couldn't figure out where the info came from. And here's the kicker- someone at the POLICE DEPARTMENT saw we came in for fingerprinting for adoption and told their sister-in-law, who works in the office, and she took it upon herself to spread the word!! Can you believe that??! She didn't come up to Brian and say "Congratulations" "I just heard. Are you telling people?" NOTHING! I know gossip has always been a problem in the office and I fully expected that once the news got out, and it is a small town, but still! I never would have thought the info would have come from the police themselves! I purposely went to the city police instead of the county to avoid this kind of thing, and now I wonder if I change and go to the county, if even MORE people will find out our plans and gossip! UGH!

Needless to say, I am stymied by what to do- I don't want to cause an issue at the police department but I mean, what else gets told around that is confidential? Does the post office tell people we stopped our mail for vacations? What about newspapers? I know I sound like a paranoid, but I'm starting to worry about little things like that and I worry about when we go on the trips and people know. Now we are going to have to get someone to stay at our house while we are gone just to be sure (no family near us).

We tried to keep it on a need-to-know basis initially and wanted to break the news ourselves. It thoroughly ticks me off and I wonder who we can trust! Here we are, Brian and I professionally sworn to confidentiality oaths (through medicine) and yet others would violate ours in a heartbeat. It makes me very sad, mad, and wondering what my next step should be since I still have to walk back in there for another set of prints. Wish me luck!