adoptive families w/closed adoption: do you wonder if/when your DC will reunite with birthparents?
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Anonymous
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Just saw a newsclip of a MD reunion where Erin Kalkwarf's biological sister searched and found her on Facebook. Birthparents apparently had remained together, married and had another daughter, who went looking 39 years later and voila! all four have happily reunited.
Missing in this story are the adoptive parents. Don't they matter? Do you wonder if this will happen to you? If it did, would you see it as more people to love the child you raised or would you feel threatened? abandoned? conflicted? |
Anonymous
| I can't imagine having a closed adoption. It would break my heart if DD didn't know anything about her origins or birthfamily. It is not a competition between birthfamily and adoptive family. If adoptive parents make it feel that way, they are bound to lose. |
Anonymous
This is how I feel. He is just as much a part of them as us and I far prefer them in our life and knowing than to worry about the unknown for all of us - me worrying if they come back... and them worrying if he is ok. Adoptions were done very differently way back when for many reasons but its so nice to have the option of open adoption and all the wonderful benefits from it. Ultimately, it is the "child" who matters. Are each set of parents important? Absolutely, but at the end of the day, the child was placed for everyone's best interests and that child and their needs should be the focus. As parents through adoption, you adopt knowing that there is a biological family out there and that just makes your child all the more special as there are more people to love them. |
Anonymous
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I am an adult adoptee and my adoption was an international closed one. I also have an adopted child who comes from the same country, also through a closed adoption. It is my hope that my daughter will one day look to find her birth parents, but honestly, I don't believe they want to be found. We keep her file updated with letters and pictures and the adoption agency is supposed to notify us if her bio family ever accesses the file, but so far, her family has not. Both of her birth parents came in to relinquish their rights so it's not like her father doesn't know about her. The same deal with my birth parents- that file has never been requested.
It's ok though  I understand the rationale behind open adoptions but I think sometimes people think that if you're not part of an open adoption, you're going to be messed up. I'm not, and neither is my sister. I knew nothing about my background until a few years ago and sure I wondered and was curious, but it's not like it dominated my thoughts constantly. I also know enough about my daughter's background that I'll be able to answer basic and some not-so-basic questions.
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Anonymous
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I am the Erin Kalkwarf you are talking about. Granted it took me a year later to find this, but I did.
I was placed with my adoptive family when I was only 2 weeks old. My birth parents are not together, they split up after my younger sister (who is only a year younger than me) was born. She too was put up for adoption, but my birth father and my paternal grandfather were able to get her out before she was placed and was raised by my father's side of the family. My biological father, mother and sister all in in the Indianapolis area with in miles of each other. While I was growing up, I was always told by my adoptive parents that they would support and help me in whatever way they could if I wanted to search for my biological family. My adoption was a closed adoption - my adoptive family didn't even have medical history. The only paperwork we had was from the agency which showed that my biological mother was under the age of 16 and that her parents were the ones who signed the papers. I searched for my biological family but obviously failed - with no information and everything being closed, I just couldn't afford it. I resented my birth mother for not looking for me. I wondered all the time if my birth father even knew if I existed. I wanted to know if I had any siblings - heck, I wanted to know if anyone knew I existed, or if I was "the skeleton in the closet". Long story short - my sister finally did find me. My first contact was the Thursday after fathers day, 2011. I flew out to Indiana 2 months later to meet them. Since then I have built a great relationship with my sister and my birth dad - the relationship between my birth mother isn't as strong. My adoptive family and parents were and still are very supportive of this. Infact, my oldest son graduated in June of this year and my sister, father, adoptive parents and siblings finally got to meet too - I don't think my situation could have turned out any better! |
Anonymous
| Thank you for sharing this great story! |
Anonymous
| We have a semi-open adoption in that everyone involved has each others' full names, other identifying information and we have all met, but by law in the state where the adoption took place the legal records are officially closed. By the birth mother's request there is no contact - my daughter is 10. I hope that my dd wants to find her birth mother and since we have met her already that we can be the ones to help open that door for her. I think it will help her answer a lot of questions. |
Anonymous
I It isn't always the adoptive parents who want a closed adoption. My daughters birth parents chose closed. |
Anonymous
Ditto, |
Anonymous
That's what we were told by the agency. Many yeats later we discovered the agency had told his firstmom that closed as her only option. |
Anonymous
Were you perhaps adopted from Korea? I would not put much weight on adoption agencys attempts to inform you. |
Anonymous
How would you handle contact since the birth mother has requested no contact? It seems like that could be a sticky situation. |
Anonymous
| I usually don't trust agency's as they are generally their way or the highway so you never know what the other side wants and things change - they may want it more open or closed in the future. We have an open adoption and I am very grateful for many reasons why. I understand why a birthparent would want closed but to me, the option to open should always be there. Not all birthparents are open about the adoption & giving birth and sometimes it is still a big secret. So, in those situations then I would do closed but by their choice only. |
Anonymous
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My younger brother was given up for adoption. My mother always updated the agency when we moved so he could find her. We were not allowed to look for him but from a young age I always knew he would find us. He later told us he began contacting the agency as early as 16. He really needed to know. However, he has always put his adopted family first. He has a sister was also adopted and she has never cared to look for her birth parents.
Meeting him was the happiest day of my life. It meant so much to see and touch him. I missed him so much. I love every email and phone call. I think he's even more excited than our mom that I have a baby on the way. |
Anonymous
That's a very sweet story. I adopted internationally, so they are closed adoptions. But, I gathered all information I could about birthparents and everyone who was involved in my kids' adoptions. I also became Facebook friends with people who facilitated the adoptions. I am trying to preserve what contacts and information I have so that if they decide to contact their birth families they will at least have a starting place. None of mine have shown an interest yet. But, at least one of mine has biological siblings and I imagine that will create a strong pull someday. |