Concerns about open adoption

[Anonymous]

For those who have pursued adoption, I'm wondering how open adoption has been for you. We are considering adopting but one of my main concerns is open adoption and concerns about too frequent contact with the birth family, especially if the birth parents have mental health/addiction issues, or feeling like I'm sharing the child with their bio parents/family, and concern that being in frequent contact with the birth family may cause confusion for the adopted child. I have a few friends who have adopted, and they are in frequent contact with the birth parents (FB friends with them, text weekly, phone calls, in person visits), and this frequent level of contact makes me slightly uncomfortable. Additionally, another issue is that we have a biological child and I worry that open adoption might be stressful for our bio child--would we bring her along on these visits, too? How would she regard our adopted child's bio family, and would there be confusion that her sibling has two families but she only has one?

My husband has two sisters who are adopted, and theirs was a closed adoption from the beginning. They chose not to contact their birth families when they turned 18 and never have since. In many ways I feel like this is an easier scenario.

We are very interested in adopting but I do have concerns.

[Anonymous]

We have semi open adoption with both of our children's birth parents. IMHO, you should not sign up for a level of communication that you are not comfortable with. Ours is limited to annual letters with pictures through the agency. As time has gone on, I wish that we had more contact, which really surprises me, but my dh is comfortable with our current arrangement. Also, in my children's case, only one birthparent has stayed in contact with the agency and still gets the letters/pictures. The rest have ceased communication. Every birthparent is different. If you are comfortable with semi-open, wait for the right situation for your family. Our wait for child #1 was 13 months and 8 mths for child #2.

[Anonymous]

I think you need to think more about the child than yourself. Open adoption is in general much better for the child, although of course every situation is different in its details. And there's no single definition of "open" either. In this day and age, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a domestic adoptive mother who would agree to literally no contact at all with any birth relatives. I don't know why you'd want that for your child either.

[Anonymous]

We have the annual letter/pics also and I don't consider that open. I wish we had more contact because my kids are developing a curiousity that seems very natural and normal.

[Anonymous]

"Open" adoption can mean many different things, as folks above have pointed out. We have friends who adopted a baby with a truly OPEN adoption as you describe: friends on facebook, weekly phone calls, one major holiday per year with the extended birth family (and, yes, they bring all of their children), etc. I think it works because the birth mom was a young teenager when she had the kid (15), so there was just no question about how things should proceed from the perspective of the girl or her family... They truly have no regrets. Our friends just went to the birth mother's college graduation a few months back and there were apparently a lot of tears all around about how none of it would have been possible but for my friends and her knowledge that her birth child (now 7) was thriving.

Also, the birth mother and her family aren't "messed up" in any way, for lack of a better term. (Truthfully, in 90% of cases, this would have been an abortion, but the family was just religious enough for that to make them queasy, but just liberal enough not to be embarrassed to be public about the pregnancy/adoption.)

[Anonymous]

We did an open adoption through Adoptions Together and adopted DD as a 30 day old baby. I think it is important to put the interests of the child first and thats whay I wanted it to be open.
Having said that, for us that meant, we have to be willing to meet the birth Mom once a year, all done through the agency, and send 5 photos and write a letter once a year, all done through a web portal.

We tried reaching out to the BM about 2 months after we got DD, again on her 1st birthday and again on her 2nd birthday. She said she wasnt ready all those times. So even though it is open we currently have no contact. m We didnt try again and just celebrated her 5th birthday

I hope for my daughters sake when she is 8, 10, 12 14 or whenever she is ready, and has questions and wants to meet her BM that BM will be willing.

[Anonymous]

We have an open adoption, but the birth parents are in a different country. We visited every other year until age 7, then switched to every third year. But we send pictures and a letter twice a year.

I think the birth parents are very relieved to see DD so healthy and happy. It reaffirms to them that they made the best decision for her they could. It reassures them DD knows them. She no longer knows their language so communication is tough, but she could pick them out of a crowd and loves them, similarly to a really sweet aunt and uncle she doesn't see often but always treat her warmly.

When we go, we take DD's sibling.

[Anonymous]

I think it's worth considering that every open adoption is going to take different depending on how you and the birth family want to approach it.

And you have no way of knowing how a your future child will feel about adoption and what kind of relationship they want to have with their birth family as well. There are lots of adopted children in closed adoptions who are happy that the adoption is closed and don't seek out there first families in there are plenty of children who would like to have contact in some form.

I think you might be time for you to do some soul-searching about why you're adopted friends relationship with her birth family makes you feel uncomfortable.

[Anonymous]

Two of my siblings are through an open adoption. The BM has substance abuse issues and went long periods of time without contact when she was using or homeless. One struggled more with the BM's erratic behavior than the other. Both are very anti-drug, though. Not even teenage experimentation.

My father was informally adopted but returned to his birth mother at age 9 after the man who raised him died. She was a complete stranger to him. They never bonded. I wonder if he would have felt differently if he'd known her from a young age. I think this is why he agreed to an open adoption.

[Anonymous]

The range of open adoption spans from an annual letter all the way to co-parenting. We send an e-mail update, with photos, to the BM and the BGM twice a year for each of our two kids. My wife would have preferred closed adoption, but the reality is that its difficult to adopt unless you willingly agree to open adoption. After that its just a case of deciding what you're comfortable with on the scale. The BM of our two kids has mental health issues and a rocky relationship with her own mother. They would separately ask for updates, frequently and sometimes within days of each other. Providing updates on their schedules became quite stressful. The advice we got from our social worker was to tell the BM and BGM that from now there would be two updates a year. Its been a lot easier since then and its still open adoption.

[Anonymous]

My adoption is annually just 5 pics/1 letter until she is age 5. Love this for us!! Virtually CLOSED and I love that BM has a glimpse of DD's WONDERFUL life!!!!