In my last post, I wrote about the stereotypical myth that open adoption may be easier for birthmothers, but on the flip side, is open adoption harder for birthmothers??

A dear friend who is a birthmother from the closed adoption era often states that she thinks open adoption would be so hard on a birthmother, harder than a closed adoption. If she had been given the opportunity to choose the type of adoption she would have, she’s pretty sure she would not have chosen open. She believes that seeing her child repeatedly over the years and knowing that she couldn’t mother him in the traditional manner is just too overwhelming of a concept for her.

Some may believe that open adoption – seeing pictures, having a relationship with your child – doesn’t give a birthmother the opportunity to “move on” and that those in a closed adoption have an easier time “moving on.” Almost any birthmother I know, whether she be in a closed adoption or an open one, will tell you that moving on and forgetting about your child and the grief involved is impossible. We birthmothers do move forward but forget our precious? Nope! Never! Absolutely impossible!

So which is it? Is open adoption easier on a birthmother or does open adoption make things harder on a birthmom?

There is no easy answer to this question. I think it’s a very personal decision and while open adoption may work for some birthmothers, it might not work for all of them.

Regardless of what type of adoption we may have, we birthmothers all feel the same sense of underlying loss. We all grieve and we all hurt. Just as I concluded in my last post, in a perfect world adoption of any form wouldn’t have to exist at all, but unfortunately we don’t live in a perfect world.