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While several other bloggers are addressing this topic right now, I know each of our situations (like all adoptions) are unique and I will be sharing some of my own family experiences with this series.
Back in my series on the Independent adoption of our first daughter I talked about our meeting her birthfamily, and her placement with us. The adoption that resulted has been an open one with Danika’s birth grand-parents and three older half siblings. While my husband and I planned for an open adoption that also welcomed her birthmother, she decided when our daughter was just a few months old to write and ask that we no longer send her pictures or information. That was a difficult thing to hear. While I am sure she meant no animosity towards us, and certainly reflected no less love for her birth daughter, it was certianly not what we had hoped for.
At the time of placement L was adamant that she did not know who the birthfather might be. We advertized and sought to locate him on our own. Then when our daughter was eight months old (the waiting period to finalize at the time was nine months) L had her mother call and inform us that L had in fact married our daughter’s birthfather G the weekend before. This delayed our finalizaion by three months as we asked for his consents, were declined any participation from him, and went on the terminate his rights. Later we learned from birth grand-mother that G was the one who did not wish L to have any contact with our daughter or her three older half-siblings who the grand-parents were raising.
So our “Open” adoption in this situation went on to mean visits with our daughter’s birth grand-parents and her three older birth siblings. In the beginning we saw them quite often. We were even character references for grandma and grandpa when they legally adopted the three older children who had spent some time in foster care before our daughter was born. As they grew older though, contact has slowed down. We still see them a few times a year, briefly.
At times over the years I have been witness to some of the same issues of abandonment being dealt with by the older three children as has been by our daughter. Because L had other children already we went into the situation knowing and expecting to have contact between the children. What I did not think about was the differences in the way they might process the adoption and separation. My husband and I have become like a surrogate Aunt and Uncle to our daughter’s siblings, we care about them a great deal, but we can’t help them process their very different experience. For them being taken into foster care and subsequently adopted by their grand-parents has been a bitter journey. They do not stay in contact with L, or their biological father (who is not G) mostly because of what they experienced. I feel if L were open to contact, they would not take her up on it. From our perspective, not knowing the past history, or having had to survive it, we wanted to have contact with L, but she is the one who declined. A very interesting spin on things because we have one set of siblings who desire no contact, even though they would not have received it from L, and another sibling who’s adoptive parents wanted contact but we were declined by both L and G.
That being our situation our focus became the children and contact between them. Even though we have had contact, there are things that will leave those relationships less than we might have hoped. Less than if L (and perhaps G) had been involved. One thing is the difference in ages, the older three are all teens and young adults now, and our daughter will be ten years old soon. Another thing that has had a huge impact is the very different experiences that the older children have had verses our daughters. I do not know the full extent of abuses that caused the older three’s removal to foster care, only small tidbits shared by birth grandma from time to time. Their time in foster care has had an impact on the way they process things about their birthmother and their eventual adoption. Danika has had a very different experience. Being placed with us as a newborn and having little information or contact with her birthmother, I feel like she is a happier an better adjusted child than her birth siblings, but who is to say completely why that may be?
Continued in Part Two- Our Second Child’s Story
