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The current topic of the Open Adoption Roundtable was a tough one for me:
If there’s one thing we all might agree on, it’s that we’d like our open adoptions to be successful. But what does “success” mean to you, when speaking about open adoption? Do you think it may mean something else to the others in your triad?
If I were writing our open adoption into a story, it would go something like this: D, George, and I develop a close relationship, exchanging e-mails, letters, and photos, and visiting regularly. Perhaps we all share some of the more typical special family occasions together, but in any event we make the times we are together into our own special family occasions. JellyBean and Little Guy grow up knowing D and their older brothers as a part of their family—a part of our family. As JellyBean and Little Guy grow older, they take more ownership of their relationships with D and their brothers, and their relationships are close and warm. We are a family that defies traditional labels but is nonetheless real and authentic and . . . ordinary.
But of course living a life isn’t like writing a story—I can’t guarantee a fairytale ending and I can’t control the actions and attitudes of the other players in this story the way I can the characters I write. And while I hope our actual open adoption will turn out something like the story in my mind, I have to measure success in different terms. I’ve gone all over the place in considering this question over the last few days, and this is what I’ve come up with:
Success in open adoption means the contact agreement is irrelevant; contact happens because everyone wants it, not because it is prescribed in a legal agreement.
It means everyone’s boundaries and needs are respected, and that every member of the OA family is getting what he or she needs. Perhaps more importantly, it means that anyone who feels the relationship is falling short in this regard feels comfortable speaking up about it.
It means belonging to an OA family seems . . . well, normal; that the typical questions—“Do you know anything about their first mother?” and “Do you hope to meet your children again someday?” and “Are you going to look for your first mother?”—seem downright silly, because everyone just got together last week, and isn’t that what everybody does?
But these measures—however accurate I think they can be—are somehow unsatisfying; they seem both too specific and too broad at the same time. In the end, I think success in open adoption means that in spite of whatever pain and grief and loss we each might feel at different times in our adoption experience, we are able to look at the family relationship we have built as something positive and that, at the end of the day, we feel in our hearts that we wouldn’t want our lives to be any other way.
As a birth mother I was seeing my son but as he gets older I feel that I should let they adoptive parents raise him the way they feel. I wouldn’t feel right seeing him after he is a year old. It can cause confusion and possibly problems later. If you don’t mind me asking how old are the babies? and how often does she see them? Please don’t think I’m being judgmental.
Kat:
I am an adoptive mom to two boys–the first with a very open adoption and the second less so (not our choice). My older son is 10 now and I can say that he seems to have no confusion about the families. He sees his birthmother and her family several times a year–for overnight visits now. In many ways they simply seem to be extended family. Early on it was harder at times–especially when we were still getting to know each other and sorting out how we would work an open adoption. (Due to circumstances beyond everyone’s control, there was no contact prior to his birth–so the grief & loss as well as the joy associated with adoption were there, as was the exhaustion and exhileration of new parenthood on our part, as we negotiated new adult relationships wtih our son’s birthmother and her extended family.) However, I would say the whole process has actually grown much easier–and much more joyful the older our son gets. We now have a very easy relationship–both boys spend time with their grandma and Ben’s birthmother for a chunk of time over most of the school holidays. They are much loved, joyfully welcomed into both birth and adoptive families and I believe we are all much richer for the experience.
I honestly think that if everyone involved remembers that all relationships take some work and negotiation, that this relationship in particular is about the child and for the child’s benefit, and if everyone can talk honestly then open adoption can be nothing but a win for the child in the end.
It may also help, if you worked with an agency, and they have ongoing support, to seek that out. Our agency was very helpful in the beginning. One of the things that was very eye opening for me, was attending a symposium early in our adoption, where teens involved in open adoption spoke. Not one of them regreted being a child in an open adoption, none of them expressed confusion about their families, and even those involved in relationships with birthparents who struggled with addictions appreciated having adoptive parents that maintained whatever level of openness was appropriate given current safety issues. Often, parents who struggled with addiction early in an adoption process, were able to be much more present in their children’s lives by the tween & teen years and leaving that as an option meant the connection was able to be fostered.
Leslie
Thanks for your comments, Kat. I don’t think you’re being judgmental; I think every open adoption is different & we all have to work out for ourselves in our own relationships what works for everyone involved.
To answer your questions, our babies are 15 months and almost 6 weeks old, and our “official” agreement calls for a visit once a year. I think we all (the adults, that is; the babies are too young to have much input yet) hope for more contact than that as time goes on, but at this point face-to-face visits are a little complicated to arrange & so it is what it is.
We have two adopted children ages 4 and 1. Both were adopted at birth and both are from the same birthparent. They also have an older bio brother who is being parented by the birthparents. We did not have any face to face meetings until our daughter was 3 (not because of us, but more because of the biological family distancing themselves a bit). At that time they had a second unplanned pregnancy and wanted to know if we were willing to adopt again. We had one visit prior to the birth, the birth visit (of the second child) and then one visit recently when our son was almost 11 months old. Fortunately all the visits have gone well. It does not seem to cause confusion yet and I feel that it can only help. How can it be bad to see that two families love you? My concern is not over the confusion our children will have by being around the biological family members (including extended family), but rather what happens when they are older and someone does not follow through with a promise, etc (ie. missed birthdays, broken promises, etc)
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