From Open to Closed

Just another reminder to check in and meet our cute little Family of the Week, the Caulk Family! If you haven't yet donated your $1 this week, we sure would love it if you followed the link on their post to donate to help bring home their newest little one. Next, we have a featured post from Jennifer discussing her family's pursuit of an open adoption.

When we first signed up with our agency, we told them that our preference was to have a semi-open adoption, with all contact with the birth family to go through the agency.  After we were matched with our first expectant mother, we found our views changing.  As we got to know her, we could see her in our life, texting, sending emails, etc.  Though that match failed, our feelings toward an open relationship didn't, and we changed our status with the agency.

When we were matched with Isaac's birth parents, we met them later that week at a restaurant for a long lunch.  We talked a lot, and part of it was about communication expectations.  We told them we were open to have communication with the directly, but also agreed to send letters and pictures to the agency several times during his first year.  They were in a time of transition, and were going to move states within months of Isaac's birth, so everything going to the agency was the best solution for them.

We didn't see either of them again until Isaac was born, and even then we only saw his birthfather briefly, while he stood in the hallway waiting for the nurses to take her to recovery after the c-section.  Once they went to court to have their parental rights terminated, we were able to take physical custody of Isaac, but still couldn't leave the state while ICPC was getting approved.  We talked to the social worker, and asked her to pass on our willingness to meet with them before we left for home.  They decided not to meet with us, so our next contact was the letter we sent to the agency, one month after placement.

We've written four more letters.  All of them are sitting at the agency.  Unrequested.  We'll continue to write letters, until he's 18 if we need to.  We want Isaac to know we've tried to open communication, so that he could have a relationship.  That was our promise to him the day they put him in our arms, that we would always support a relationship with his birth family.

We've found out through looking at their facebook pages that they indeed did move, called off their engagement, and his birthfather moved back home.  We've struggled with the decision to contact them on facebook through a message, but what do we say?  How do we not pry or offend them?  How do you gently try to open up a relationship, for the sake of your child?  And if it doesn't work, how do you explain it to them when he gets older? 

For now we just wait, undecided on what to do, and wonder if this closed relationship will ever be open.  

Two Mothers?

Today we are featuring a guest post by Monika from Monika's Musings, a blog which discusses the adoption triad from a birth mother's point of view. The original post can be found here along with other posts that shine an all important light on this side of the adoption triad. 

A member of one of the birthmom support groups on Facebook of which I’m a part posted a question the other day that inspired me to do some thinking.  The birthmom referenced relinquished two daughters to adoption and she was uncertain how to refer to her daughters’ parents in their presence.  The example she used was a possible visit scenario where she might be having an interaction with her daughter and one of her daughter’s parents wanted her daughter.  She was asking how she would reference her daughter’s parents to her daughter in that situation.

The birthmoms, including me, that answered the post were all in agreement.  We would call our child’s parents by “Mom” and “Dad,” or by whatever our child calls them.  In other words, I call T & C “Mommy” and “Daddy” to her when I’m in her presence because that’s what she calls them.  When I’m not talking to Mack about her parents, I address them by their first names because though they are parents, they’re not my parents.  However I got the feeling by this specific birthmom’s question that though she knew that her children should be calling someone other than her by the term “mom,” she had some emotional difficulty with that thought.  I don’t blame her.  That’s one of the toughest things that we have to swallow as birthmoms.  It’s hard to hear the child you carried and nurtured for nine months call someone else “mom.”

Image credit

Along this same line, however, the fact that she’s no longer legally a mom doesn’t take away her biological motherhood, and the fact that she can love her daughters like the mother that she is.  This is a difficult concept for a lot of people to grasp whether they’re directly involved in adoption or not.  When I heard James Gritter speak in Portland he briefly touched on this subject.  His essential thought was that he preferred saying of his children, “I’m their father” instead of “They’re my kids.”  While I don’t mind saying of Mack that she’s my daughter, Jim is right to discourage the feelings of possession when talking about the kids we parent in one way or another.  His point is that kids aren’t possessions, and I agree.  They’re not things.  We do not purchase them, and a parent’s job is to raise those children to independent adulthood as independent beings, not as possessions.  I think when we encourage the feelings of possessiveness in ourselves or in each other, that “possession” can cause jealousy and hard feelings that are so abhorrent especially in open adoption situations.

When I refer to Mack as my daughter and myself as her mother, that doesn’t detract from T being Mack’s mother as well.  I also know that just because I’m Mack’s mother doesn’t mean I have the same authority in her life as T has in her life.  It’s okay for us to both be “mother” since we’re both clear about the roles we have and had in our daughter’s life.  As an example, I have a couple of friends whose kids call me “auntie.”  There’s no biological or adoptive relationship there other than the fact that their mothers and I are close enough emotionally to feel like sisters.  However, my being called a familial term does not take away from the child’s aunts that have that biological or legal relationship, nor does their relationship with that same child take away from my role in that child’s life.  Let’s put it another way.  Imagine a set of parents has two children.  It doesn’t matter whether those children are biologically related or not.  Don’t both of those children call their parents “Mom” and “Dad?”  One of those children calling his or her mom, “Mom” doesn’t take away from the fact that this same person is also “Mom” to that other child.

Additionally the birthmom that posed the question also referred to her daughters as “birth daughters.”  I don’t call Mack my “birth daughter.”  I call her my daughter.  In the same way that me calling myself Mack’s mother doesn’t take away from T’s role as her mom, my referring to Mack as my daughter instead of my “birth daughter” doesn’t mean that she’s any less her parent’s daughter.  She doesn’t need an additional qualifier.  I relinquished my rights to her, but that doesn’t mean she was only my daughter until I relinquished my rights to her.

So to the birthmom that asked that question: You are your daughter’s mom.  She is your daughter, not your “birth daughter.”  She will grow up knowing who you are and your role in her life just as she will grow up knowing her mom and her mom’s role in her life.  One does not detract from the other.

What is Open Adoption: One Birthmom's Perspective

Our submission today is by Monika, who blogs at Monika's Musings. Monika became a birthmom at 34 years old.  She currently lives near Tacoma, WA, with Nick, her partner and daughter’s birthdad.  They enjoy an open adoption with their daughter and her parents, who live near Portland, OR. Monika will be blogging on occasion at Give1 to help give a valuable birth parent perspective for our domestic page. 

What Is Open Adoption?

I’m unsure how much education those of you who are reading this have had on adoption.  Education requirements about the types of adoption seem to vary from state to state and even agency to agency.  I know a lot of birth mothers were sold open adoption as a fix for the grief inherent in adoption, but most of the adoptive parents I know, including my daughter’s parents, educated themselves in addition to the classes required by their agencies.  It is my hope that this article will help to eliminate any possible confusion you might have.

Those of us living in open adoptions have a hard time defining exactly what an open adoption can be.  The simplest way to define open adoption is that the biological parent(s) and the adoptive parent(s) have a relationship after the birth and relinquishment of the child, for the benefit of that child.  This relationship can entail letters, phone calls, emails, visits, or a combination of those.  People entering into an agreement to continue the relationship do not have to commit to all forms of contact.  There is flexibility depending on the comfort levels of the people involved.  In my own adoption situation, we committed to update letters sent through the agency 4 times a year and visits at a neutral location a few times a year.  We communicate more than that now and most adoption situations that have started with less openness have become more open as the relationship evolves.

Some pros in open adoption include:

• The “birth mom” is not scary because she is known.  People tend to have fears in adoption because nothing but basic information is known about the child’s family of origin.  There are fears that the child’s birth mom will come and steal the child, which are proven unfounded if an actual relationship exists.

• The adoptive parents having access to more than the child’s history of diseases means that the parents have a greater knowledge and greater ability to predict what behaviors the child might develop.  A parent raising a biological child is able to predict possible behaviors because they know their child’s biological family.  Adoptive parents don’t have the capability of prediction or behavioral recognition without consistent contact with the child’s birth family.  My daughter’s mother has said on many occasions that both she and my daughter’s father love having a relationship with their daughter’s birthfather and me because they can see where their daughter gets her “quirks.”

• Because the child knows both sets of his parents, he or she doesn’t feel like it’s a betrayal of his parents when he or she develops natural curiosity about his or her roots.  The inherent curiosity about more than just his or her biological history of disease has been reflected in many adoptees, whether from open or closed adoption situations.

There are no “cons” in open adoption, per se.  Since the entire idea behind open adoption is to benefit the adopted child, which it does, it’s hard to see negatives in the situation.  However there have been some arguments against open adoption.

I heard a story of a hopeful adoptive parent that told a birth mother panel she was attending that she wanted a closed adoption so she wouldn’t have to “deal” with the birth family.  Unfortunately what this hopeful parent was denying is the fact that she’ll always have to deal with the birth family in the form of that child whether the adoptive family has any direct contact with the birth family or not.  Biology cannot be erased by a legal transfer of parenting duties from the birth family to the adoptive family.

It can be hard to trust, which is essential to the building of any relationship, most especially an open adoption relationship.  A mother who is considering adoption experiences the difficulty of trust.  She has to pick a set of parents to whom she will entrust her child.  That is a great sacrifice and requires a large amount of trust that the parents she’s chosen will treat her child better than she feels she can treat him or her.  A mother relinquishing to adoption can easily understand the fear of building a relationship with someone you barely know as we do that when we entrust you with our children to raise as your own.  An adoptive parent has to trust that not only will the new birth parent not destroy the relationship we’ve created but we will continue to verify that same relationship with our words and actions.  When a birth parent relinquishes and has chosen the person or people she feels will do the best job raising her baby, she doesn’t want to break up that relationship.  I know that we’ve all heard the nightmare stories of birth parents working to destroy a family.  However, all of the birth mothers I know would never even think of taking their child from his or her parents.  It doesn’t make sense to us.  We relinquish for the benefit of our children, not for our benefit.  We choose our child’s parents because they can provide things that are important to us for our child to have.  When our child gets those things, we’re not going to try to take those things away.

There is an argument that a child growing up in an open adoption won’t know his or her parents.  My daughter knows who her parents are.  She calls them Mom and Dad, and she calls her birth father and I by our first names.  She knows that Mom & Dad provide her food, comfort, a place to sleep, and lots of love.  She knows that her birth parents are people that love her and visit occasionally.  When she gets older she will know that she came from us.  But that won’t change her love for her parents, nor will it cause her confusion.  I’ve never heard it said that more information about anything causes confusion, and an open adoption situation gives the child and his or her parents more information.

There are more arguments against an open adoption which I hope to address at a later date.  But I also hope that this might give you a different point of view on the possibility of having an open adoption when you adopt.