My Open Adoption Transformation
I wont lie, when we first started the adoption process, the idea of entering into an open adoption petrified me.
I’ve often heard that open adoptions are hardest (in the long run) for the adoptive parents in large part because they are “sharing” the child with the birth mom/family. Unlike back in the day when adoption were closed and there was no contact and so the “only” parents were the adoptive parents.
But in my heart that wasn’t what really scared me. What scared me was the idea of a birth parent:
- showing up at our house in the middle of the night demanding to see their child.
- living down the street and seeing them daily/weekly.
- having people we don’t really know, know the intimate details of our lives (address, bank account statements, etc.).
And so when we first started our path into the adoption world, our very first stop was with another adoptive family to learn from their experience. To this day I credit that family with helping give us the courage to choose adoption – they honest and their love was nothing short of inspiring. We also met with our local agency on more then one occasion to hear their perspective, who were honest and actually scared us away from adoption for a while.
What we kept hearing, over and over again, that our fears are common to almost all open adoption parents. But we also kept hearing that they never really come true. We kept hearing that they’ve never had a birth parent break into an adoptive families house. They’ve never had an adoptive family be woken up at 3am by a birth parent demanding to see their child. We did hear stories of some families becoming close, seeing each other at holidays and even having each other over for dinner. We also heard the comment of most often the adoptive family wants more contact then the birth parents. And we also heard there is no problem when everyone just wants to love a child. More love is always a good thing.
For us, choosing international meant some of our fears about constant in person contact or surprise visits were drastically reduced. The simple fact is given the demographics of adoption, most likely our birth mom/family will not be able to afford to travel to visit us without making prior arrangements. So there will not be constant in person contact nor will there be unexpected visits.
I don’t know if it’s been a matter of time, but I’m starting to believe it.
In fact, assuming we are matched with a healthy family, we want contact. We want emails, we want photos, because we want our child to know their family. In fact, we now talk about annual family visits to see the birth family (I just keep hoping they live somewhere warm). We’ve even talked about one day paying to fly the birth mom to visit us in our home and even asking her to stay with us while she visits. Of course, this is also assuming she wants to be part of our lives, she may not want to be and we will have to respect that.
Maybe we’ve been drinking too much of the kool-aid? Or maybe we’ve simply been indoctrinated? Or maybe, at the end of the day, we are really starting to believe that open adoption is all about building a family where all the adults put the child’s needs first and foremost. And really, how can there be a problem when everyone just wants to love a child?
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Hopefully when you get a match and get to meet the birth family, you will find yourself in the ideal situation that you described. That just sounds like it will be the best thing for the child. But I guess we all know that ideal doesn’t always happen in real life…so I hope that you at least get matched with a family that will be willing to be in the child’s life at least a little bit, and will be willing to be around to love that child even though they cannot give them the best life themselves. And hopefully some time when you make your trips to the US to get together with the birth family, you will be able to make a quick stop over in my neck of the woods so we can hang out for a bit…but that’s just me being selfish 😛
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It’s weird. Having been adopted as a baby, I honestly think it would have been weird to know my first parents too. Like as a child I wanted to be reassured that I belonged in my [adoptive] family and not “at risk” of being sent back. That said, I think my feelings have changed over time and as an adult I think it would be easier to have some connection with my first family. I feel very disconnected now and as if there’s almost no hope to make a connection, whereas I know people who have contact with their first family and for whom this has been beneficial (and not jeopardised their relationship with their adopted* family). So I really do think there is a benefit of having that information as someone who was adopted, but I’m not sure how much and how soon.
*Adopted for clarity – I don’t go around calling my family my adopted family!
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“And really, how can there be a problem when everyone just wants to love a child?” This is an absolutely breathtakingly beautiful thought. Thank you for being so open in sharing your journey.
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I still contend that you’re a better woman than me, but I love how rational and well-reasoned your choices always are.
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Wishing you the best with whatever you ultimately decide. This can’t be an easy decision. I hope your baby is in your arms soon…
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I totally agree. The more people that love our daughter the better for her. Our situation is sometimes complicated and I’m not going to pretend that I have warm fuzzies for bio-mom for various reasons, but I know that my daughter is surrounded by love. She also has half siblings that I would never keep her from. The more love she feels, the more secure and confident she will be. We have boundaries in place and it works.
Just reading how you went through this process of acceptance shows you are going to be such an amazing mom.
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Oh my gosh, I was the same way about open adoption. It took us some time to get to a place where we really want the birth family to be apart of our future son or daughter’s life. The hardest part now is other people not being understanding of open adoption. Our well meaning friends will try and assure us we can distance ourself from the birth family later. Explaining the benefits of open adoption is like being an advocate for not only the baby we don’t have yet, but also for open adoption as an institution.
Best wishes on your journey.
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You’re going into this with an open mind expecting the unexpected which is what you have to do. Despite the challenges you may face I’m confident that you will do what’s best in the future.
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