When we first contemplated open adoption there were a few things that scared the bejeebers out of us. So today, I thought I’d revisit one of our biggest adoption fears and talk about my thoughts on it now that we are post-placement.
The fear was pretty simple – too much contact with birth family. In fact, this is one of the reasons we chose to do international adoption. (I say one of the reasons because there were a few significant reasons which all weighed heavily into our decision).
When we first started looking into adoption we met with an amazing family who shared their experience as they grew their family through open adoption. Honestly, I still maintain this couple gave us the courage to pursue adoption. When we met with them, we talked about this. We were honest about how worried we were about having a birth parent show up at our door at 3am, or demand more contact or second guess a parenting decision we had made. We even worried that we’d just be temporary parents until the kid turned 18. We worried about competition between us and the birth family. We worried about how we’d deal with hard situations that were always the worst possible thing we could imagine.
They gave us comfort in stating that in their experience none of these things happen. In fact, they told us that in reality often it’s the adoptive family who wants more contact with the birth family in the long run.
And then, the further we dug into adoption, the more we kept hearing this at every turn. At one point we even joked about how it must be part of the open adoption indoctrination, and we still weren’t convinced.
But guess what, only a few months in and we are already experiencing this.
We have not had any horrible conversations about our parenting skills. We have not had anyone showing up at our door at 3am. Nor do we feel any sort of competition. And we most definitely do not feel like temporary parents. Maybe one day some of this stuff will happen. But we also may not. And honestly, I don’t really think it will. And if it does, we’ll simply handle it as it comes and none of this stuff worries us anymore. We get it now. In fact, with hindsight being 20/20, those fears just seem so silly and weird.
Further, not once when we were considering open adoption did I imagine the strong feelings I’d develop for our son’s birth mom. In fact, I’ll admit not a day goes by that I/we don’t worry about her. Almost everyday she comes up in our conversation. We consider her part of our family. We want to talk to her, to hear about her day and hear about what’s new in her life. We already talk about when we will be able to visit her again. Simply, we want more contact. The irony is that we chose international adoption in part to limit that contact and now I’d give almost anything to have more frequent contact.
So, I guess what I’m saying is that while I do not have a crystal ball for the future, so far in our experience this open adoption indoctrination seems to be spot on.
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I can hardly believe I am going to write this, let alone that it’s actually even a possibility right now.
A potential career opportunity has developed that is so amazing we have to at least investigate it. And if we took it, it would require a move.
Mr. MPB has been contacted about a possible job that would require a relocation clear across the continent. An opportunity that would be designed to suit him specifically because they want him.
We are both self-employed so a move was not even on our radar simply because our clients are all based where we live. Starting my businesses over again would be incredibly hard without our professional network. And truthfully, going back to a 9-5 standard job which would be move like a 8-8 job in my industry, doesn’t really interest me at this point. But I’m confident that I would get a job pretty quickly if we were to move.
And of course, let’s not forget that we have an infant who clearly complicates such a move. We have family that would be rather disappointed to see us move even further away. Yet, we have extended family and friends who live close to the possible location and I suspect would welcome us with open arms. And a work change would probably mean daycare, which is less then desirable right now in my opinion (eventually im sure Baby MPB will go to some sort of daycare, but I’m not ready for that just yet). What we have now, with working from home and help from a nanny, while chaotic at times, is pretty amazing. Giving that up seems slightly crazy.
And we love our home where we are now. We bought it with the intention of raising our family here and leaving it would be so incredibly sad. We also love our current part of the world, I truly believe we live in one of the most awe inspiring parts of the world.
But (and it’s a big but), this potential opportunity is simply so amazing that we just cannot turn it down without further investigation. In fact, initially Mr. MPB did brush it off, thinking there is no way we’d relocate. Then we got to talking, and we’ve decided to at least investigate the opportunity and learn more details.
Honestly, if I were a betting person I’d say there’s a 97% chance we wont do it.
But that 3% possibility is pretty darn intriguing an full of so much potential!
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