I had never considered adoption for my daughter prior to being admitted to the hospital. My baby had suddenly decided to come early, and I did not have any support.
In the hospital, I was interrogated by an adoption lawyer and agency. This was while in the hospital bed, the day after my daughter was born. I don’t know how they found me, as I had never contacted any adoption agency, as it wasn’t a part of my idea. I asked about being in an open adoption, as a part of my daughter’s life. They broke me down for hours, until I signed papers giving up my rights to my daughter, but they had also agreed that I’d have an open adoption with visits, pictures, updates, etc. When I met the adoptive parents, prior to the finalization, they made these same promises.
11 years later, the adoption has been closed. After three years I stopped receiving pictures and updates. I have found them, and am in an email exchange with a criminal lawyer friend of theirs who is also an adoptive parent who doesn’t get it. I wrote to him again, but he just defends the adoptive parents, saying they were nice and then he told me my daughter doesn’t even know she’s adopted! This is after the adoptive mother stated that she tells my daughter about me.
I feel very betrayed. But I am still plugging away. I am afraid that I will never be allowed to be a part of my daughter’s life. Since she doesn’t know she’s adopted, she will never search for me. It’s been 11 years that have been lost. I feel like I just keep beating my head into the wall with these people. All I want, is what I was promised.
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My intuition tells me that the “criminal lawyer friend” who gave you the information about your daughter was pulling a fast one on you. By telling you your daughter doesn’t know she was adopted, he thinks he’s heading you off at the pass in any intentions to locate her. Surely, he thinks, you wouldn’t spring this on her and hurt her! I suggest you just lay low until she turns 18 and then pull out whatever stops you need to make contact with her. She’ll probably have Facebook and/or MySpace accounts by then, and you may learn a lot about what she “knows.”
If I’m right, I suspect your daughter will also be fed a line about you, if indeed she knows she’s adopted. People like this, with no scruples, have to lie more than once to accomplish their seedy deeds.
.many of us are in that boat.. open adoption is legalized covert kidnapping of children …stealing them for an empty PROMISE…LEGAL LIES
@aka, I appreciate how frustrating isn’t a strong enough word to express the agony of having an open adoption closed against your will. However referring to all open adoptions as legalized kidnapping does a terrible disservice to the many adoptive parents who are here on the site because they are committed to openness for the sake of the kids we share. I would hate to think that any adoptive parent looking for support might come here, see your comment and be scared away from getting that support because after all the person in question who would miss out would be the child.
I firgot to say, I’ve added you to my adoption list.
This friend of her parents may not be telling the truth, or may not be aware of the truth.
If they kept up contact with you initially and then it cut off, there may be something going on in their lives that you aren’t aware of. Her adoptive parents may have been deceived just as you feel you were. I know when we adopted our son we were not given all the information about the biological family before we agreed to an open adoption. We have maintained contact with the biological family, but it has been extremely emotionally difficult for us. Perhaps they were having trouble maintaining contact on an emotional level. It can be hard to fully bond with your child if someone else thinks of herself as your child’s mother. I’m not saying you don’t have a right to feel the way you do–I’m just saying you should consider all the reasons why the relationship may have been way too hard for them.
They may have realized that keeping up contact with you was not working for them as they thought it would. Open adoption can be extremely difficult for parents who have adopted their children. Even hearing a biological mother call their child “my daughter” can be very difficult to hear. In their view–and in the view of the law–they are her parents and they have to determine what is in her best interest.
It’s hard to believe a loving birth parent would not be in a child’s best interest–I’m only trying to help you see it from their perspective.
Did you speak to them prior to them cutting off contact? It may be possible you said something that made them feel threatened in some way. I don’t mean physically threatened, but emotionally threatened. It’s very difficult to hear a biological mother refer to your child as hers. Legally (at least in my state of Ohio–I assume this is true elsewhere), they are not obligated to keep up contact with a biological parent. Any contact is done out of the goodness of their hearts. If you extend some kindness toward them and tell them you understand their desire for privacy but would really appreciate ocassional update letters, they may warm up. If you threaten them or act pushy or defensive in any way, they will pull further away. (I’m not saying you have threatened them–I’m just giving you my thoughts.)
Most of all I’d like to encourage you to remember that the adoptive parents in this situation are innocent of any wrongdoing. If the hospital staff or adoption agency acted inappropriately with you, they likely acted inappropriately with those people as well. Adoption agencies can in some cases make a lot of money by placing babies with families. Some unscrupulous people could have made misrepresentations on both sides. I don’t know their situation, but it is certainly possible.
I don’t think this friend of theirs sounds very reliable. I think you are better off being patient and friendly, perhaps sending an update and photo of yourself to them so they can share it with their daughter. I know that, as an adoptive mother, I would love to receive a letter and photo from my son’s biological mother that I could share with him. It seems unlikely to me that people who were warm to open adoption for three years would not tell their child she was adopted. I agree with the person who posted that this lawyer friend of theirs probably thinks by telling you that, you’ll leave him/them alone. Just remember, unless you hear it from them, I wouldn’t believe it.
I would suggest that you lay low for a while, and send a card and photo to them, letting them know that you are still interested in some contact with their daughter. If you refer to her as their daughter, I think they may likely respond much more favorably. Good luck! I know you mean well, and hopefully they will see that as well.
I believe that this is a tragedy in that not telling someone that they were adopted denies them right to know the biological parent/s and health backgrounds. I think that they should have been upfront with you from the start. It doesn’t sound fair to deny you the opportunity to have a relationship with your biological daughter. I was adopted and I always knew this. My adoption was a private one back in the 1960′s.I would very much encourage you to seek support and also to post your story on my blog. I welcome all stories and feel that not enough people have told their stories. I know that there are plenty of great stories and some that are not as fantastic to share, but everyone should be allowed to share.
Please visit my blog and learn how I felt as a child always wanting to know more, and how I finally found both sides of the family. I would love more people to share on my blog—http://missingbranches.blogspot.com/ I am not sure what legal rights you may have, but surely there are plenty of others that can relate.
Wishing you all of the best.
Nina (Adopted at age 5 days).