Our son, the Munchkin, is now 2 1/2 years old. When he was born his birthmom told us that his birthfather broke off all contact when he knew she was pregnant and hasn’t responded to her since. She recently mentioned trying to send him pictures of our son and that he didn’t reply, I think she also tried to give him photos soon after the Munchkin was born. We had similar comments from the adoption professionals that had contact with him, like he wouldn’t even take the papers that were served and they had to leave them on his doorstep.
We don’t have a lot of contact with his birthmom, but we’re friends on facebook, send photos and letters frequently and do have an occasional email from her. Now the Munchkin is getting older I’m wondering if I should make more of a proactive effort to find his birthfather. I guess I’m partly afraid of being rudely rebuffed (I’m a bit of a sensitive type), judging from what I’ve heard, but maybe better me now than Munchkin in a few years time. I wonder if I’ve been too accepting that he doesn’t want contact. I also don’t want to hurt Munchkin’s birthmom by either going behind her back, or asking her to get involved, or even making her afraid that she’s going to lose out to Munchkin’s birthfather.
Does anyone have any advice? I’d appreciate hearing your opinions and suggestions. Thanks.
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I think, if you feel like it’s something you want to do and you’re interested in building a relationship with him, then you should totally try.
But your ‘reasons for concern’ leave me a little concerned.
You don’t want to hurt your son’s birth mom – I get it – but this isn’t about her. There has to be a certain amount of “take one for the team” in open adoption because it’s not about the adults who are building and fostering the relationship at the stage – it’s about the child and that sometimes puts the adults in weird positions of what some see as ‘divided loyalty’. Tell her what you’re doing if you feel you need to – but in the end, do what you feel is best for your son.
Building a relationship with his birth father should have little to not impact on the relationship he already has (or will grow to have) with his birth mother. They are two different people with separate lives and separate relationships
As for asking her to get involved – no no no. You can open the door, let her know what your doing and see if she offers – but yeah, asking her to get involved can be a bad thing, especially since she may still hold some major resentment towards him and his (in)actions during the pregnancy and subsequent adoption plan.
It’d be great if he’d get involved – but to be honest, it sounds to me like he has ‘head-in-the-sand-itis’ – it’s not totally uncommon with some birth fathers (and even some birth mothers) – he’s just doing what the industry programed birth parents to do for decades: forget it ever happened, move on with your life and don’t think about it.
I won’t say it’s impossible, but it could be hard.
Ironically, your story is sort of mine – except I’m the birth mom and my daughter asked me to reach out to her birth father and see if he was interested. She was older, but still a tween and with her parents permission, I did try to facilitate that relationship. They had one phone call and that was it…since then, I’ve felt ‘dragged in the middle’ of it – although, things have gotten better since I’ve put some major boundaries on our contact.
Good luck – with whatever you decide.
Yeah, sorry about all the typos/extra letters/missing words – I hadn’t had my coffee yet
Ok…for what it’s worth..here’s my ‘two cents’ about.
First I have to tell you about my experience, which I wish was yours.
Why? Because in the open adoption relationship that I have with my son’s adoptive parents is one that my sons first father participates fully in.
I guess you might say that my son first father is one of the rare first fathers that is more than willing to be as much a part of ‘open adoption’ as I am as a first mom.
Honestly, my son’s first father is so ‘on board’ with it all that I often feel like my son’s adoptive parents might actually like him a little bit better than me. I KNOW my son likes his first father better than me, but I think that’s more due to his rough-and-tumble play style. Being a women with a pain disorder means that I am not as physically ‘playful’ as my son’s first father.
All that being said, at the time, just after I given birth, there WAS a time(a short time, like a few days) when my son’s first father really questioned the adoption plan we had for our son and even had ideas about how to navigate a parenting situation. Those ideas were not practical mostly because my son’s first father and I knew that our relationship was not ‘working out’ for a variety of reasons. Now, we remain friends, most of the time only when it comes to sharing about our son and working out how contact with happen with our son.
Honestly, I personally think that when a first father acts the way you have described, it just shows a huge lack of maturity. Maybe maturity is something that is rare with first fathers..I’m just guessing.
I don’t think you should try and convince your sons first mom to contact your son’s first father.
You COULD however ask her *about* this man. I mean, she can probably talk about the basic facts and stuff. I don’t under really, your motivation to have her contact him at this time.
I have to say, I am really simpathic to your sensitivity with dealing with people who are likely to respond negativitly. I too am a total wimp when it comes to people who have a history of being difficult and do everything in my personal power to avoid people who a reputation for being, well, difficult. In my opinion all you can do is ask your son’s first mom for contact information and try and contact this first father yourself through a simple message that gives him the opportunity to contact you.
Although, it sounds like your son’s first mom has already tried to inform him about their(and your!) child with disappointing reactions from this first father.
Right now, it doesn’t seem like theres any point in trying again to get him involved in an open adoption relationship. He obviously knows how to contact your son’s first mom if he actually decided he wanted to be involved in knowing about his child. Only time will tell if contact with him will be possible, personally, I would just wait it out and not really ‘sweat’ it right now.
I guess the obvious point that I missed when I wrote the original question is that I have tried to find contact info for him independently and run into a brick wall. That’s the main reason why I’d need t ask Munchkin’s first mom about him. But your last point was a good one, Cindy. I do wonder if he’d respond differently to us because there isn’t the baggage of their own history. But I’m also concerned that (judging from what I heard happened around the time Munchkin was born) he and his family would react like we were going to try and extort money out of them or something.
But I am going to see if she can give me more info as a first step. Thanks for the advice, it really helps to have people looking from an outside perspective and not mixed up in the day to day stuff.
Elly
QUOTE: “I wonder if I’ve been too accepting that he doesn’t want contact. I also don’t want to hurt Munchkin’s birthmom by either going behind her back, or asking her to get involved, or even making her afraid that she’s going to lose out to Munchkin’s birthfather”
As Brandy said, she isn’t involved in your relationships with anyone but her. We maintain 4 really separate relationships with DS’s family members, and I sometimes have to remind one party or another that they are responsible for their own relationships only, and are not invited to facilitate or criticize our dealings with anyone else.
Everyone has our email address and phone number and photo site. Everyone is notified of when/where we travel in case they want to meet us or we plan to be in their region. Everyone is explicitly invited to visit provided we can work it out. We send out emails frequently regarding highlights of DS’s life. Sometimes Person A doesn’t want to be in the same place at the same time as person B, or Person C expects Person D to make arrangements for them, or any number of family and ex dramas. Not my problem
It was a struggle at first, I wanted everyone to be pleased and happy, but I finally realized I can’t manage their interpersonal dynamics, nor do I want to.
Anyway, all that babbling is to say this. I suggest contacting him if you can find him, and letting him know you hope you can start a correspondence of some kind as you feel it would be awesome for Munchkin, and here’s how to reach you (email, phone, address whatever you are comfortable with). Ball’s in his court