Open Adoption Support » birthmom

Is it appropriate if my daughter’s first mother refers to her as HER daughter?

Anonymous — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 19:04:32 +0000

Our daughter is 3 years old and we are involved in an open adoption with both birthparents (birthparents are not together). Birthmom has predominantly visited us with her family (parents/2 sibllings). Historically, I have alwasys felt that she has been very respectful of my position as “Mom”-when talking to our daughter, making effort to refer to me as “Mommy”. Birthmom has always been referred to by her first name.

Birthmom’s mom has a rather strong, vibrant personality and within first year of our daughter’s birth stated at an early visit “so is there a “Nana” in the picture??”. We were taken aback and just responded “no” (which is true- our Moms go by other “Grandma-like” names). Since then, she has always referred to herself as “Nana” (addresses books and signs cards this way). In retrospect, perhaps we should have handled this diffferently. I share this part to give context to me inquiry.

For the very first time ever, birthmom bought a “Love You Daughter” birthday card for our daughter. I was surprised by it and admittedly, I cannot deny that I have been struggling with
this issue ever since. It is ouchy to the heart. I always thought that there would only be 2 people to give her that kind of card-myself and my husband. Though I do honour that this young woman carried our daughter for 9 months and chose us to parent her. I am debating if a “boundary” should be set in this regard. Ultimately, I know it is great for our daughter to feel loved “best interests of the child” approach). I am just wondering if this is the presidence that should be set or want to be set (not really according to my heart)?

Is it potentially confusing for my daughter- whether now or later (should more “daughter” references persist)? I feel badly about mystruggles with this situation and would not want to cause hurt in theopen adoption relationship. Yet sometimes I wonder if my husband andI need to consider setting more boundaries- we have conductedourselves with a lot of flexibility and openess. Lately, I havestarted to feel like it is as if our daughter is “on lease” to us. Iknow that is not true and not what is intended by the birthfamily, butthis latest deal with the card is challenging my confidence andsecurity. Do I need to be the “bigger person” and move on, forgiveher for the insensitivity? OR is this when I need to identify anissue? If the latter- where do I begin? The other complication isthat most communication tends to be faciliated through birthmom’s mom.

Thanks for feedback- I am anxiously awaiting!

A difficult childhood, do I tell my birth mom now that we’re in reunion?

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:59:19 +0000

I have recently reunited with my birthmother after 42 years. The adoption was closed, but she had been searching for me for practically the whole time. We are getting along great, really connecting, and starting to fill in the gaps in each others past. I’m still learning the details of my adoption, so I don’t know if it was something she was railroaded into or if it was done voluntarily. I know she would have wanted the best for me regardless.

My question is what to tell her about my childhood. My first 17 years before college were not happy ones, and I never really got along with my adoptive patents, we just weren’t a good fit. I don’t want to be misleading about what my life was like, but at the same time the last thing I want to do is hurt my birthmom or make her fell guilty. If any birthmoms out there could give me advice on this I would be more than grateful. Thank you in advance.

Is it ok to take a step back for awhile and try to define my life without my birthson in it?

Anonymous — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 13:19:49 +0000

I am the birthmom to a 13 month old little boy who’s family lives out of state. I am wondering how to distance myself without creating problems? In the first few months and even up to the first year I think it was really important for me to receive photos and updates and be as involved as possible with his family. However, I am beginning to feel like I need to distance myself. I feel like I need to find my identity apart from the title “birthmom”. I want to be a part of his life but I feel like he shouldn’t be such an integral part of mine.

It is too hard when I meet new people and have to explain to them who this mystery child is in all my photos, and having this desire to talk about things that he is doing but having to tell the stories from a third person viewpoint, etc.

These feelings have been pushing their way out for awhile now and a perfect example is my emotional response to the last post about photo
updates. The comments about the girls who did not want their photos shared with their first family really shook me up. The thought that my son could grow up without the connection to me that I feel I have to him. It is a very real possibility that he could grow up and feel like I am a stranger (especially living out of state where we’ve only been able to have one visit). I feel like I need to protect my own heart now by lessening my attachment to him. I don’t know if that is even possible but I feel like if something were to happen right now (or ever) to where contact was cut off with him (without me having a decision in it) it would absolutely break me. And that scares me. The threat of potential rejection all over again makes me want to withdraw.

Would it be best to stick it out and let things unfold as they may, or is it ok to take a step back for awhile and try to define my life without him in it? Is it even possible to make that separation mentally as a birthmom? Would it hurt him to know that I had to go for a time without contact with his family? Will his parents welcome openness when I decide I’m ready again? How long is too long, how much is too much? Ah, so many questions! Any advice? Sorry this is so jumbled. SO much to think about and consider.

Any tips for a birthmom coming up on her placed son’s first birthday?

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 15:14:01 +0000

Any tips for a birthmom coming up on her placed sons first birthday? The adoptive family lives out of state so visiting is not an option at this time. I am sending some small gifts but it is heartbreaking not to be there for such a huge milestone. Any suggestions for how to process all of the emotions, how to be open and honest with his mom, how to get past the fact that I have missed his entire first year of life…etc.

Birth mom is not respecting our boundaries. Help!

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 13:38:48 +0000

I am an adoptive mother of one child, age 2. We have an open adoption with her birthmother but no contact with birthfather (his choice). We have for the past two years struggled to find a happy place in this relationship with our birthmother. We have had issues with gift giving, over staying her welcome, claiming we are not making her apart of our family and even her stating she should have no boundaries. We started out three months before our daughter was born with visits to her birthmom. It was a great time to get to know each other. After our daughter was born it was visits every 2-3months. After many uncomfortable situations and some not so nice emails from our birthmother we decided to only visit once every 6 months. It became too emotionally straining to see her more often. Now we are trying to find a happy place but she keeps stating that if she cannot see her daughter whenever she wants to and is allowed to give her gifts whenever she wants to then she does not want to be involved at all. We have even tried to go back to square one- writting letters back and forth, which only lasted two months then yet another letter from her stating we changed after her daughter was born and she does not feel like family, and wants to see her often and be totally involved in our lives like family is. We still send updates monthly with tons of pictures each time to keep our communication open. We do understand we opened up too much too soon with this young lady. She was invited to the baby shower, baptism and over to our house on several occasions. But after too many uncomfortable instances where she ignores the limits we have set, we want to pull back some. We want to have family occasions with out our birthmother there. She does not seem to get that and insists she is family and should be involved. We did not invite her to our daughters birthday party it was only godparents and grandparents, not our whole family. We did visit her on our daughters actual birthday to celebrate together, but that was not good enough. What do we do if we do not feel comfortable seeing her whenever she wants a visit? How do you get her to stop sending gifts in the mail every couple months? How do we find common ground again? We have on several occasions offered to meet and talk with a social worker and she will NOT do that. Please help!

Is it appropriate to try to get more info from our daughter’s birthmom about birthdad?

Anonymous — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 17:17:52 +0000

My daughter was relinquished by her birthmother at eight-weeks and adopted by us at 12-weeks. We are in a fairly open relationship with her birthmother. She lives in another state, but we talk on the phone and exchange photos. We will travel there for visits in the coming months. (My daughter is now two. On an earlier attempt to visit, her birthmother decided she was not ready and canceled. We understood.)

In one of our earliest conversations, “Marie” asked that we never tell our daughter anything about her birthfather. This is not an issue as things now stand, since we know almost nothing about him. From what we do know, he is, there’s no better way to say it, a bad dude. However, the more I think about it, the more I would at least like to have the man’s name so that I could tell our daughter when she is an adult. I want to respect Marie’s request — she is only trying to protect our daughter and I think that is noble. But I also want to honor the whole point of open adoption, which for me is providing my child with the truth of her origins.

This leads me to two questions:

1. Is it appropriate for me to ask Marie for a copy of our daughter’s original birth certificate? I have never asked, but I think she has one.

2. Is it appropriate to talk a little further with her about the birthfather? I believe he did some seriously bad stuff and have the impression he is/was a serious drug addict. It may very well be that he is dead or in jail. This will all be painful for my daughter to learn as she gets older, but would it not be more damaging to never know? One option would be to leave it up to my daughter to ask her birthmother when she gets older, but… for a variety of reasons — one being that I do not know what the future holds for her bmom, health-wise — I’d rather not do that.

My husband was adopted and doesn’t worry about these things, by the way. He knows nothing of his geneology and claims he doesn’t care.

Would you recommend keeping this adoption open?

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 23:04:35 +0000

Do I let my child’s birthmom know that I am aware of her current circumstance and would you recommend keeping this adoption open?

I recently found out DS’s birthmother lost custody of her other children (four and two) to their father’s family this winter and that she’s unlikely to get them back. DS is her first-born. It has now been about a year since we have had any contact from her although it was not for a lack of trying. Despite confirming a visit and driving 90 minutes to see her and DS’s young siblings, the door was locked and there was no note. DS is five and he was very hurt by what he perceived to be her unwillilngness to see him (can’t tell you how much that one broke my heart). Attempts to have her call or speak to him afterwards were fruitless. Birthmom is very young, and very immature. DS is wise beyond his years. I am finding it more and more difficult to keep this adoption open with the birthmom. We do keep in touch with other members of the extended birth family and are in touch with the dad’s family too. However, I am questioning whether seeing family members other than birthmom will just create more hurt feeings for DS.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Explaining differences in openness to my daughters?

Anonymous — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 15:18:27 +0000

We are the proud adoptive parents of 2 wonderful little girls. Kendra is 3 & Christa is 18 months. They have different birth/ first moms. Kendra’s mom had a difficult childhood & said it was always confusing & difficult to have a lot of different adults coming & going in her life. Mom said that she would love letters & pictures, but felt like visits weren’t in Kendra’s best interest. Mom also said she wanted to make sure that Kendra knew that we were her parents, the people she had to answer to & deal with. Mom said if Kendra wanted to meet as an adult, she would be happy to meet, but not before. We assurred mom that if done right, visit could work & be an asset. Mom declined & we haven’t heard from her, although we do send pictures & letters regularly.

Christa’s mom initially had much the same idea. The plan started changing almost the second Christa was born & has evolved into an open adoption with periodic visits. The problem is that initially we didn’t include Kendra in these family visits, but since there is a half-sibling that Kendra’s age, and making other arrangements for Kendra was another level of complexity, it has become a whole family affair. It seems to be working.

The catch is that Kendra, a bright 3 year old, has started asking questions. Specifically “I’ve met Christa’s birthmom, why haven’t I met mine?” Luckily, she didn’t seem upset when she asked, but it did catch us of guard. It wasn’t even around a visit & seemed to come out of the blue. We told her maybe someday we can see her. While it is true, we extend invites to her her & they may meet when Kendra is an adult, it seems unlikely that she will meet her in the near future. We don’t want to stretch the truth and just want to do what is best for Kendra. How would others approach this?

How do I talk to my son about differences in contact with different birth family members?

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:10:15 +0000

My husband and I have an open adoption with our son’s birthparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and other extended family members. We visit with our son’s birthmom and her family in-person around 5-6 times a year and chat by phone, text, email or Facebook in between. We also share a blog and photo site weekly. We have in-person visits with our son’s birthdad and his family as well but we have only managed 2-3 visits a year. All the family members live in the same town (just a few hours away from us) and we always offer to visit both, but sometimes our son’s birthdad or his parents will decline (usually based on schedule). We do share the blog and photo site with them (and I know they check it) but they rarely answer a phone call, text or email. We understand that each family or family member might be interested in a different level of contact and we are happy to provide contact at their comfort level. I am, however, concerned on how to address this issue with our son as time goes by. As he gets older, I worry that our son will notice the difference in contact and have difficult questions. Any suggestions on how you manage different levels/types of contact with birth family? Any suggestions on how to discuss with our son?

How can we see more of our son’s birthmom without her parents?

Anonymous — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 14:29:49 +0000

We have an open adoption with our oldest son’s birth family and always have. We get together with his birth mom, birth dad, uncles, grandparents, and great grandma twice a year and have open communication throughout the year as well. We really love seeing everyone and having our son get to know his birth family. However, we feel like we do not spend enough time with just his birth parents and are unsure of how to go about asking to only visit with her once and awhile. The reason we do see everyone is because when our son was born, his mom was only 14 so it only made since. Now she is 19 and we feel like we hardly know her because there are all of these other people around. Her parents can be very overwhelming and have a strong personality so I’m not sure how to approach the topic. Thank you for any advice you may have.