Open Adoption Support » grandmother

My nerves are shot dealing with our daughter’s birth family. Help!

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:11:55 +0000

I have a fairly difficult open adoption situation. Our birth mother was very young when she gave birth and she is still unable to drive. Her grandmother brings her to the visits which are in mutually agreed upon public locations. Her boyfriend also comes along. We take our entire family as these visits are usually our one activity for our weekend. My 5-year old son is beginning to have a hard time. He’s adopted from Guatemala and is jealous because his sister is getting all of this attention from her “birth family.” I don’t want to take him anymore, but I don’t want to hurt the birth family’s feelings either. They are pretty easily upset…

The situation is difficult to say the least… The birth mother also wants my daughter to still call her “Mommy”. I can’t quite accept that. My daughter is only 2 years old. She was 6-weeks old when we were granted custody, but was 5 months old before the adoption was completed in court! Please help! My nerves are shot dealing with this family. I have nightmares of the
birth mother showing up at our doorstep in the middle of the night because she has had a falling out with her family… HELP!!!

How do we approach grandmother about her canceling visits?

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 18:27:02 +0000

I am the adoptive mom of a 5 year DD. We have had an open adoption since birth although birthmom makes little effort to see or communicate with her except through facebook.

We have had visits with Maternal Birth grandmother since DD was 18 months. Birth Gram has since adopted our DD older sister whom she has had custody of since our DD’s birth. The girls love each other dearly and know they are sisters and although we usually have a little rough patch following a visit, the visit is well worth it.

My problem is it seems every time we make plans the grandmother cancels last minute and we have to reschedule. DD has been to her house to spend the night and it goes well but now that we have done that a couple of times it seems like that’s all she wants to do. We’ve always gotten along well in the past but am feeling like she doesn’t want us in the picture. I don’t want to stop visits but hate to see my DD disappointed so often and beginning to feel like maybe we shouldn’t have had her have a sleepover with her sister.

Has anyone else had to deal with this? If so, how?

I lost my first grandchild to adoption and I can’t seem to let go. Any advice?

Anonymous — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 02:57:03 +0000

I am a “birth grandma” (I hate that title, I feel that I am a real grandmother); I lost my 1st grandchild to adoption. My then-15 year old daughter chose to give her daughter up for adoption. Even though I didn’t agree & it completely broke my heart, I supported my teenager’s decision. I have deep wounds from allowing my own family “to be given away”. We have an open adoption agreement with the new parents & we are able to see our little granddaughter twice a year. They are great people, & yes, I found & chose them. My little SugarBug turned 2 just a few days ago, & I find myself waiting (again) for any news or pictures from her birthday. No, we aren’t invited to any of their family gatherings, but we do get to visit our granddaughter at their home. I feel robbed. I can’t seem to let go, or at least get used to the fact that I will always be a “distance” grandparent (even though we only live about 1 hour away from our granddaughter). I spent almost 1 year after “R” was born crying about 2-3 hours a day & I basically stopped living. I am a little better now with coping with the situation, but I still feel intense pain over the loss of my sweet little grandgirl. I wish I could get over this, & I wait for the day, which will be years & years from now, that I will see my granddaughter walk thru my front door & say “Hi Grandma!”. Any advice? I hurt so bad & miss this part of my family every day.

Do I say I know she is lying? Or do I decline to send her money and leave it at that?

Anonymous — Thu, 12 May 2011 17:26:45 +0000

Yesterday I received a call from my children’s birth mother. She immediately launched into a complicated story about how she desperately needs money or she will be evicted from her apartment and will be living on the street. She was obviously under the influence of either drugs and/or alcohol. Her story was full of inconsistencies and it was obvious she was lying. After I declined to send her any money, she abruptly hung up. She did not even ask how the children were which made me so sad.

Today she posted photos on Facebook of a brand new tattoo and new hair style & dye job. She must have found someone else who gave her the money.

This happens pretty consistently. In fact, the only time we ever hear from her is when she wants money. (We have never given her money.) We are in contact with her extended family, who have ended all contact with her because of some very hurtful behavior which I won’t detail here.

Her mother has actually urged me to stop all contact with her because she is afraid her daughter might somehow harm the children. She has done very hurtful things to her older children, who live with their grandmother. I have not cut off contact because I do not feel she could do anything to our children and she has no direct contact with them. At this stage we have no plans to meet in person. Her life is far too chaotic and she is participating in a number of illegal activities. But I want to leave the door open in case she does change her behavior in the future. We do not have any contact with her outside of the requests for money every few months.

Here is my question — when she calls with these stories, do I call her on her behavior and say I know she is lying? Or do I just do as I have done all along by declining to send her money and leaving it at that?

Do I just stay quiet and live with the hurt? Where do I go from here?

Anonymous — Tue, 10 May 2011 22:30:52 +0000

I am a “birth” grandmother and am feeling hurt by some of the things that are said and done by the adoptive family of my granddaughter. My daughter does not say much at all so I don’t always know how she is feeling. I did try at one point to reach out to the adoptive parents about some of the things that I (and my daughter) were feeling and they reacted in an extremely defensive manner and I ended up apologizing to them because I did not want to take the chance that they would cut us off completely from seeing my granddaughter. This has not been easy and I know that the adoptive parents feel hurt too. The “professionals” have said that the lines of communication need to be and stay open between the families but I don’t feel this is the case in our situation. So, do I just stay quiet and live with the hurt? Where do I go from here? I do not have a support system but I continue to pray about it.

How do I avoid getting in the middle of birth family conflict?

Anonymous — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 14:26:58 +0000

Our children’s birth mother has two older children who live with their grandmother (birth mother’s mother). They have always lived with their grandmother and sometimes their mother has lived with them, but most of the time she is constantly moving about the country. Unfortunately, she is extremely unstable and unlikely to become stable in the foreseeable future.

Because of a series of actions that I know only a little about, the grandmother has placed a restraining order against her daughter and will not allow her to see her children. She is currently working through the court system and has been named as guardian of her grandchildren. The grandmother is trying to have her daughter’s parental rights permanently terminated. She has also changed her telephone and e-mail address and does not want her daughter to be able to contact her except through her lawyer.

We are in an open adoption relationship with both our children’s birthmother and their grandmother (and the half siblings). Both have told me briefly about their version of events and both seem to want us to be on “their side.” I have told both that their relationship with each other has nothing to do with each of their relationships with us and that I do not want to be in the middle. I am refusing to “pick a side.”

This past week the birth mother called to ask us for her mother’s contact information. I said I could not give that to her. She next asked if we had received any new photos of her older children as she hasn’t even seen a picture in more than a year. She would like us to scan any photos and send to her.

I’m not comfortable doing that because I don’t know what is going on between them and I do not wish to know any more than I already do. I do not know if sending her photos would be a huge problem or not. I have e-mailed the grandmother to ask if that would be acceptable, but she has not yet replied.

I also do not want to alienate either of them as I’m doing everything I can to maintain a relationship for my children’s sake.

I feel as if I am being pushed into the middle and do not want to be here. Any suggestions?

How do I handle Facebook relationships with her birth family for our 14-year old daughter?

Anonymous — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 19:56:40 +0000

We promised our 14 year old daughter she could get on facebook when she made honor roll. We expect her fall semester report card to be honor roll.

We have an open adoption and many of her first family members are great. However some members of her first family can be inappropriate. We still are in contact with them, we just manage those relationships differently.

Several of her first family members are on facebook and post very inappropriate things for a 14 year old to read. Her birth father recently posted about wanting to beat someone over being sending the police to search his house. He’s mentioned drugs, discussed excessive drinking, hits on women constantly and uses ‘n’ word. Her first mother has posted about being abused by her husband (not the birthdad), police involvement and is still with the guy – the ever changing status of married/single/etc. She speaks poorly about people and family who then see it and call her out, it’s very dramatic and messy.

I really don’t think she should be friends with them on facebook at this point. She has an aunt and grandmother on different sides of her first family that I would have no problem with her being friends with on facebook. But both of them are friends with the first parents.

How do I handle this? Do I block them pre-emptively? Do I wait until they try to friend her and have her decline it? Do I tell them not to friend her at this point? How much do I discuss with her? I don’t want this to be dishonest in anyway but I also don’t want to denigrate them. They are simply too adult for her.

This isn’t just about adoption. I’m not going to let her be friends with one of my cousins whose facebook is full of drug and party references. I don’t mean the normal college student stuff but DUI, rehab, overdose and still doing more drugs while facing possible jail time.

Both parents have her listed by full name and birthdate as their kid on facebook, which doesn’t bug me, and have said they can’t wait to friend her, which is why I went to check their pages.

What do I do? I’m leaning towards honestly talking to them which will be so hard. But I admit, blocking them would be much easier.

Birth mom doesn't want us to have contact with birth dad. Now what?

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 13:56:46 +0000

Our children’s birth mother has an extremely acrimonious relationship with our daughter’s birth father’s family. We actually only learned of it a few months ago after the adoption was finalized and are not certain exactly what has happened and why. But we do now know that the birth father’s mother & sister objected to the adoption. The sister actually wanted to raise her, but the birth father would not agree to it. We do not know why he did not wish his family to raise his daughter.

The birth mother has said several times that the birth father’s family wanted contact through the open adoption, but that she would never allow it because they were mean to her during the pregnancy and they do not deserve to know how the baby is. (Which surprised me as it really isn’t her decision!)

I have an issue with this for a couple of reasons.

First off, it’s not about her. It’s not about me. It’s not about the aunt or grandmother. It is about our daughter, who will likely want to know her birth father’s family. She is currently 8 months old and I think it is better to start now rather than wait until she is older if that is at all possible. Especially as they have indicated they would like to have contact.

Secondly, the birth father is in the military and is about to leave for Iraq. He’s in the Infantry. Not to be morbid, but that has a much higher risk of death. What if he doesn’t come back? We have never met any of his family and do not know their names. His last name is very common, so finding them if he is dead would be very difficult.

We have had no direct contact with him since the adoption was finalized, by his own wish. But we do have his e-mail address, or at least the e-mail address he used at that time. My thought was I could e-mail him and ask him if he wanted us to have contact with his family. Or, if not, if we could at least have their names to save until our daughter is older so she could locate them at that time.

Through a quirk of fate, we have just discovered we are being transferred from Europe, where we have been living for 4 years, back to the United States. Coincidentally, to the same city where the birth father is originally from. (And presumably where his family still lives.) So direct contact would be much easier than it currently is.

We would like to have more direct contact with our children’s birth families, but are treading carefully.

Part of the reason why the birth mother selected us originally when we adopted our son (our children have the same birth mother, different birth fathers) is that we lived in Europe and she was happy that would limit the contact simply due to the distance. I have already e-mailed her to inform her of the move and to ask if she would like to establish an agreement for regular visits. We have not heard back from her.

We are also concerned that if we develop contact with the birth father’s family it would alienate her and we would lose that contact, which we strongly feel is important for both of our children.

We aren’t certain how to proceed and would really like the advice of those who have “been there/done that.”

How to I pull back from relationship with grandmother without hurting birth mom?

Anonymous — Tue, 25 May 2010 23:42:45 +0000

during the open adoption with my son, we have been helping his bmother find a job, get on her feet etc because shes showed that she is in fact trying.He was removed and her rights terminated. We agreed on 3 visits a year, but we do lots more. The problem now is her mom, she never wanted our son and never really saw him, but now that were helping out her daughter, she feels as though i should be the mother to her kids also. Shes asked me to watch them, shes not a very good role model to begin with ie,,drinking ALOT most days. I feel bad for her children, but ive adopted 1.. not her oldest(sons bmother) and her other 2! They are not the best influence for my family and im not sure how to distance myself and still have relationship with bmother?

Do we invite mom to be part of the relationship, too?

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:54:40 +0000

I recently opened our daughter’s adoption with her maternal grandparents (written contact between me and them only for now). We had no formal agreement with them or bio mom. We fostered to adopt our daughter through DCFS. Bio mom abandoned her for months, then made a few visits, relinquished her rights at the termination hearing and then finally after numerous attempts to schedule- did make the final goodbye visit. At the final visit she told us she wanted an open adoption. I told her to contact her attorney, our attorney looked into it as well and nothing every came of it. My question is- should I be in contact with bio mom too? What’s best for my daughter? (I have everyone’s contact info through the foster care process). Bio mom and grandma talk, I am sure she is sharing the information I share with her. I am reluctant to engage with bio mom as she is very inconsistent and is unsafe (prior to custody she removed my daughter from her bio grandmother’s care and crossed state lines). My daughter’s bio grandmother took care of her most of her life anyway. What relationship will be more important to the child in the long run? Anyone else been in a similar situation?