Open Adoption Support » help

How do I start a search for a lost grandchild?

Anonymous — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 13:04:05 +0000

My son had a child that was given up for adoption. This would have been between 1985 and 1989. All I know is the mother’s name and it was in Arlington, Texas. Can anyone help me?

My son’s birth mom doesn’t always keep promises. How do I help him cope?

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 14:28:18 +0000

I am an adoptive mom, in an open adoption, with an 11 year old boy. His birth mom is a wonderful person- but I sometimes feel like the only reason she maintains contact is for HER mother (who is a huge part of all our lives). My son’s birth mother constantly makes him promises- and then doesn’t follow through. But I think many of the promises are made under duress by her own mother. I would like some input from other mothers, who might help me understand why she keeps breaking his heart. He loves her, and I want him to- but he already tells me he can’t trust her. How do I help him cope?

Should we push our son’s bmom to visit?

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:06:07 +0000

Visits: We have an open adoption but have never had a visit. I think it took a while for DS’s bmom to know that we weren’t going to take him and run, plus getting over PND, grief etc. She has mentioned maybe having a visit when he’s at school age. It sounds like she’s afraid that she’ll upset him with her strong emotions (we’ll deal with it) and maybe just that it’ll make things hard for her again (can’t help with that). I feel sad that she’s completely missing out on seeing him all that time. I’m kind of torn on how much to remind her about it and how much to back off and wait. Any advice or suggestions?

How do I handle the confusion of an interfamily adoption?

Anonymous — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 01:44:54 +0000

My family has adopted my cousins 7mth old son. I want to keep the adoption open but am not sure how to “name” everyone. Initially we thought we would keep the relations the same, his first mom is my cousin, she would be his cousin, his grandfather is my uncle so he would be his uncle. After reading thru a million things I am open to keeping them as first mom and grandfather but don;t understand how to do that with my bio son. He would still view everyone as cousin and uncle so won’t it be weird for on son to call them one thing and the other son call them another. Help.

Will I get a call from a lawyer?

Anonymous — Wed, 26 May 2010 17:18:46 +0000

After 2+ years of fostering our neice(came to us at 3months due to bmother’s substance abuse problems, etc and now we’ve adopted her and she’s 3) The bmother settled on the day of her trial for an open adoption with us b/c her lawyer advised her heavily on doing so so she could at least see her daughter.(bmother never cooperated with DSS and couldn’t stay clean) So in the Open Adoption the bmother (who is my sil) is allowed 2 visits a year as long as she calls 2 weeks before visit and confirms visits the day before…Well for this visit(only her 2nd) she called to set up the visit but never called to confirm the day before….So I get a call on the day of the visit saying she’s at the meeting place…I told her she didn’t follow the agreement and I can’t make assumptions when I hadn’t heard from her…Well she was telling me how she has a call into her lawyer…..I’m pretty confident they’ll just tell her she has to follow the legal agreement and she didn’t…But is there any chance I will get a call from a lawyer??? I really don’t want to go to court for this but she was absolutely in the wrong. I have documented every phone call, conversation, letter over these passed 3 years and she consistently does the wrong thing…????? Any advice would be appreciated….I have gone above and beyond to help this woman and am keeping out side of the agreement 100%

Writing a letter for the first time?

Anonymous — Fri, 14 May 2010 21:22:11 +0000

First time here. Looking for suggestions. Any help would be appreciated.

We adopted our son 9 yrs ago. At the time our son was born, we offered to have an open adoption and have as much or little contact w/ the birthmom as she wanted. She did not want to meet us. She said she did not want to have an open adoption. We recieved a call from our lawyer last week letting us know that our son’s birthmom would like a letter knowing how our son is doing. After not hearing from her for 9 years it brings up all sorts of emotions. This was a domestic adoption. The birthmom lives two or three towns away, 20-30 minutes away at the most.

Any thoughts on how to address her in her letter? Or to talk about “our” son? Any thoughts on how to refer to our son. Because she is so close, we are nervous about using his first name and sending picture.

Any thoughts on how to handle this situation.

My child's cousin by birth is struggling with the adoption. How do I help?

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 21:44:58 +0000

DS has a cousin, I, through his Fmom, F, who has recently expressed anger and pain at DS’s adoption. He is very close to his aunt, and she is helping him as she can (within the constraints of her parents ideas of appropriateness), but is there anything I can do, as DS’s adoptive mom, to help reassure him he is still family to DS? We have included him in visits, but do you think it would help to, I don’t know, correspond directly with him or something? He’s 7, and has his own unusual family situation to deal with…which may be a part of his feelings regarding DS’s adoption.

No related posts.

How can we move forward with finalization?

Anonymous — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 22:48:27 +0000

We adopted our son at 3 days old in 1/08. The paper work for finaalization was submitted to court 3/08. OUR ADOPTION IS STILL NOT FINAL. Our son in now 11 months old. Can’t get courts to give me information and my attorney is very difficult to reach and work with. My husband and I have considered hiring another attorney, but don’t have the money to start over. HELP Is a year too long for a private adoption or do we need to get a new attorney.

Can we help more before finalization?

First Mom and child's birthday

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 13:21:28 +0000

I was wondering what advice you all would give on how to handle my daughter’s first birthday. We will be inviting her first mom and many members of the first family. What I was wondering was how if at all we should make her first mom feel included in the party.

She’s a very shy young lady and I don’t want to embarass her but I would like to include her. My only thought is to have her help with the gift opening. Any other ideas? I’ll ask her as it gets closer (April) but I want to have some ideas to give her.

Should I help my child's first parents financially?

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 19:49:31 +0000

I am posting anonymously because I am so conflicted about this situation and I don’t feel confident about this.

Our son is nearly 2 years old. About 11 months ago, his birth mother apparently vanished. Her phone got cut off; the mailing address was no longer current; and we had no way of getting in touch. This was very upsetting. I lost a lot of sleep over it and wondered many things.

Last week, out of the absolute blue, our phone rang and there she was. I was so happy and told her so. She said she had simply misplaced our number, been moving around a lot, etc. I don’t think she realized it had been almost a year. She thought it had been a few months.

We immedately took her new address and sent all the boxes that had been piling up and sent back to us. We included a phone card so she could call in the future.

Tonight she called..I thought to tell us whether she’d gotten the box or not. But unfortunately she’s run into a bit of difficulty.

She has been moving from place to place the last few months (6 months or so) and put all her things in storage. Well, she also is out of work for a while and has no way to pay the storage. The storage company is now proceeding with officially warning her that her items will be sold at auction if she can’t pay the fees. She gave them her xmas savings which was about half the fees, but still owes the other half.

It is a bad situation all around of course. She was asking for help with the rest of the fees. We are not particularly wealthy but if we had a $300 emergency within our household we would of course be able to pay it. My impulse is to pay this bill for her. All her possessions are at stake…her children’s winter clothes…and photographs of her children who are with her as well as our son. These things are not insignificant.

If we can help with this bill I am afraid that one day something else will come up and I will not be able to help. A $1000 bill would be very difficult and more than that I don’t think we could come up with without some creativity. We’re careful with money, but we both work hard to make a secure life for us and our son, we don’t have very much extra on a regular basis. It would probably be exaggerating to say that this could continue on a regular basis–I have the feeling that it was hard for her to ask–but I don’t know how to say “We came up with 1, 2, or 3 hundred. We may not be able to again.” I really don’t know how to say no, and also don’t know how to pay while letting her save face.

need thoughts and a range of options. I’m overwhelmed by this.

ps I’ve read the previous question and see the similarities…although our adoption is long since final and this does not affect legality of anything