Open Adoption Support » letters

My son’s parents stopped sending letters. How do I find them and reopen the adoption?

Anonymous — Thu, 19 May 2011 12:45:39 +0000

i gave my son up for an open adoption and its been 3yrs sence I’ve recieved any photos or letters on my son. I’m desperate to find his adopted parents so we can restart sending me photos and misc. on him. how do i go about getting information on this case

How does someone tell an adopted child that their birth name was different?

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 12:34:00 +0000

I’m asking this for a friend. (Really! I am!)

She and her husband are in a somewhat open adoption with her infant daughter’s birth mother. (Birth mother originally stated she did not want any contact at all and has now requested some photos and letters.) As part of the developing openness, she discovered what her daughter’s original name on her original birth certificate was. Her birth mother named her “Pandora.” Gave her that name because she felt as if her daughter’s birth was so horrible and terrible that the name “Pandora” was the best way to express that.

Right now she is relieved that her daughter was born in a state with sealed birth records. I pointed out to her that birth record laws are being changed and her daughter may be able to get her original birth certificate when she is 18 years old. And that she may want to figure out how to handle this well before then.

Any suggestions for how to explain this to your adopted child and at
what age you should start?

I am jealous of my son’s birth mom, how do I navigate this?

Anonymous — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 18:20:13 +0000

I am struggling with my feelings as an adoptive mom and would appreciate advice and support. My husband and I adopted our son at birth almost one year ago. I care about and like our son’s birth mom and I want to maintain a relationship with her. We have had visits with her 3 times since his birth. But I can’t help but feel jealous about having to share him with another mom, and ashamed and petty for feeling that way. She has been nothing but appropriate and well adjusted about the
whole situation, and I know I am the luckiest person in this arrangement. I get to be my son’s mom full time, but I guess I feel anxious about if he sees me as his mom and will continue to feel I am his mom as he grows up. I will do what is best for him despite my feelings, which means I will continue to forge a relationship with his birth mom and continue facilitating visits between the two of them. But I just don’t feel great about all of this the way other adoptive moms in open adoptions seem to. I don’t even know exactly how to articulate what I am feeling, but I think this fear of my son eventually seeing me as not really his mom could effect my bond with him. I think I might be holding back because I am afraid of being hurt. On the other hand, I love him so much and want to be with him all the time. I am going part time soon because I HATE leaving him with a babysitter. So far we have agreed to 4 visits a year and monthly photos and letters. Our birth mom contacts the adoption agency to arrange visits when she wants them, and I mail the photos and letters through the agency. Now we are wondering if we should just communicate directly with birth mom, but I am hesitant due to my anxiety about the unknown future. How do I navigate all of this?

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?

Can too many pictures be overwhelming for first parents who seems to be pulling back?

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 01:38:50 +0000

Can too many pictures be overwhelming for a firstmom who seems to be pulling back from us? And also for a firstdad who only wanted a yearly update letter with some pics? I ask because I have been working on a photo journal album and so far I have included over 50 pictures and I am only up to my daughter’s 1st bday (she is almost 3). These pictures are incredibly precious memories for my husband and I and we want the fp’s to see she is incredibly loved and cared for(and we are really proud of our beautiful daughter).

We know firstmom has a lot of turmoil in her life and since our daughter’s 1st bday she has been contacting us less and less (we all agreed she would be the one to make contact about visits because she has a tough time afterwards, but we always send our biannual or more updates and let her know we look forward to her contacting us). When fm does make contact she does not ask one single question about our daughter, not how is she, is she walking/talking/ NOTHING. Her name isn’t even mentioned in the emails (yeah, I admit that really bugs me-but I guess she isn’t the chatty kind) She never contacted us for the 2nd bday (no card even for our daughter), she blew us off with no thought for the visit she scheduled a few months later (I say blew us off because she wrote all over facebook (on her wide open to the world page) about going to a friend’s to party all night and having a hangover the day after she never showed). That ticked us off but we let it go because we figured she wasn’t ready to visit. Then she contacted us 2 days before she was moving out of state for college about visiting, but I had the flu and didn’t check email til it was too late. To be honest that contact felt like an afterthought especially since she had a count down til moving day on fb for 2 months. We also heard nothing from her at Christmas even after we sent our updates.
I guess what I am asking is does it sound like a 20+ page photobook with 100+ pics would be too overwhelming for someone who seems like they are trying to distance themselves from us? I know people are going to say we need to talk with her, but when I do send emails with questions I get really short responses that don’t answer anything and as much as we are sure she is interested she doesn’t act like it (hence never asking a single question, I swear, not one). Also would it be overwhelming for a fdad we have never heard from other than telling the agency our letters are near and dear to him?
I know there is not a defining line about sharing too much, but we don’t really have all that much contact as it is. Thoughts???

Our first visit! Any advice?

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 16:45:39 +0000

My husband and I will be meeting our 8 month olds birthparents soon. This will be the first meeting with our son. The adoption was originally planned as a “Semi Open” with pictures and letters. However, they have contacted us through the agency and have asked for a more open adoption. I am excited to have this opportunity. I would love any tips and advice. I am really concerned about where to have our first meeting. I want our son’s birthparents to be completely comfortable. I want them to be able to relax and enjoy their time. I feel like a museum is not a good place for a first meeting. If they want to get on the floor and crawl with him I want them to be able to do that. Also, we have an older son (7 years) what are some thoughts on including him? Thank you.

Found our child’s mom on Facebook — do I contact her?

Anonymous — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 21:49:29 +0000

My husband and I have 2 children through adoption with one of them the birthmother didn’t want to meet us or have contact (although she did give us a picture of her), with the other we met her and she said she wanted contact, pictures etc. Since meeting her we haven’t heard from her and the agency said she has never contacted them for the pictures and letters we have sent. This was a few years ago. I recently out of curiousity and not expecting to really find anything typed in her name into Facebook. Obviously I think about both of our children’s birthmothers alot, how could I not, and I wonder where they are, how they are, etc. Well, I actually found her on Facebook and now I’m wondering if I should send her a message seeing if she would like to look at pictures or have any contact, etc. I don’t know how to approach this. I also don’t want to step over any boundaries that I shouldn’t. Maybe this is what she wants and its better for her this way, I don’t know. I’m not really sure why she said she wanted contact and then changed her mind, maybe that was how she was dealing with grief. I don’t pretend to understand. My kids are still young, so although they understand the basics that they were adopted and have seen pictures of their birthmothers, they aren’t to the point of asking many questions. So at this point, my child isn’t asking to be in contact with her. I just look at my children and see just how amazing they are and can’t help but think of their birthmothers/firstmothers. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

"Thank you for raising my son"?

Anonymous — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:43:53 +0000

My son’s birth mother wrote us a wonderful letter recently describing how well she is doing and how happy she is. Towards the end of the letter, she stated “Thank you for raising my son.” This phrase threw me off. It made me feel like we were simply doing her a favor by raising her child, just until she could do it herself. As an adoptive mother, I sort of felt demeaned, like I was simply a “stand in” for her. My question is: do I address this in our next letter to her? Or do I let it go b/c it’s my own issue that I need to deal with on my own?

What prevents adoptive parents from giving updates?

Anonymous — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:00:52 +0000

Lately I have been thinking about this because not just me, but other first moms I know struggle with this much of the time that open adoption is being ‘practiced’.
Personally I have given up on expecting my sons adoptive parents to update me on anything. That all feel through before he was even a year old and I never learned anything about his ‘firsts’.
I DO get to see pictures and have had quite a few visits.
I just wonder what might prevent an adoptive parent from updating a first parent. Just life happening?? Or do some adoptive parent find it possible to ‘forget’ that their child has other parents?

What do first parents want to hear?

Anonymous — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:24:44 +0000

Part of our OA agreement was that we would send our son’s first mom letters twice a year with updates and pictures. When he was a baby this was much easier as he hit new milestones and grew there seemed to be so much to talk about.

But now that he is 7 everything sounds so repetative. I just re-read the letter I wrote last summer and it sound exactly like what I would write today: He’s in summer camp, did well at school, plays soccer, went to visit Grandma and Grandpa.

Any suggestions? What do first moms want to hear? Is the mundane and the repeated okay? I try to include funny stories or something exciting that he did, but it’s still hard.

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