Open Adoption Support » open adoption

My friend’s open adoption closed. Is there anything she can do?

Anonymous — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:49:54 +0000

i have a friend whose adoption is supposed to be open.yet the adoptive mother is refusing any contact.she never wanted to give up her son in the first place.she has been clean over a year and doesnt want to take him away just to be part of his life any ideas on what she can do

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 and when do I tell my child that she has a younger brother that was given up by her parents for an open adoption?

Anonymous — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 13:30:26 +0000

How and when do I tell my granddaughter whom I am raising that she has a younger brother that was given up by her parents for an open adoption? The situation is complicated by the fact that her birth parents abandoned her with her grandparents. She is a preschooler now. The adoptive family generously (almost monthly) sends pictures of her younger sibling, but I don’t know how or when I should share with her that she has a little brother that lives with a new family. We do not have much contact with the adoptive family, only the pictures and an occasional phone call.

No related posts.

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?

How on earth do I ever become his Mom when I cannot get space away from his angry birth family?

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 18:33:11 +0000

A little over a year ago my husband and I received a phone call from an acquaintance asking us if we knew anyone who would adopt her sisters baby. We said we would. We knew the family a little, members of our family knew their family much better. We had been married for 17 years and never had children and were at peace with our lives. This child needed a home so we said yes.

We met with an agency that promoted open adoption and we all talked. the birthmom was going to be living abroad with missionary work and asked for pictures and updates 4 times a year and would like to visit once or twice. We were completely mislead about the BF but that comes later. She gave birth 7 days after we met and we had the baby 3 days after that. We thought we had this whole thing figured out. We knew what we would be willing to do and what we would not be willing to do. We had the baby before the parents gave consent. And when it was time for the consent every one vanished – We couldn’t find anyone for two months. The birthmom called and that was a horrible conversation – then the consent came. No one called us to tell us this happened – we found out from the agency when they got the paper work from the courts. Then the angry letters, phone calls, and emails start – and they come in from all directions – the BF parents, grand parents, the birthmom, her parents, the sister calls. We are not holding up our end of the deal. We are now supposed to be sending 4 pictures every other week, the birthmom should be able to come whenever she wants, and she wants the relationship that was coined as “the fridge privilege type”, when she shows up for visits, she is late and even if you ask her who is coming with you, she will say just her, and then show up with up to 5 people. We agreed to celebrate special days around the actual day – that has turned into us being horrible people, as she should be here every birthday for his entire life.

I have over 128 emails some up to 5 sets of correspondence on them in this first year. When she was getting married we were shameful that we didn’t drive 20 hours with a 8month old baby. We can do absolutely nothing right – that last email we got after her parents firing off emails, and her sister calling, was our birthmom talking about her son and her sacrifice – How on earth do I ever become his Mom when I cannot go for two weeks without having to respond to all of these people with why we have made a decision? This is open adoption? This is not even close to what we were told.

How do I ask a woman I know professionally to adopt my unborn baby?

Anonymous — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 12:55:22 +0000

I am an expectant mother (in my mid twenties) looking into adoption. I have been in contact with one agency in my state, but did not feel a connection with the families they presented to me. I am looking for an open adoption and would be most comfortable if someone I knew (or someone that they knew) adopted my child. I realize that what’s holding me back from considering others, is that I have a hard time trusting people I don’t know – both with my child and with honoring an open adoption.

I have known a woman (on a professional level) for more than ten years. Neither of us have been a part of each others personal lives much, but we care about one another very much. She is married with two young children (2 and 4) and is stable in many ways. When I think of placing my child, I think of her family.

My questions is: how would I ask this woman/family if they’d consider adopting my child? They are not looking to adopt (as far as I know) and don’t want to put them in an uncomfortable position. I also don’t want to look foolish, but I want the best for my child and I think the starting place might be there.

How do I make a decision about sharing our profile with a different agency?

Anonymous — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 02:19:57 +0000

We have been asked by our small local agency (the one that did our home study) whether we would be interested in putting our name and information to a local expectant mother who is considering placing her child.

Where we live we have very limited options (read no options) about local ‘full service’ adoption agencies that reflect what we believe are best practices in adoption (practices that reflect ongoing support for expectant and first parents, adoptees and adoptive parents including navigation of open adoption). Further there are basically no big local agencies that stress and educate about open adoption and many of them will only work with christian heterosexual married couples and while we are a heterosexual married couple we don’t want to work with an agency that doesn’t work with families of all kinds. We are planning on signing up with an agency in a nearby state that is focused on open adoption and supports all members of the triad, before and after placement. However, that support is provided by the big agency if the expectant and first parent is in that agency state, otherwise the counseling would be contracted out to a small local agency that provides counseling, in our case our local home study agency would probably provide that counseling. Our local home study agency is a small operation that primarily handles home studies for adoptions and fostering situations and counseling in the situations described above. So far we have been impressed with how they talk about all members of the triad and their approach to adoption. However, the local agency does not have an established large scale structured program for expectant and first parents or adoptees. They do not go out and seek expectant parents or market themselves as an agency that matches. Actually, they don’t market themselves at all. They are sometimes approached by expectant parents.

The situation that we’ve been told about is in some ways perfect. The expectant mother is super local which we think would be important in our idea of open adoption relationships and she is really interested in having an ongoing relationship. If she chooses to place her child she has expressed an interest in the family not being religious, but the local ‘full service’ (someone please provide another word – I hate that this sounds like a gas station) are primarily religious organizations and so matches appear to not be what she is looking for. She has described some specific world views that align closely with ours.

We have agreed to the local agency sharing our profile (I worked into the night on it), but we want to make sure that if she is interested in talking with us that all of us are given the education, counseling and support that is needed. We’re trying to identify possible problems with not using the big agency and identify resources we can use to address those issues. We would appreciate any input. This may go absolutely nowhere, but if it does we wanted to have thought this out properly. Thanks.

How do we stay positive and upbeat while we wait to adopt when we feel so discouraged?

Anonymous — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 17:38:05 +0000

It will be three years this Christmas that we had a baby placed with us and the birth mom changed her mind after two days. We are now back on the band wagon and TRYING AGAIN for Open Adoption. How do we stay positive and upbeat that our Prayers will be answered?

Our daughter’s birth mom just died. Where do we go from here?

Anonymous — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 02:43:12 +0000

We are in the process of a foster to adopt placement. The Birth Mom made the decision to allow us to adopt our daughter. She had successfully completed her case plan and by all rights had the choice to reunify, but chose to let her daughter stay with us – the only family she has known since she was 4-weeks-old. We were granted PC on May 18th and the process for adoption has started in earnest.

In the midst of our excitement, tragedy has struck. Birth Mom was killed a week ago in an accident. We were anticipating a very open adoption and had almost daily contact w/ her up until the day she died.

At 2 our daughter is too young to understand the enormity of EVERYTHING, the noble and selfless decision her mother made in allowing her to stay w/ us and the waste and tragedy of her death.

We feel very blessed that we will be able to give our daughter a very positive picture of her birth mom, but I don’t want to over do it because birthmom did make mistakes – she had 4 other children she lost custody of before she had our daughter. How do we create a healthy balance especially when she’s older? Any suggestions? Thank you

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