Open Adoption Support » privacy

We found our daughter’s birthmom online, do we contact her?

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 16:00:56 +0000

I adopted my daughter (I’ll call her Willow) as a newborn. We hoped for a fully open adoption, but so far, the birth mother hasn’t initiated any contact; we send updates to our agency for her, but she’s never accessed them. We only were given her first name, a photo and a booklet of information she filled out at the time of adoption. A few weeks later, our pediatrician’s office messed up and gave us her last name. I Googled her and found her immediately on Facebook, as well as other social networking sites. She also has a blog where she posts photos and personal information. Willow is now 2 and so far I’ve done nothing with this information except to download and save photos that her birthmom posts of herself, for Willow to see.

So–should I contact her? First, I can’t help but wonder if she either wants contact but is afraid we don’t anymore, or that she somehow isn’t aware that we’ve been sending updates to the agency that she can access (I’m not sure if her social worker told her this directly or if it was just recorded in the openness agreement that she may not have actually read). Second, I feel uncomfortable with the fact that we have her identifying information, can read her blog, etc. and she doesn’t know it or have our identifying information in return (which I’d be happy to give her) and part of me feels I should give her the heads-up. Third, I worry she may take her personal info offline one day and feel the urge to contact her now, before the window of opportunity potentially closes. But what if that just freaks her out and makes her even less interested in openness? I don’t want to invade her privacy and I respect that she very well not want to have any openness at this time. There are several details about the adoption that give me reason to wonder if she’s maybe just not ready to deal with any of it yet. I can’t make up my mind about what the most ethical thing to do is in this situation, and how to act in my daughter’s best interest while also respecting her birth mother.

Just found out my son’s first mom is pregnant. Should I let her know I know?

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 15:32:11 +0000

We recently found out from another first family member that our son’s first mom is pregnant again by the same man who is the father of our son. First mom has not told us anything about this (most of our contact is one way – us writing and sending photos to her.) We can’t decide if we should bring it up with her or if we should act like we don’t know and wait for her to tell us, if she ever does. Our main concerns are for first mom – to offer her what support we can – and for our son (who is 20 mo old) – to be able to know his sibling eventually – but we don’t want to intrude on first mom’s privacy.

We would appreciate hearing the thoughts of others in open adoption relationships.

Is our adoption too open?

Anonymous — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 19:47:20 +0000

My husband and I adopted a sibling group of 4 children from foster care about 3 years ago. We have contact with b-mom as well as some extended family members by phone and a visit about once a year. (Visits were more frequent in the beginning, but we had to move to the other side of the country 2 years ago due to dh’s job.)

Extended family member contact is on a regular basis, but b-mom is sporadic. She will call on a weekly for a few months, and then we don’t hear anything for a few months. It is almost impossible to reach her since she moves every 2-3 months and constantly changing phone numbers. She does have a facebook page, does not check it regularly, but this has been the easiest way to give her pics of the kids.

During times of contact, my 2 oldest children, ages 7 & 8 start acting out. So far we have been able to handle this, but the acting out is escalating, and with the most recent burst of contact my 8yo engaged in a behavior that could have been life-threatening or caused grave bodily injury. We were able to stop the behavior as soon as we realized what was going on, but are worried about what will happen as she gets older. (She is in counseling.)

But b-mom recently found out that I grounded my 8yo and reacted very badly. She told my 8yo that I was being unreasonable by punishing her. I took the phone from 8yo, and said to b-mom (very calmly) that this is the type of parenting issue that she can not be involved in if this relationship is going to work. And then she hung up on me. (We’ve had similar issues in the past where she disagrees with a decision we’ve made and tells the children that she thinks we are wrong or unfair. I have tried to set up clear boundaries with her, but she has continued to cross those boundaries whenever she doesn’t agree with us.)

She then posted on facebook (where I am her “friend” and can see her status updates) that she made a mistake allowing her kids to be adopted, that their a-mom is a lying, fake, emotionless bitch that is screwing up her kids, and that she will always be their mother and a stupid piece of paper can’t change that. I then hid all of her status updates from my newsfeed and changed my privacy settings so that she can’t see my status updates anymore. (I could have deleted and blocked her, but it’s hard to send pics to her any other way.) I hear about other open adoptions and I’m envious because ours is so hard on me, the kids, and probably b-mom too. I can get along with just about anyone, but am having a really hard time with her.

I’m thinking about not allowing phone calls anymore, or at least for the foreseeable future, and asking that she only contact the kids by writing letters. But I know that if I do this, she will probably just disappear because except when she’s been in jail, she’s never sent the kids letters even when she’s promised them she would.

I have put up with more from b-mom than I ever have from anyone else in my life. I do not allow people that treat me like this to stay in my life. I want to do what is best for the children, but I’m not sure what that is anymore.

My teenage daughters don't like their birthfamilies sharing on Facebook. Thoughts?

Anonymous — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 11:55:14 +0000

Good morning everyone! Sorry to re-hash a topic that has been talked about on this forum, but am looking for some wisdom here.

My adopted girls are teenagers now and have come to know that their birthfamilies have scrapbooks of their lives and photos of them posted on facebook. Both girls (and their adopted friends) feel that this has been an invasion of their privacy. Has anybody else experienced this?

How much should I continue to push for contact w/ bmom?

Anonymous — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 01:31:26 +0000

My daughter was placed with us at 2 months old. Her bmom was 40 when DD was born, and had hidden her pregnancy, and gave birth alone. She initially brought DD to the hospital with the intent of placing her through Safe Haven. Ultimately, she was connected with our agency and DD was placed in interim care with the agency while bmom received counseling and decided to make an open adoption plan, and she chose me and DH. We instantly loved bmom, she is a wonderful person. We have a fully disclosed adoption, but calls stopped quite early (I couldn’t call due to her privacy issues). I e-mailed with pictures and updates monthly, I’d sometimes get a 2 line response, most times nothing. There was sometimes talk of an amorphous visit at some future time. I would write heartfelt e-mails about our relationship, explaining my feelings and hopes for DD.

After being out of contact for about 9 months, Bmom e-mailed and said she had moved unexpectedly- in the same area though. As DD approached 2, bmom increased her responses to my e-mails, and said she was ready for a visit. She cancelled the first planned visit, but we did meet the next week, and she came to our house and spent the entire day. It was great. We talked about the hard stuff. She said she was ready for this to continue. And then she cancelled the next visit. And then the next. And now I haven’t heard from her.

I am so sad. My DD is only 2 now, but by her already emerging personality I imagine she will want a relationship with bmom. I also imagine she will ask hard questions, and I just don’t have the answers. Bmom has older children who have no idea DD exists. That makes me incredibly sad for DD, too.

So my question is how much do I push to keep this relationship? I fear if I don’t push at all, she will drop out of our lives completely. But as DD gets older, I don’t think it will sit right with her that bmom is, well, flaky. I guess part of me feels that is their relationship to work out then. But now, it is my job to keep those lines open so that DD will have the choice to decide when she is older. Does this ramble make any sense? I would love bparent and especially adoptee perspective on this.

When the adoption isn’t a secret, how do you tell people you don’t want to share?

Anonymous — Mon, 11 May 2009 14:05:32 +0000

Everyone who knows about the adoption (especially my parents and siblings, my friends to a lesser extent) asks me about it. Have I heard from the baby’s parents lately? Do I have any new pictures to show them? Will I have another visit soon?

If I haven’t gotten pictures, it reminds me that I haven’t gotten pictures and I don’t know if or when more will be coming. And I wonder and worry if there will be more and it doesn’t help me at all to be consumed by those worries. I have to believe they’ll come eventually and that’s it. It’s out of my control.

If I have received new pictures, I might not be ready to share. I hoard them for the first week or two. They’re all I have and I just want to keep them just mine for a little while. I do share eventually but I hate when people pressure me to share before I’m ready. I need to see them a few times when I’m alone, desensitize myself to them until they no longer have the power to bring me to tears. I need to go over the visit and let it settle in my head before I tell people about it so I can be calm about it instead of crying.

I’m grateful for the support people have given me. I’m not sure I could have gone through with the pregnancy without their support. But sometimes I just wish I had kept the whole thing a secret because then, no one would ask if I’ve gotten pictures or had a visit.

Has anyone else been through this?
How do I gently ask people to not bring up the topic?