Open Adoption Support » siblings

My 16 year old daughter is struggling in her open adotion. Help!

Anonymous — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:59:53 +0000

I have a 16 year old daughter, open adoption. She has five birth siblings, same mother, and was the only child placed. We have supported her desire to get to know the birth family but it is tearing my daughter apart. She feels guilty about not being part of their lives and is pushing us away in a very painful way. They live across the country and we have been arranging for her to spend time at Christmas and summer with them, but their lives are chaotic and last summer refused to respond so the travel arrangements fell apart.The
birth mother has never dealt with her own grief regarding her decision to place this child. She would like our daughter to come live with her. It is a nightmare. Any experiences or suggestions appreciated.

How appropriate is it for us to get involved with our child’s mom making another adoption plan?

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 14:52:40 +0000

Our children (ages 2 1/2 and 22 months) have the same birth mother. After our son was placed with us at birth, she became pregnant again and asked us to adopt a second baby.

She told us this past Spring that she was once again pregnant. She recently asked us if we would like to adopt a third baby. For a very long list of reasons which I do not feel comfortably detailing here, we have decided it is not appropriate for us to adopt another baby.

She has asked if we could help her to find another adoptive family. We do not feel it is appropriate for us to be involved in actually selecting another family to adopt this baby. We feel that would be “crossing a boundary.”

She has asked us to at least recommend a few agencies. What do others think? Would this be appropriate? Or is this also crossing a boundary?

If appropriate, could anyone recommend a reputable agency who could help her find another adoptive family? She is currently living in the Greenville, SC area and does not wish to work with an agency that is “Christian-focused.”

Also, is it appropriate for us to say that if whomever she chooses is comfortable with it, would it be possible to have an extended open adoption so that the siblings could have a relationship?

I worry about striking the right balance between inviting and pushing; I’d love to hear about other families’ experiences in opening adoptions further.

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 16:01:08 +0000

I’m an adoptive parent, with a spouse, and we have relatively limited contact with our 2-year-old son’s birthmom. We are eager to have more contact with our son’s birthmom and are thrilled to have just received a letter from her directly (rather than via her adoption attorney).

We’d really like to have more contact and to visit our son’s birthmom within the next year. Our son’s birthmom and his two brothers – one parented by his birthmom and one not – all live several states away.

I really wish we had a more fully open relationship, and hope that our son could/can have a direct relationship with his birthmom and his brothers – especially one that is in place for as long as he can really remember.

Since our contact has been somewhat limited, I worry about striking the right balance between inviting and pushing. I’d love to hear about other families’ experiences in opening adoptions further, and would particularly love to hear from birthparents about whether it’s felt like too much, or whether “more” is generally better. (And thank you.)

Has anyone had to deal with a child using the internet to reach out to first family members?

Anonymous — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 12:31:40 +0000

You hear a lot of stories in the news about adult adoptees finding their first families through social media sites like facebook. The internet has opened up a whole new world, one I wish I had had access to when I was searching.

But has anyone had to deal with a child using the internet/facebook to reach out to first family members on their own? We started out in an open adoption with my son’s first family. We were there for his birth, we have names, addresses, email and have had sporadic contact over the last 9 years, but my son has never met his mother or either of his siblings that she is parenting.

Both his mother and older brother have facebook accounts, though we are not “friends” with them. While my son does not yet have his own account, it’s really only a matter of time before he googles them, emails them, reaches out on facebook. Do we try to prevent him from doing this? Do we let him and let the cards fall where they may?

The main issue is that his mother has never told his siblings about the baby she placed for adoption. I can’t imagine how a 12 year old would react to getting a message on facebook that says “Hey, I’m your brother, don’t we look alike?” My son knows that his siblings don’t know about him, but if he’s anything like I was as a young adoptee, he is likely to not care and just want to make contact.

Should we introduce our two children’s birthparents to each other?

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 12:14:36 +0000

We have two adopted children that both came from the same town. In fact, they were born in the same hospital, only 22 months apart. Both sets of birthparents are almost the same age (having no more than 2 years difference between them all). Lately we’ve been thinking about asking them if they would like to meet & get to know eachother. Since their kids are now siblings, we feel they are all not just part of our family, but eachothers as well. We thought it was only natural since they all live in the same area, that they may want to get to know eachother.

Has anybody done this before? Just wondering if it worked out well and what people thought of the idea.

How do I maintain a relationship with my child’s siblings when the other parent is abusive?

Anonymous — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 12:33:31 +0000

We are in the final stages of adopting our daughter. She has been with us since she was 4 weeks and she is currently 2. Throughout the past 2 years we’ve made every attempt to be available to her siblings who are with another family. We’ve become known as Aunt and Uncle. We love the older kids, but as time has gone on it’s become harder and harder to maintain a relationship with the other “adoptive” mother. I say “adoptive” in this case because the children are placed with one of the birth fathers and she is the paramour of this father. They are not legally married and they only have guardianship of the kids. As time has passed I’ve come to realize I really dislike this woman. We have nothing in common and have very different views on child rearing. In my opinion she is borderline abusive to the children. The birthmother died a couple of months ago, but I know prior to her death her main goal in life was regaining custody of her 4 older children. How do we maintain a relationship with the children with this woman in their lives? It’s to the point it’s causing arguments between my husband and me because he feels strongly about making sure our daughter knows her siblings and I do too, but my patience and sanity can only take so much from this woman. She is rude and demanding. I work in the Social Service field so when I say borderline abusive I know what I’m talking about. There is nothing there that would make Children’s Services remove the children, but there is little there that I see that is nurturing and loving. I know that if I approach her with my concerns she will be beyond angry and I don’t want her to take it out on the kids. I also know that she will not allow us to see the kids if I make waves.

She has a very tight family that can come across as agressive. The father in the situation is very passive and does not have a lot of voice in the situation. Does anyone have a suggestion? I’m at the end of my rope and am really ready to be done w/ the disfunction, but I want my daughter to know her sibs.

How do I find siblings that were adopted?

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 13:34:27 +0000

My mother gave up 2 kids for adoption after I was born, is there anyway of looking them up and trying to contact them? Both childeren where open adoptions, although no one has contacted in quiet some years.

Should I close the adoption with my birth family?

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 13:20:25 +0000

I’ve had an open adoption with my birth family (Mother’s side) since I was born. I’m now a few weeks away from being a legal adult, and i’m thinking about ending contact with my birth family. The problem that I have is that I want them to be my family, and I do not get the same feelings returned. They used to send cards/presents, and now they never do. I’m friends with them on an online networking site, and here and there they send me little comments, but rarely. One day I tried to speak with my birth mom over email about the pain that I was feeling because I feel as if i’m being closed out of their family. I want us to be close, and she responded by saying she didn’t mean to make me feel that way, and she loved me, etc. However, nothing has been changed, and this sometimes there, sometimes not attitude has given me such hurt, and it continues to hurt me. I have 3 birth siblings that my birth mom kept after me, so that adds even more hurt. Should I close the adoption to end the pain that I feel from being closed off from their family, and if so how would I do it? Simply end contact, or tell them about it?

Would you recommend keeping this adoption open?

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 23:04:35 +0000

Do I let my child’s birthmom know that I am aware of her current circumstance and would you recommend keeping this adoption open?

I recently found out DS’s birthmother lost custody of her other children (four and two) to their father’s family this winter and that she’s unlikely to get them back. DS is her first-born. It has now been about a year since we have had any contact from her although it was not for a lack of trying. Despite confirming a visit and driving 90 minutes to see her and DS’s young siblings, the door was locked and there was no note. DS is five and he was very hurt by what he perceived to be her unwillilngness to see him (can’t tell you how much that one broke my heart). Attempts to have her call or speak to him afterwards were fruitless. Birthmom is very young, and very immature. DS is wise beyond his years. I am finding it more and more difficult to keep this adoption open with the birthmom. We do keep in touch with other members of the extended birth family and are in touch with the dad’s family too. However, I am questioning whether seeing family members other than birthmom will just create more hurt feeings for DS.

Please let me know your thoughts.

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.