Comments on welcome to my brain . net: National Adoption Month - Open Adoption

ive been reading your blog from first entries and ...

2010-12-02T19:20:59.857-06:00

ive been reading your blog from first entries and this is as far as ive gotten so far. i want to comment on this particular post to truly thank you. i am a single mom of 2 daughters who's fathers are not in our lives, the man my older daughter knows as daddy isnt her biological father, he disappeared from our lives over 2 years ago, shes never met or known of her bio dad, my newborn's dad is a sociopath (i found out when i was 6 months preg and severed all contact with him). anyways i just wanted to thank you for encouraging, urging and pushing me to realize and accept that i need to be honest with my older daughter about where she comes from, even though it might be PAINFUL, UGLY AND UNCOMFORTABLE for me. thank you thank you thank you. now i just need to find the courage and right words to explain it to her in age appropriate words and a loving way so she wont feel abandoned or unloved. wish me luck :P lol

i know youre super busy im sure with your own angels, but if you have any advice or ideas id greatly appreciate any you might have :) <3

Open adoption. Twelve years later into it, the who...

2008-12-01T00:43:00.000-06:00

Open adoption. Twelve years later into it, the whole process is still scary. To watch your child feel abandoned over and over again when the birth parent neglects to call or write for years. To have to sit by and always be supportive, remembering that this is the person who gave birth to the beautiful teenage girl that stands before you. To criticize would be in error because it will come back and haunt you. So you hold your tongue and fall on your knees in prayer before G-d asking Him to heal the woundedness in your daughters' hearts and to bring the birth mom and family into the knowledge and saving grace of Jesus. To realize that we are all fallen and by G-d's grace you have been given the awesome responsibility to rear this child to grow up and be a mighty woman of G-d. But when they don't, when they go undiagnosed for years because everyone says that you are too strict and become an adult who is out of control and you see generational patterns erupt, you cannot accuse, nor blame. That would be so easy and so hurtful. True forgiveness is being willing to answer a birth parents letters when they have dropped off the face of the earth for 5 years. It is then that we understand a bit of what Christ experienced in his suffering and death. Open adoption - it is a painful, messy process, but it is what is best for my children. They need to know where they got their hair and eye color from. They need to know their heritage. And maybe when they are old enough, they will find out the whole messy, ugly story. But until then, their birth mom loved them enough to give them up, to give them a chance to be loved in a different home. And it is my job to protect them and their story. Only they and G-d can re-write their story into the beautiful redemptive picture that adoption has come to be

Yes i can see how scary that would be for the adul...

2008-11-30T22:05:00.000-06:00

Yes i can see how scary that would be for the adult...I'm glad your children have you. They are blessed. Even when they don't really feel like it.

Christine - Thanks so much for this post. We are ...

2008-11-27T23:31:00.000-06:00

Christine - Thanks so much for this post. We are an open adoption family and love it. Fortunately for us we're adopting internationally right now and we will have relationships with family members from both kids in another country. Oh how we are so blessed!

At first our bmom didn't want a relationship. We were bummed and so happy when she changed her mind. My son will even say he has two mommy's, although he is only 3 and really doesn't even know all that means.

He has some stuff in his history that is HIS to tell and no one else so we don't tell. We'll give him age appropriate information as he ages.

Isn't parenting fun!!

R-Liz,

When my kids were really little, I w...

2008-11-26T15:17:00.000-06:00

R-Liz,

When my kids were really little, I would get some crazy-personal questions, "Is her real mom a druggie?" Yeah. Stuff like that.

I would normally just re-ask the question - "Is YOUR mom a druggie?" ha! Kinda' stopped them in their tracks. Or I would just say, "Her first mother's name is J - she lives in Texas. Thanks for asking."

Then change the subject!

Laurie, just got to read your post. I can see your perspective, but we definitely disagree. I actually think an open adoption would have been really helpful for your situation. I think that you are visualizing open adoption as meaning that you would have been forced to have contact with your birth mother, in all her obsessive compulsiveness.

See, some of my children have some ... ummm ... not healthy things in their family trees. In open adoption, I get to be the adult and learn all that is going on with birth family. I get to introduce that to them in a healthy way. They won't just walk into it one day, and find out all the crazy on their own. You definitely got blind sided by your first mother.

Old Severson (that I quoted above) has a really popular saying - that open adoption takes "courage, compassion and common sense!"

You know, Christine, I normally agree with you on ...

2008-11-26T14:08:00.000-06:00

You know, Christine, I normally agree with you on everything .... EVERYTHING ...but... if you read my recent blog then you know how I feel about open adoption. I thank God that that crazy woman who happened to be my birth "mother" had no part/influence in my childhood what-so-ever. And considering her temper/mental instability, I am sure that for the safety of me and my family it was a good thing that she had no idea where we lived and knew nothing about us.

I am glad I didn't meet her or know her story until I was an adult. And even then I will ill equipped to handle her.

As for open adoption, I guess you really have to go on a case by case basis but certainly my experience makes me more than wary and I would encourage anyone to consider carefully if all parties would truly benefit.

--Laurie

Christine-- I have a question for you and other ad...

2008-11-26T13:27:00.000-06:00

Christine-- I have a question for you and other adoptive (open or closed) parents out there:

-- How do you address the questions of people on the outside looking in? Now that our son's adoption is finalized, we're trying to be a little more closed-lipped about the specifics of why he came into our care and what his birth parents are up to now. Not b/c there's any shame in the facts, but b/c we feel it's our son's story, and his to tell. But, he's just now 3 (and 20 months when he came to us), so he's still young. And sometimes I find myself answering a person's questions, and then thinking later I shouldn't have done it. I guess I don't want our son to grow up and feel like everybody knows the details of his life, and he didn't have a say on if they should've known that info in the first place. How do I be respectful of what I think to be "his" story to share, but without giving the impression that it's a bunch of dark secrets?

And does that all make sense?

We have some very close friends in the same situat...

2008-11-26T13:16:00.000-06:00

We have some very close friends in the same situation. They will just always make themselves available (making sure if they move, their mail is forwarded, etc.), and they make sure they are listed on all adoption registries ... so if their child's first mother gets to a point where she can have contact, she will be able to find them.

If the agency closes, keep writing those letters and including pictures. Just put them in a safe place. It will show your child that it is still important to all of you. If the first mother is able to reenter your lives one day, she will see the same thing.

great post! id just like to add one point:
be p...

2008-11-26T12:33:00.000-06:00

great post! id just like to add one point:
be prepared for the level of openess to change! because shawn's mother had already placed a child 3 years prior, we figured she was very certain of what level of openess she truly wanted, but after placing him with us, she made her last contact with us(an short e mail response) when he was about 3-4 weeks old. i still mail the pics and letters every few months,(not sure if she accepts the stuff or not, we sned it to the agency) but she never responds or writes-very different level than i was expecting! we are actually sad that she doesnt want more contact and we miss her every day-shes a wonderful girl. maybe she will change her mind later on, but we have to be ok with whatever she decides. now the agency we went through is in danger of shutting down... what then???? OY.

Isn't that so often the case - that the hard thing...

2008-11-26T10:16:00.000-06:00

Isn't that so often the case - that the hard things are also the things that grow us, mature us, are "good" for us?

Thanks for your posts. We're waiting for a match with a birthmom - hoping for an open adoption. When we first began thinking about adoption we definitely reacted to the idea of open adoption. And then a friend's sister placed her baby with an adoptive family. Perspective!