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Hello, I am new to this site and forum. I am having second thoughts about the openness of our adoption. The Bmom is 16 and the Bdada is 17. We have been very open with their families through letters & email about every 4 weeks since the birth. We love both families and want to remain in contact with them. Recently they asked to see our daughter and we agreed to do so before she reallt remembers anything. (We all agreed that we would wait until she is old enough to understand all aspects of being adopted and who her bfamily is.)
Well now I am concerned that this is going to be too difficult for the kids to handle. I am afraid their parents are letting their feelings influence this choice to visit with us sooner than we expected. My husband and I don't want to do anything to hurt the b m&d.
Any advice on the first meeting since the birth (7 months ago)? And handling the feelings of the young b parents?
Thanks
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A couple of things:
1) Visits, in the beginning, can be hard for birthparents. However, just because they can be difficult does not mean that they are bad. If we truly only did things that made us comfortable... well what a world that would be! Expect a few tears. Expect it to be uncomfortable.
2)Why would you want her to have a visit that she will not remember? There is a huge myth out there that children will be "confused" by visits from birthparents. In my almost 20 years being in, and working with those in open adoptions, I have not seen it. In fact, when children grow up learning of their adoption, getting to know their birthparents bit by bit, there is less anxiety. They feel freer to ask questions and they grow up knowing they were loved by everyone in their life.
If you have any questions feel free to ask either here or privately.
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I agree with Brenda. Ryan's adoption is fully open and integrated. Despite having very strong relationships with his bfamily, we were apprehensive about his first post placement visit with them - would he 'instantly' recognize his bmom? Would he reject us? Would he feel confused? How will they handle things - they were only 18 & 20 when he was born, not that much older.
Things were strange at the very beginning - I think they were as afraid as we were about what they'd feel. That strong relationship helped though - in 10 minutes it was like we'd never left and Ryan was just another child in the house (his cousins were there).
Ryan's bparents even babysat for us so we could go out to dinner alone one night. I think they enjoyed some alone time with him. I know we enjoyed dinner and no, we weren't ever concerned that they'd kidnap him or anything like that.
HTH
Regina, Amom to Ryan Joshua Thomas