Anyone taken fully disclosed adoption to semi-open?

Raisinette, ....Curious as to why you are asking?? Are you an amom? Do you want to make the adoption more closed? Or does your child's bmom? I'm a bmom in a fully-open adoption. EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE, I think it might be easier to just cut off contact... but I haven't, and never will. I want to be there for Marie if she ever needs me... ever has questions.. whatever. I know her aparents would never dream of closing the adoption on me. If you are feeling the need to close an open adoption, and you're an amom, PLEASE discuss it with the child's bmom. It's unfair to her to just close it on her. Even if she's doing something "wrong," it's not fair to go back on an agreement with her.... At least give her a chance to change her behavior... If you or your family is in imminent DANGER, of course, that could be different. Nicole

It is actually per our agreement to take it to semi open, even though I know they would like more. Over the past 6 months, knowing this was coming, they have stepped over several boundaries (BIG time), just to see our reaction, said ugly things about our daughter, now they are making threats against us. It's quite a scary situation because we really trusted them. We've talked to several professionals who advised against the kind of contact we have had over the past year (usually once a week, or twice a month when our agreement was only for once a month the first year). And we've also talked to a LOT of adoptees who say they would prefer semi-open. So, even without the other things they have done, I know this is the best choice. The things they have done are the result of the kind of contact we have had. I'm hoping that during these next few years, until our daughter decides she wants to see them, they will take this time to explore what is best for our daughter, and not what their own interests are. In the meantime, we have to take measures we never thought we would have to take, to protect our family.

I'm sorry your family is going through this. (Hugs)....

I haven't been on for a while because it just gets too intense here, sometime, you know? Anyway, I won't go into minutia about our situation, but I have posted about it before on these boards for those that may want to go find it. Basically, our open adoption was NOT going well and it never really got better. We tried, and tried, and tried. At the last set of threats that our daughter's bmom made we let her know that visits would continue, but only in the presence of a counselor. She refused and we refused to budge and we haven't heard from her in 6 months. We spoke with a counselor who said she may have been pushing us away so that WE would be the ones to make the decision to cut off contact (since that is what the bmom thinks, since we aren't doing visits her way and want a counselor that it's us that is cutting off contact) and she wouldn't be stuck with yet, something else to feel guilty about. They said it is best to not contact her because that will put her in a position of feeling obligated to contact us and could lead to more anger, etc. However, until today I've been okay. Missing her and her family, but knowing that it was just not a good situation for anyone involved, especially our daughter. I sent the bmom the final, agreed upon, update with pictures and just can't get her out of my mind, as usual. Today, I started missing her so bad that my heart is literally hurting. I don't know why!!! It reminds me of a boyfriend breaking up with you in high school. Remember that heartache you feel? It's almost unbearable and I just want to curl up in bed and not get out. I wish I could just talk to her and know that she would be okay with it and let me know how she is doing. I am sure she is doing fine, but it's like losing a family member. Things were good once, at the beginning, very good! I just wish we could go back to it. Does anybody know what I'm talking about?

yep./...at the placement of our dd...bmom requested zero contact until she was ready.... My heart was broken too... We had such a great relationship too. Luckily, a few weeks ago she contacted us and was ready for contact. We never really discussed visits, but when my dd is older and is less scared of being taken from us, I hope to have them. Ours is open in the sense that we both have all identifying info on each other and contact is at our discretion. I also realized after talking to her again, that when I started getting strong urges just to call her and ignore her req for no contact, it was at the exact moment that she was trying to get up the courage to contact US! and was wondering if we'd respond favorably to HER contacting us....... maybe the time is right for you to make contact and try to make it easier for her to avoid guilt by giving her explicit permission to adjust level of openness to her comfort level...