Open Adoption- Contact guidelines?

Do a google search for open adoption contracts. Not much will come up.Discuss with the child's Mother what you ALL feel would be an appropriate amount of contact and come to an agreement with the understanding that things may ebb and flow over time.You can have as much or as little contact as you would like.

Hi wcfrancis, We have an open adoption here in FL and I have a few friends with various degrees of openness. Our situation is fully open. My experience with our agency, which I was happy with overall, was that they really did not know what to do with us. I think they do more of what might be called "semi open," where the adoptive and birth parents meet without exchanging full names and addresses, and then send pictures and letters through the agency. Their practice in any kind of "open" situation is to come up with an agreement, which I support in principle. Everyone knows it's not legally binding, but there is an element of commitment if you're willing to promise something in writing. The social worker working with our son's birth mother (who had very limited experience with open adoptions) got too involved being a go-between between me and our son's birth mom, and kept writing things that were much stricter than either of us needed. I was very torn, because I thought the birth mom (that sounds very impersonal and I don't mean it to -- I'm just avoiding names) really SHOULD talk to someone besides me, and yet I finally got exasperated and just called her directly to say look, here's why I can't sign what the social worker drafted. Once we spoke directly with each other we realized we were pretty much in agreement. I think we ended up with an agreement that said we would provide pictures regularly and would be open to visits from the birth mother and her parents around the time of my son's birthday. We were open to much more than that, but that was the "minimum" she wanted. I actually haven't looked it in a long time because we keep in touch more often than we technically agreed to, but it's there as a reminder, I guess. My general suggestion would be to agree on what you want to happen in the near future and then "agree to agree" after that. I also think it's a good idea to try to express your agreement in positive language -- talk about what you "will" do rather than what you "won't." Later on your child may ask you about it or even ask to see it, and it will speak volumes about how you felt about and treated his/her birth parents. Feel free to e-mail me privately if you would like to talk about it some more. I'm sure this is a very exciting time for you! Barbara

Thank you both for the replies! We are just a week or so from the delivery due date and can't wait. We are excited, anxious, scared, and elated all at once. Thanks for your support!

Different states or agencies have different guidelines. One option to meet the requirements of your state and still meet your specific needs is to go through [url=http://www.tiestome.com]TiesToMe - A unique social network designed to bring birth families and adoptive families together after placement.[/url]. With our 2 children, I often found myself paying overnight charges for mailing because I felt bad that my letters and pictures were a little late. I then realized how great it would be to be able to just upload photos from home and post messages online. I have created a website to allow families to connect privately and share their pictures and letters as well as videos. At [url=http://www.tiestome.com]TiesToMe - A unique social network designed to bring birth families and adoptive families together after placement.[/url], there are also groups for birth parents or adoptive parents to discuss various issues. Current news articles are available too. It is great for those who are already in the process of writing and mailing letters and for those going through the adoption process now. What a great way to get started with a more convenient way of staying in touch after placement. I hope this is a helpful tool in managing your contact with your unique ties. It has been a blessing for our family.

When we put together our contact agreement the pregnancy counselor at our agency helped us construct ours. We first went over the number of letters and pictures our birthmom wanted per year and then also if we would want any letters/pictures from her as well. Then we went on to actual number of visits per year for the first 5 years, then the next 5, and so forth until our son is 15 and then he can decide when he wants to see her. We also discussed things like birthdays, holidays, special occasions like baptism and prom and included those in our agreement as well. So it was a nice thing to sit and discuss with our birthmom to talk about what we all felt would be a good and comfortable amount of contact. We also had our agreement legalized so its a binding contract. Hope that helps & good luck with your open adoption!