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Hi,
I'm in need of some advice re: our daughter's birth family. A little history: We adopted our DD as a newborn Aug 05. It was originally supposed to be a closed adoption per the birthmother's wishes except she left one giant loophole open. She requested that pictures be sent to her father (the maternal grandfather) on a regular basis. She asked the agency to pass along his address. Since we had been preparing for an open adoption we were kind of stunned that our adoption was going to be closed. After the TPR hearing we sent the bgrandfather a packet of pictures along with a letter introducing ourselves. As things turned out we ended up establishing a relationship between ourselves and the birthgrandfather and his wife and the birthgrandmother. The bmom was not really happy about this but made the provision that they could see our daughter but no one else from their family could. This has been fine for awhile but lately we've been corresponding the the birthaunt (who has two darling sons, one just a month younger than our daughter). My wife met her and the boys for the first time just this past Tuesday. This made my wife realize that it wasn't fair to our daughter to be restricted as to whom she could see and not see. My wife is now having a real problem with the biological family and wants to cut them off from contact all together (she makes the arguement that if our daughter can't meet all of their family then they have no business in ours). My gut feeling is that this is the wrong thing to do. I fear that down the line our daughter will resent the fact that we had contact with her biological family and then cut it off. We know the biological family has issues that surround this adoption that haven't been dealt with. The birthmother prefers to make believe like it never happened and we believe that her controlling contact is a way of controlling the fantasy. The birthgrandfather is unwilling to call a family meeting and have a discussion about this. As far as I know he hasn't even talked to his two sons (the birthmother's older brothers) about the adoption at all. They contend that they want to be typical grandparents to our daughter and I feel we have been more than generous with our time and availability. We can't seem to get passed this stumbling block. My wife is upset and states she is tired of dealing with the biological families issues. I just worry that this will backfire on us when our daughter gets older. They have had no counseling or education in open adoptions and the birthmother declined most of her post partum counseling that we had to pay for (we believe she just told the social worker what she wanted to hear). Looking for suggestions on how to proceed. Thanks for reading this long post.
Katie's Daddy.
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ecs5298
Hi,
It was originally supposed to be a closed adoption per the birthmother's wishes except she left one giant loophole open. She requested that pictures be sent to her father (the maternal grandfather) on a regular basis. ......
As things turned out we ended up establishing a relationship between ourselves and the birthgrandfather and his wife and the birthgrandmother. The bmom was not really happy about this but made the provision that they could see our daughter but no one else from their family could.
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Thanks, Brenda. I agree that the birthmom has no rights with us directly. The birthmom's siblings have decided to "honor" her wishes. Her parents were divorced when the 3 of them were teenagers and they went to live with their mom. Their mom (our birthgrandmother) pretty much abandon them emotionally and we think there is still a lot of resentment floating around that family. The kids seemed to have banded together during that rough time and it's carrying over to today. I get a sense that they are unwilling to talk about all of this with each other thinking that it will get better with time but I can see that until they deal with their issues regarding this adoption plan they won't be able to move forward. I think this is what is upsetting my wife so much. It just seems that the focus has been on the birth family and their problems instead of getting to know us and our daughter. They are not inherently bad people and they've been very nice to us and our daughter. They just seem to be closed off to any real dialogue between themselves. I don't know if it's our place to suggest counseling to them. That would seem to drag us further into their dysfunction. My wife and I have decided to go back to our agency and get a little post adoption counseling ourselves to see if these feelings that we have are normal and how to resolve this issue. Unfortunately our adoption case worker (who was an adoptee herself) had a personal meltdown during our adoption and no longer works there. She was a great source of reason and information. We just don't feel like we have anyone that can give us sound advice that has worked with open adoptions. That's why I'm hoping to pick some of your brains here on this forum. Thanks again.
Katie's Daddy
I would say that it's up to you whether your daughter has contact with anyone. No one else has the right to make those choices for you. If you have a good relationship with Katie's birthgrandparents then, by all means, you should continue that. If you choose to extend that relationship to her birthaunts and birthuncles, then that, too, is up to you.
This seems to be about issues your daughter's birthmother is struggling with - and she needs to deal with those issues on her own and in whatever way she chooses. Personally, I would hope she would seek out some counseling, but not everyone is open to that. If this situation were mine, I would explain to the birthmom that you and your wife are the ones to make choices about who you have contact with and that, while you appreciate and respect her feelings, the choice is yours to make - not hers.
Gosh, this is a really tough one only in the sense that you don't want to hurt your child's birth mother. I understand that these are your decisions to make (now) for your daughter and I also think that if you have established a warm relationship with these birth relatives, I would continue it. I understand your wife's point...but at the same time, you cannot control every one in birth mom's family. It's like if you wrote one uncle off in your own family, e.g., would you stop talking to your grandmother?? I know how hard these things are...Dh and I don't always see "eye to eye" on issues in our open adoption either. (We have the "opposite" issue in a sense....our birth parents never told their families about DD). Good luck!!!!!
This is hard.
When your daughter was placed with you her birthmom wanted her birthchild to have a closed adoption. She wanted to have a closed adoption. With the exception of some photo's being sent to the grandpa.
That is the agreement you worked out. The agreement that helped her decide to entrust her child to you.
I agree there comes a point when the child has a right to choose for themselves who they want to have a relationship with and who not to. But she is too young to choose for herself at this point.So that job is left up to you.
It's hard to say what I would do because I'm not walking in your shoes. But I do feel that your childs birthmom also deserves to move foreward with her life and to have the support of her family on her side and if she feels she can do that better without having contact or without her family members having contact then I think I'd have to respect that while the child was young.
I think I'd first have a talk with the birthmom again asking for her feeling on the subject of what she feels comfortable with. Then, I'd talk to the family about your decision and the reasons behind it.
If it was decided that only written updates and pictures should be sent periodically to a certian person. Then, I'd maybe let the birthfamily know that they are all welcome to send the child any letters/pictures they wish as often as they wish and that you would keep them for her until a time when contact would be more open or until the child was old enough to choose for herself.
But I do believe the birthmom's feelings should be respected. Even if that means the extended family and child have to wait a while for contact. I believe she deserves that respect and consideration. I believe the child will understand the reasons why contact needed to be put on hold with the rest of the family.
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