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DH and I are in the process of adopting a baby girl due 11/19. Although there is not yet an set number of visits, calls, and letters/pics this will be an open adoption-probably very open-which we do want.
E-mom, BF, and their 18mo infant live 25mins away from us. Their 3yo dtr lives with MGM in the same small, close-knit community as us. E-mom works in the shopping plaza that we frequently visit for our weekly errands.
At this time we've only had 1 visit, 1 call, and will be going with e-mom tomorrow for her weekly doctor's appointment. Thus far, it seems like we will be able to get along with e-mom. We live in Hawai'i where practices similar to "open-adoption" has been in place for years and is strongly believed in. However, we do want to have clear, comfortable boundaries, which is easier said than done. For those of you who live nearby your child's birth family, how did you do it?
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My advice would be to discuss it completely and openly with them asap. We didn't set up boundaries in the beginning and it backfired and now we are slowly getting to a comfortable place.
Our youngest son's bfamily live about 4 miles from us, and it's never been an issue about just dropping in or anything - we are pretty "formal" about visits. It used to be where we'd call and try to set something up, they would never get back with us and then call out of the blue and be angry if we couldn't make plans with them immediately. Eventually, we decided on 4 times a year (spring, 2 x in summer, winter) but if there was an opportunity to get together here we would do so. It's been nice because we have a "plan" that we try to stick to. We also e-mail constantly, which is the main source of contact between me and my son's bmom.
Of course, because we do live so close by, we run into each other from time to time, and it's great.
My main advice, like I said initially, is try to make a plan from the beginning. We didn't do this either of our son's bfamilies, and after time's passed, it became harder to do so. Good luck!!
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Our DD's birth family lives about an hour from us. My strong advice is to talk about this stuff NOW and maybe get it in writing. Our agency really flubbed this up for us (we didn't know - - either us or b parents -- anything about OA, didn't get counseling, etc.). Also, really think long and hard about what you are comfortable with - - don't agree to something you don't think you really want out of "guilt" or "fear" that you may lose the match, etc. There are a lot of benefits to having our DD's birth family live close by, btw. Good luck with everything!
First mother chiming in to agree with stuff already said.As a birth mother, I WANTED to know what the boundaries were. Having them set made it easier for me to know what was and was not appropriate and/or expected of me. Be open and honest and just get it all out on the table. Best of luck.
I guess I should have included in my original post that we are meeting with e-mom and our agency this afternoon to discuss the openness of our adoption. I've read a lot of posts where some families feel the birth parents and their families are more involved than originally agreed and now want to know how to take a step back. We just don't ever want to be at that point.
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We live about 20 minutes from our birthmom and have become very good friends, so we follow our agreement as far as formal visits and also just have her over occasionally because we enjoy seeing her as well. We do though have a legalized agreement with our birthmom that includes the number of visits and numbe rof letter per year. Our actual agreement goes up until our son is 16 and then he can decide what contact there will be. She also included special events she wanted to attended- ie baptism, graduation, prom pictures, etc. Just make sure that you talk honestly about your open to and then go from there. You could be like us and end up really liking one another and having visits outside the parameters of the agreement. Good luck!