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I am in the middle of adopting a babygirl and have an open adoption with birthmom. We had discussed what we both wanted prior to the birth of the child but now things have changed on her end. The adoption is not final yet (still having post placements visits) but birthmom is becoming very needy and intrusive. She has several supervised visits a year with the baby (to be wrote into the final order). She is already calling, threatning and etc. if I do not drop what I am doing to give her the visit when she wants it. For example I canceled plans one day to accomodate her because she was screaming and saying she is going to take me to court to enforce her visit (she has not visited in over 7 months). I canceled plans and she never showed up for her visit. i want her to visit, thats not the issue - I just want some kind of notice, boundaries, etc put in place and I am unable to do this with her. She is sending messages reminding me this child is hers and will always be hers, and she wants what is right. She is also now wanting to figure out what the baby should call her even though this is something we discussed before and after the birth.
Has anyone else had to deal with this type of an issue before? If so, any guidance would be appreciated on how to handle this. I do not want to live the rest of my life with no boundaries and being threatened to be taken to court. Its no healthy for me nor the child.
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We spoke with the adoption agency about the frequent calls and visits.( 1st 3 months 15 calls and 4 visits) All this while our family was adjusting to a newborn. The agency suggested we write up an adoption covenant, with our guidelines as to how many vistits and phone calls. If you would like more info I can PM you.
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Please tell me how this has turned out for you. we are in the same situation right now. Our baby girl is 6 weeks old & her birthmom cancelled her first hearing to terminate her parental rights and she keeps asking for more--more money for starters and now she wants to take the baby for a couple of hours alone so that she and her two boys (ages 4 &3) can spend some time with her. I'm just not comfortable with that! But I'm afraid that if I don't agree she'll just take the baby back, which she can do on a moments notice since she hasn't signed over her rights. We are beside ourselves! Please, any help would be great!
Be HONEST!Tell her you are not okay with that.That is your boundary and lying about it to get her to not reclaim is well... lying.Don't manipulate her in response by lying ~as I am sure you will chose to be 100% honest from the start. Also,The money thing sounds not legal to me, but you are vague and maybe you mean legal money exchanged, can you explain?~Hope it works out-hang in there.
have you discussed this with your attorney? My bm is still giving me lots of issues (i have open forums under living in open adoption). Mine too wanted money but we never gave it. I have bought her ciggarettes, groceries, gas money but thats it. I would not let her take the baby unsupervised. Do you have guardianship papers?
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Not to mention, it seems like if this gets ugly, this can all be used as evidence that she doesn't have the best interest of the child in mind anyway.
Our second was a HUGE custody battle. But once mom finally said, "I want her back," (even though we didn't have 'legal' custody) we could prove she hadn't shown up for any visits, hadn't called except to threaten, and that we'd had care and control of the child for a certain amount of time.
We won. Mostly because her actions hung herself.
Oh hon this is awful. I can't imagine going through this. If she is half way reasonable can you set up a visitation and try to make something in writing with details in it? We have a covanent with our BM and it states we will see her x amount of times a year, who all can be at the visits, who can initiate the visits, and all the details it sounds like you are lacking in your situation. If you want more details I can pm you what our covanent says so that you have a starting point. I imagine that this is her way of coping and hopefully she will get to a healthier place at some point.