Help! Bio Mom driving me nuts!

Yes to the others responses - both about Facebook privacy settings and the importance of boundaries. :) The only other comment I would add would be in regards to when you said to her that it might be too hard for her if she could see the kids all the time. As a first parent, that's always a hard pill to swallow because it's someone else telling me what I can and can't handle, and making decisions based on their assumptions. And to be honest, it sometimes feels like a cop-out reason when the real reason is things like maintaining boundaries, etc. (VALID reasons that I totally support by the way :)) NOT saying that's what you're doing, just giving another perspective on how it can sometimes come across on the other end.

If you have an open adoption agreement . . . read the fine print. On ours it is very clear that she is allowed to contact us through the P.O. Box ONLY. If bmom makes any other attempt to contact us, it is grounds to nullify the open adoption agreement and terminate all further contact. That being said, I am a big fan of open adoption (where appropriate) and am not suggesting that you cut her off. But maybe have a sit down with a neutral third party to review the terms of the agreement. Also - check your post adoption resources. Some states will provide a post adoption mediator.

Very true. We don't add birthfamily to our facebook either. They have asked, but understood completely that we were not comfortable with it. We never made any promises as far as openess and do not feel obligated to do it. I do understand why a birth mom would want our facebook though. It is a way for them to have some kind of contact any time they want it. If they are up in the middle of the night thinking, they can just turn on the computer and have their child's life right there in front of them. Is that healthy?? Maybe for some and not for others? But, the bios are not my main concern, my kids are.

I would accept the request. Even if you fiddle with all the security settings, she can still view your friends. FB is always adjusting the security settings to make your info more accessible on the web. I'm constantly going in and making sure something hasn't been undone. They've done it twice in the last 6 months (to everyone).Our biomom and I have a myspace account. She is my only friend. My page is set to super private. My screen name is simple, my location vague and age incorrect, and my name is misspelled for those who track who's looking at their page or looking for me. My profile pic is just ds's cute baby feet. We communicate without problems. She did ask if i would be her friend on FB too, and I simply explained to her that I respect her privacy as much as she should ours. She has to understand it is the child's personal story and they should have some say when the family gets to know who she is. Remember simple rule #1 - is it in the child's best interest. no, it's just a social networking site and not to be confused with an open adoption/relationship.

Thank you all soo much for the conformation that I was already feeling, just needed to hear it back. first of all, to the comment that "wanting to protect her from being hurt by seeing what she is missing" was a cop out, but I didn't know how else to word it that I don't want her to have access to our day to day lives second, we have NO formal open adoption agreement. She terminated her parental rights before we adopted and all we have is an adoption certificate. I chose to keep it open for the sake of the kids later on. Lastly, it has turned very ugly through out the day. Her comments have turned to if I choose to fool these kids into thinking they are my bio kids, she will come and find them at 18 and set them straight and she is and will forever be their bio mom and if I want to sequester them, fine, but they will come looking for her someday. which is NOT at all even close to anything I said, I only told her this was not the proper venue for contact and I wasn't aware she wasn't getting adequate updates. She never mentions the kids when she writes only talks about her life and family that she has now. I told her it offended me that she calls them "her" kids and that I "have" them, because I don't "have" them, I am raising, parenting, loving, protecting, etc.. thats what a parent does. So I left it that I will excuse her irrational behavior as post pardum depression (she just had baby number 5, that she is raising along with her almost 2 yr old )and wished her well. We'll have to see what next. But thanks again, the way she responded was exactly what I feared would happen if I was "friends" with her, she'd claim them as her own on her page, I list me as the babysitter, I'm sure. Jodi

her reaction proves you made the right decision

We adopted two little boys through foster care. The mom and dad have/had drug problems, depending on who you talk to for current status. We were told by our bio mom the same deal about how she would set them straight about what happened. Nice to know you can love them and care for them and she might be able to tell the right lie to undo your relationship or at the very least test it unfairly. Good luck and know that actions speak louder than words and the better that they are raised with the proper values and all that, the better you can negate anything she might try to do to drive a wedge between you and yours.

I have no problem blocking people from seeing me at all. If you live in the same geographical area, you'd be amazed at how the 6th degree of seperation comes into play. She may have friends who are your friends too. Through the mutual friend's wall, she can see things that you write. Just the other day I realized that one of my good friends is also a friend to our adoption worker on FB. She can see everything that I write on my friend's wall.

I really like the idea of a separate page just for the bio family. I don't have anything on my page that I mind the world seeing, but it does have a lot of information about my husband and me. . .who our friends are, where we go, etc. We are early in the process, and we are still trying to figure things out. . .thanks for the idea, kayb . . .I like the thought that she/they could get in contact whenever they want, while still allowing us some privacy/boundaries.

BM attempted to friend me pre-finalization. CASA and CW recommended i not do so. I'm so glad they did. Even though it ticked her off at the time, the boundaries are sooo important. i set up a web page where i post select pictures and blog entries. i have much better control

That was my point exactly, though I am eternally grateful to her and respect the fact that she will always be their birthmom. Thats where it has to end. We are their family, and I do not and will not allow her to pop in and out when the mood strikes and cause undo chaos for them. So though she is mad about it. it has to be this way for the benefit of my family. I have completely cut off contact with her for now, she has emailed me several times and acted as though nothing happened. I refuse to respond and open myself up to be accused irresponsibly. In time, things my change. Jodi

I'm not trying to criticize here because I'm sure its frustrating and your venting etc. And I agree not friending here is the right thing. But can you see how sending an e-mail back telling someone you're going to ignore their behavior because of assumed post partum depression might be a little antagonistic? And perhaps perpetuate and escalate an already emotional situation. And while her statements are of a very threatening manner perhaps it won't come to that at age 18 if you can get to a place where you can get past some of this emotional angst and just be civil so that your kids can have that connection to their history.

You can always pull up her page and then at the bottom of her profile click on the 'block this person' button. This way she won't be able to find you or read anything you write on a mutual friend's wall. My ex-husband and I have each other blocked and even though he's friends with my daughter, he can have an entire conversation with her on her wall, but all I can see are her responses. When this first happened, I thought she was having a conversation with herself, until I realized she was having a conversation with him and it was because I had him blocked that I could not see that he was posting on her wall. We also can't find each other if we do a search for each other because we've blocked each other. Just a thought...this way she won't bug you on Facebook anymore and you can be more in control of how/when she has contact with you.

Just to expand on this you should make sure you are not discoverable at all on social media IMO. I have all my settings set to friends only. I also have a fake profile I use to make sure my husband and I are not discoverable. I log into that and search our names & emails and if something one comes up then privacy settings aren't high enough. This fake profile isn't blocked by me, so it would be as if someone new got a facebook profile and tried to find me. I have our FD's BM's email and I have blocked that email as well, just in case she were to get a facebook profile. I take the extra step of making my profile not discoverable for the reason that just because I have that email blocked doesn't mean she isn't going to get a new email and try again.

This is so true. I know this is kind of an old thread, but this has come into play recently for us. Mom in our situation has her page set to public, so we can see everything anyway, but her brother does not. Turns out my bio son and her brother have 38 friends in common. What are the chances? My son does not know her brother. And we are not in what would be considered a small town. So when my son logs on, he can see everything he posts. I am sure if they knew that, they would not be happy. My FB settings are as private as can be. No friends of friends on anything. All friends only. And I don't even really have that many friends anyway on there-not like some I know who have like 400+ friends. (Like my son.)