Contact with birth grandparents

I am also an adoptive mom in an open adoption. I think your plans are quite generous for bgrandmother. I am willing to visit as much as desired, within reason, which to me, right now, is no more than once a week. (though our visits are not regular or frequent lately). However, I would not feel comfortable with bgrandmother or bfamily "babysitting" ...I'm not sure why, so maybe it's something I should explore for myself, but at this time I'm just not. I do not think you are being unreasonable. Its unfortunate for the grandmother that her daughter chose/needed adoption, but that is something that bgrandmother needs to work through...giving more one on one time only encourages a fantasy IMH(if not inexperienced)OBut, I am also interested to hear what birth parents/families feel...does it hurt feelings not to have one on one alone time?Edited for: yep, you guessed it, typos from smiles!

I think it depends on whether this about you or the child?

I'm an adoptee, not one of the parents on the board, so please take that into consideration. My thought is if you trust her to babysit your children, what would a little alone time hurt? They're alone when she's sitting. If you aren't comfortable with more time, I totally understand that. There are a lot of intact biological families who don't wish to spend that much time together due to schedules and activities. I think it's great you've kept this relationship. I hope it continues to be good for all of you.

I feel like you are above and beyond honoring what you agreed to and that is much much more than many birthparents get once the adoption is final. If you can't do more right now tell her that, and leave the door open for more later if you feel like it. If your instincts/gut/heart are telling you that now is not the time for more, it is never a bad idea to listen to those. I haven't been alone, alone with littleman for more than five minutes while his mom went to the bathroom, so the fact that you let her babysit is awesome. :-)

Thank you so much for your thoughtful replies! I really appreciate hearing your feelings on this subject. I do trust this grandma, which is why I (very occasionally) ask her to babysit. To me, the difference between babysitting and one-to-one visits is that with babysitting there is a legitimate reason - she isn't able to look after both of my children, so I usually ask her when I need to take my older child to an appointment or something similar - that leaves her with just her grandchild. But with the biweekly visits, if both of my children's birth grandparents take them out separately and away from me, it feels like a foster family (I used to be a foster parent), not a forever family. I think all of the grandparents should treat both of my children as their grandchildren, and should treat all of us as a family rather than single one member out as more "special". My children are very young (2 andd 3) and so it is confusing when one is treated differently from the other by somebody. As well, both of my children feel more comfortable when we do things together as a family rather than if one goes off on their own with a grandparent. Maybe they (and I) will feel more comfortable doing things separately as they get older. I would like to feel good about the amount of contact I am giving this grandma, but I so often just feel guilty that I am not doing more because I know how much pain she is in.

You know, we don't see our son's birth grandparents quite as often as you, but it's about once a month or so, so it's fairly regular. His grandparents weren't involved in choosing adoption or choosing us, but I'm not sure that's relevant at this stage. The last visit we had with our son's grandmother was so hard on us because it was so obvious how much she was grieving and missing him and very clearly would love to spend more time with him. We have so much love for her and to see her in pain is very difficult, especially when it seems like superficially we have the ability to relieve that pain by giving them more time together. My partner and I discussed this after the visit and agreed that monthly visits are probably as much as we can handle right now (we also have monthly visits with both first parents and other visits with other first family members). Then we realized that no amount of visiting would relieve this woman's pain. She is going through a grieving process that is not just about seeing her grandson. She's grieving for her daughter who is not raising him, she's grieving for not having the grandparent-child relationship she dreamed of, she's grieving him having another family and other grandparents. She's grieving the adoption decision her daughter made and that's a process she has to go through and that we really have no control over. I think open adoption can sometimes complicate that for extended family members since their relationship isn't quite as different with adoption as it is for the first parents. We still call her grandma and she can play that role in our son's life (along with his other grandmas) - she has to work through being a grandma, but a grandma of a child that is being raised in another family. For those of us adoptive parents in open adoptions that really treasure our kid's first families, it is easy for us to want to fix their grief, but we have to accept that they have to go through that and we don't have control over it (besides just maintaining the connection and following through on our agreements). Sorry this is so long - I just wanted to say that you are doing a great job and that giving more is not going to fix your child's grandma's pain. She is navigating her grief and accepting her lack of control in this situation, but there's going to be bumps and this is likely just one of them. Remember, too, that some grandparent issues aren't adoption-related - all grandparents have to figure out what it means to not be parenting a child they love and accept that parenting decisions will be made that they disagree with. Good luck.

Thank you so much, tacosalad, for your thoughts. I don't have any friends who are in a situation similar to mine (and I am a single adoptive parent), and so it is very helpful to get a perspective from someone who really understands the issues I am dealing with. Yes, it is very difficult to be in a position in which I seem to have the "power" to help her by giving her even more time with her grandchild, yet I really understand what you are saying about more time probably not making the pain go away. I had always promised myself that I would honour my child's birth family and do my very best to make them a part of our lives (because being a foster parent, I understand how hard it is to "lose" a child and how important it is to stay a part of that child's life), and it is difficult when instead of feeling good about what I am doing, I feel guilty about not doing more - and that sometimes makes me resentful for being made to feel this way. I know she is jealous of the amount of time my own mom gets to spend with the child, and believes she should get as much, but that just isn't going to happen...I hope she is able to work through her grief, as even though she expects a lot from me, she truly is a lovely person. Thank you again for your response!