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I have been talking a lot with birthparents lately and one of the things that seems to come up a lot is that they don't know how to act a lot of the time because they are worried that they are crossing boundaries and that they will mess things up. Then in turn birthparents get frustrated because the relationship is confusing and distant and things get stranger and stranger.
On the other side adoptive parents either interpret this as needing space or that everything is fine. All the while it could be solved if there was a firm set of boundaries.
So my question is this, as adoptive parents what have you done to establish the boundaries that you think are appropriate? Are you open to discussing them and changing them at all? How have you made those boundaries clear?
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Leeah
This is something I've been thinking a lot about. I really feel like I'm flying in the wind. D and I have no agreement since she originally wanted a closed situation. It's really hard since neither of us know what the boundaries are. I would love to have a more formal agreement.
Hi Jillie, you're so right that we make it more complicated because often we're all walking on egg shells. I did send D an email. I have a private facebook page where she's the only friend. She friended the page with her "regular page" and she's on daily. I let her know that I didn't want to give her too much or too little. Her response was simply that she loved seeing the pictures so post them as often as I'd like. I guess I do have my answer and should just keep doing what I'm doing. It's just so hard not to worry about doing the right thing! Honest communication is definitely the key.
We had a very loose, informal agreement from the start. I send pictures and updates. There is no set number per year or anything. I send photos of the milestones; first baseball game, Christmas program, first day of school, first tooth lost, etc...Then the mundane too. I maybe send a dozen pics and updates throughout the year. I usually get a response which is nice.
I am finding that I running into issues with my adoptive parents as well. I have contacted the agency on multiple occasions and well Im being told we are having a hard time contacting them. I maybe ask for updates twice a year and it seems in the past few years its been less. What else can I do to move the process??
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