Advertisements
We are now 3 and 2 years into our adoptions/OA agreements. We've definitely seen changes in our OA's. With our older 3, their adoption has been final 3.5 years. We went 4 years w/o any visits w/ bio mom during their time in foster care. The first 2 years, we stuck with the 2 visits per year, although each visit went well over the 2 hrs allotted (each over 6hrs!). I still had very frequent email contact with her and we saw the 1/2 siblings quite frequently. While the visits went well, it was obvious the kids were not attached to her in any way. They were 2, 3, and 4 at the time they came into care without a single visit during that time. 4 years later, she was not 'mom' anymore. She was always very emotional about that and I know blamed us for their lack of relationship with her. The kids didn't mind seeing her, but were uncomfortable with her insisting they call her mommy, her wanting to hug/kiss all over them, etc. The third year, we moved out of state. Bio mom's life has been a mess, so she seems to have her own stuff to deal with. We've offered over and over and over to do phone and/or Skype visits, but she has not taken us up on that. Email communication is now very sporadic. The kids have no real interest in communication with her. They do desire for contact with their 1/2 siblings, but they are no longer living with bio mom, and she refuses to give us their contact info, so for now, we have nothing with them. Bio mom was very difficult to deal with, so part of me is glad she is not in our lives quite as much! We have come to a place where we are not trying to 'track her down' with emails and phone calls anymore. She's the one choosing not to contact us. Bio dad did not have an OA agreement, but we still try to send pictures and updates every few months through email. We get occasional updates from him, usually a birthday message to the kids.With our younger two, their adoption has been final for over 2.5 years. We signed an OA with their bio mom, but we have not heard from her since the day she signed consents and the OA agreement. We have no address/phone/email for her. I have found her on FB, she has 2 more children, living in the same city. We have considered how far to push contact w/ her through Facebook, but are still undecided at this time. Bio father was not really in the picture, but have found him on FB as well. At this point, we are sad that she chose not to keep communication with us, but also wonder if we should push it, since she had all our information and has not bothered to make contact. The girls have not seen her in over 3 years now, the youngest was not even 2 yet. Just wanted to hear from others who are a few years into the process. Also to let those who are still at the early stages see how things can definitely change!
Like
Share
My oldest's adoption is closed. I wish we had some kind of contact.My younger daughter's adoption was planned as "open" with possiblity for visits. Mom wanted letters/pictures. There was no contact from biomom for 3 years. I found her on MySpace and sent her a message telling her who I was and she was friendly. About 3 years ago, she sent me a friend request with Facebook. She sometimes comments on pictures or status updates that involve "H". She's really considerate. "H" wanted to call her and I asked if it was okay. Biomom said okay and "H" called her and talked to her for a few minutes last year. Biomom never asked for a followup call and "H" hasn't mentioned calling her again. I can honestly say it's the most ideal situation because we have communication but nothing is forced or awkward.
Advertisements
We have 4 adoptions through fostercare.
Youngest is a boy we got at almost 9 weeks and finalized at 2 1/2 years. He is now 8. We had a very open adoption with weekly visits with his paternal grandma but she passed away a couple years ago. Birthdad has been in and out of jail (mostly in) ds's entire life, so I keep track of him by checking the prison website. We met several of his family and I am friends with some on facebook but haven't really purused those relationships. We usually saw his birthmom 1-2 times a year, just in passing when we'd run into each other at the store and stop and chat for a while. We became friends on facebook for over a year or so. Even though we choose not to have regular contact because of her continued drug use she was always friendly, grateful and supportive of us. She passed away this summer (went missing and her body was found in the woods, they are still investigating foul play). It was very sad. We attended the funeral and met several other birth family members who I have added to my facebook but am not sure how far I want to go in actually pursuing those relationships at this time.
My youngest daughter who is 8 we got as a newborn and she was put up for adoption. We know very little about her birthmom. I thought Imay have found her one time (in order to offer contact) but it turned out not to be her. Birthdad is unknown. We are still hoping to find her or be in contact with her someday. if and when that may happen, but we would take things really slow at first if that ever happened.
My oldest daughter is 10 1/2. She came to us just over a year old and we finalized her adotion when she was just over 3. We've had a very open adoption with her birth mothers side of the family. We are friends on facebook with many of her relatives. We have had to scale things back quite a bit over time, things were just becoming too difficult on my dd and our family. It's hard to get birthmom to open up and communicate with dd and the relationship I have with her has been very strained. I wish things could be more positive and supportive, more balanced but I'm just not sure where we are at right now. We have been contemplating closing the adoption or just staying in contact through letters but I haven't decided yet. We don't have any contact with her birthfathers side of the family.
Our oldest son is now 13 we got him when he was almost 4 and finalized later that same year. We met with his maternal grandmother a couple times in the year after we finalized but she didn't seem very "grandmotherly" to him and she kept pushing for him to come to their house (when grandfafter was opposed to herhaving any contact with him) so we kind of just let that go. We sent a christmas card for a year or two and she sent a birthday card but we haven't spoken to her sense. We tired to make contact with birthmother but a friend she was living with passed on the message that she wan't interested in having contact, so we never contacted her again. Birthfather had passed away before ds was even born so we never thought we'd ever have contact with him or anyone from his side fo the family. Until this summer when a girl (my age) showed up at our door step with her son(just a year older than my son), saying that she was ds's older sister on the birthfathers side and that my son who was 12 at the time was her sons uncle. It was kind of crazy. It all happened in a flash and she gave me her contact info and also requested I add her as a friend on my facebook page. I've held off on adding her for the time being. I wasn't thrilled in her choice of how she contacted us by just showing up at our door or the problems it caused with our children, to have news like that popped on us the way it was, but it was really just a bad time (we had just had some major issues with oldest daughters birthfamily, as well as the funeral of youngest sons birth mom) so I haven't had the chance to really think about what kind of relationship we want with her. Our ds is very sensitive and has been struggling for years with Fetal alchohol effect, adhd, anxiety, attachment issues, food hording, etc. I'm just not sure that he/we are ready for her to be an active part of our lives. We may just start with letters and go from there. Not sure yet.
Our son arrived as a foster at 11 months. We adopted at 2 1/2 with an OA agreement for 2 visits with BM. We could have closed the OA because she didn't contact us for the first 6 months after the adoption but we decided to give OA a try.
We see his bmom every six months. We try to organize the day around an activity. We have gone to a library story hour, playground, bowling, pottery paint and last summer we took her on a whale watch.
Two years ago our son's younger brother also went into foster care. If we didn't have an OA - we wouldn't have known that he was in care. We have a great relationship with his STBAM and we get together for playdates, holidays, birthdays, trips to the zoo and just days to have fun. Last year we started doing joint visits with bmom so that she could see the boys together.
Right now - this is a very healthy relationship for our son. Our son is comfortable talking about his adoption & his bmom & loves his brother. He is very secure about his place and permanency with us - I think in part because there is no mystery in the background.
I do believe that if it can be done in a healthy way - open adoption is the best choice for kids.
Good luck on your journey.
My daughter was placed with us at 4, adopted at 5. We had little to no contact for the first 18 months or so at the suggestion from her therapist. After that she was asking alot of questions about (biomom) D, she was more of the caretaker than mom was and was concerned about D's well-being. For her peace of mind we started an OA with D. We are 8 years out now and I speak to D daily. I am actually going in with her when she delivers her new baby next month. She has actually asked us to take the baby IF DCFS opens a case and removes her, although we are hoping she is able to sucessfully parent this little one.
With Baron we adopted internationally so we have no contact and very little information about his birth family.
Buggy and Baby Boo both came to us straight from the hospital. We have an OA with their birthmom S. Our agreement is that she is welcome in our home anytime she is clean and sober. Right now that goes in cycles. She will come once a week for a month and then disappear for long stretches of time. Buggy is nearly 6 now and he knows that she takes bad medicine that makes her too sick to come see us sometimes and he is ok with that. He also knows that he and Boo have sisters that grew in S's tummy that live somewhere else and we get to see them even if S cant visit us.
OA is definately an evolving process and there are so many variables that effect it. I definately agree that no two are the same!
Advertisements