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Hi! I am new to the forum. We have a son whom we adopted domestically at birth. We are currently a "family-in-waiting" for our second child. Have any of you had any experience, or do you know of any research I can review, regarding families where there was an open adoption with one child and a closed or semi-open with another child? Though we were open to an open relationship with our first son's birthfamily, our "relationship" with them has been purely through letters and pictures on our part only, which we send to the agency each year. With the new child we have gone into the adoption seeking more of a closed adoption to mirror the scenario with our first son's birthfamily. We are trying to be mindful of any feelings that might be generated in him given that his birthparents don't want any contact. We don't want him to feel hurt that the new child has a relationship with their birthfamily while he doesn't with his. But perhaps we are foreshadowing unnecessarily?? This is unchartered territory for us and while we want to be mindful of first son's feelings, we also don't want to unnecessarily limit our exposure to potential birthmothers based on a perception on our part that our first son might be hurt. Any insight or literature you can direct me to would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
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I hope someone with some experience answers you, so I'm bumping this up...you might also want to post it in the general adoptive parent section, too which gets more travel. We're in he opposite situation in that we have an open adoption with our son's firstmom and are hoping our second child has the same opportunities for visits.
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We have 3 kidlets through adoption. We have a very open relationship with our oldest sons birthfamily, a semi open (birthmom contacts us for updates via email maybe once a year but we have traded contact information) and a closed (we have each others contact information) due to drug use and incarceration issues. So all across the spectrum. You can private message me if you want to talk about my experiences with the 3. Our kids are 9, 5 and 4. gina.
Hi, I would also like to hear from any families who have adopted multiple children, some with closed adoption and some with open. I wonder like the thread starter - would the child with the closed adoption struggle even more with their own loss because the open adoption relationship is a part of the family's life? Thanks, Lacy
I think it's probably more useful to think about openness as a spectrum.... and realize that no two relationships are going to be the same or stay the same over time. A relationship that is really open may close over time because of distance or other issues. A more closed adoption may open over time as parties become more comfortable with each other or there is a need for medical or other information. While technically we have closed adoptions with both of my kiddos (different) birthfamilies, the reality is that we started out with a closed adoption for our AS, then I opened it and we have email contact with his bio-siblings. For our STBAS (in-process of adopting from foster care), we have email contact with extended relatives and will probably have visits after finalization. Honestly, it's not that big of a deal. We are fortunate in that we know a LOT about the birthfamilies (that is an advantage of adoption through foster care). And we just try to answer their questions as truthfully as possible. My kiddos are both 5 years old. We've had one since he was a baby and the other for almost three years.
I was the original poster and ended up posting the question in another section here, which did receive some additional responses: [URL="http://forums.adoption.com/general-adoptive-parent-support/410562-families-more-than-1-adopted-child.html"]http://forums.adoption.com/general-adoptive-parent-support/410562-families-more-than-1-adopted-child.html[/URL] Good luck!
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