Just had our first open adoption visit with bio mom!

We are just starting out on this journey too. Finalized this month and contacted birth family for a visit. Have not worked out the details yet. I would love to hear more about your visit. What boundaries were set and how did you communicate them to her? How old is your child and how did they react? What happened that you didn't anticipate?

I have an open adoption with my kids birth mother, but she is a relative and we know each other very well. She does very good at visits not smothering them...but she tends to think they are way younger than they are. It's almost like she thinks they never got any older than when she parented them. I am also dreading when they get older and she will be the "fun" parent and I will be doing all the hard work. It's fine now, but I can see this could be an issue. We talk about the visit before and after and try to work together to solve any problems that might come up. I did put in many boundaries from the get-go and she follows them. My children remember their birth mother. It would be totally awkward to have a virtual stranger smothering you. I'm not sure what you can do about that except bring it up before the next visit.

Our boundaries: Need to set up the visit ahead of time. No showing up at the door. By ahead of time, at least a few days ahead of time. Don't call expecting a visit in an hour. Acknowlege us as the parents. Do not undermine us. Call us mom and dad. You are mama or mama "M" We will be present at all times. Do not ask for unsupervised visits. Our children do not need to see you crying. If you are too sad for a visit, please let us know and we will reschedule. Don't bad-talk their birth father or any other family member. Come alone. We don't want a bunch of friends coming along. (I do allow a couple of friends I know well if she asks ahead of time. No strangers) Come clean and sober. I never tell the kids a visit is coming because sometimes she flakes. I don't really know how I'm going to handle that disappointment in the future. :(

Ugh. Our bio mom is 22 but looks 14. Our daughter is 3. It's a sad situation, she basically grew up with a single mom who taught her to do drugs and crime at a very young age. Before our daughter was adopted, they actually were doing jail time together. They live together, but since then, have not been arrested. The bio mom's grandmother is also in the picture, so there are the 3 of them. They are the only family they have. Bio mom begged me to let her mom and grandma come along last year. I said no, and that the visits were to be between her and my daughter. She no showed. A year later, I wroter her again, giving her one more chance at visiting, and she wrote me 3 letters back so excited to see her, and again begged me to bring her mom and grandma. I didn't have time to write back before the appointed visit. We met at a fast food restaurant, and we handled it this way. My dh stayed in the car with our daughter, while I went in to talk to them. (talk about awkward..I had only met bio mom and her grandmother once before, never the mom (my daughter's bio grandma). I explained that it would be okay for the grandma and great grandma to say hi, and then if we could move to the next room where the play area was with just bio mom, that would be best. They all agreed. I also explained that we had to come up with something to call her bio mom. Since dd is only 3, and doesn't really understand what is going on (we have had her since only a few weeks of age). We decided we would call her by her first name, and I would also explain in very simple terms that this was her "tummy mommy". (which I had explained before since I have other adopted kids as well). They seemed ok with that, but bio mom did say that in all her letters she calls herself "mommy",and I explained that this would confuse her, because she only knows me as mommy. Bio mom was very nervous. We then brought our daughter in, and bio mom pretty much showered her with presents immediately, which I didn't anticipate. I mean she didn't even take time to get down to her level and say hi, and talk to her a bit, she just handed her a bunch of presents and started opening them for her. So...we endured that. Grandma and great grandma were appropriate and they sat there smiling, and said hi to her. We then moved into the other room, and my dh left for a bit, and I talked to bio mom while dd ate. After that they played together on the big toy, and it was obvious this was the best day of this girls life. She smothered her with too many hugs, and I love you's in my opinion, which I don't think my dd really understood, but she took it in stride. On our drive home, I asked dd how she like it, and she smiled and said "It was good". So, overall it went well, there were some moments that were uncomfortable, but since we were all new at it, I expected that. Also, I did let bio mom take pictures, and I meant to remind her not to post any online, but when I checked fb that night, I found that she did post a few. Not happy with that, since she knows this is not okay, as the last pictures I sent her, I reminded her about this in the open adoption agreement, and she took all the pictures off her fb after that. I am sending her a letter now reminding her not to do this. (She doesn't know I have looked at her fb page). In the future I am sure there are many more boundaries I will have to put in place. This was a start, and I wish things could have been done somewhat differently, but I had no way of knowing how it would go.

I think the hardest part for us is that up until now, the CW has been the heavy. We have had a good relationship with bm because she knows we were doing what we were told and nothing more. Now we have to be the ones to tell her what she can and can't do with what she still sees as her child. Awkward! @luv: I love your ideas. They are great ground rules.

That is a great list, luvbeingamom. Our situation is a little different because we agreed on a open adoption with our daughter through domestic open adoption and then we got her older brother who was in foster care. We had already agreed on the open adoption so we continued with the plan after we got and adopted our son which she and her family had lost to foster care. We do visits every three months. We do not have anything in writing with the open adoption because our state does not recognize open adoptions. We have had our ups and downs. We have had to set limits when it came to when we will do the visit because it always seemed like it was when it was the most inconvenient for us was the time she would call the agency and try to set up a visit. (6 months ago I gave her my cell phone number and now we text) Our Visits are March (both kids birthdays) June (Summer Break) September (her two kids that she has had since have birthdays in late Aug. and early Sept) December (Christmas) Sadly my kids think that most visits come with presents and lots of them. My son will sit on his bio grandpas lap and tell him all the toys that he wants that he doesn't have. He does not do this with anyone but him. We don't like it and try to remind him that it isn't nice to ask people for things. (Biograndpa would buy him anything that he asked for if he had the chance) We have had to set boundaries because bio grandma was not appropriate at a visit three years ago and it took two years for us to be okay with her coming to a visit. Biomom HAS to let us know who will be at each visit, but I tell her that I will let her know who is coming with us too. My mom has came with a couple of times. My husband and I get a little jealous that they get the good times. They get the gifts, fun food, fun activities and we get the rest. They never have to discipline them or say no to them. It is hard but my kids seeing where they came from and being with their little brother and sister mean more to us then any of us can imagine. They respect us as mom and dad. They call us mom and dad to the kids. They ask our permission before they give our child anything to eat, drink, etc. Our visits started out at our agency for an hr and a half at a time. The last visit was at biograndpas house for 4 hrs. At one point my mom was holding biomom's son "H" and consoling him because he was upset. When we left, my mom said I was completely against this open adoption thing when you adopted but I can't believe how it works out. In our case it does work out.

Wow. Every three months is very generous. And with the whole clan. Don't you worry that may cause issues when they get older? Having a fun "parent" to run to when you are not their favorite person? I ask because I am trying to figure out how to go forward with Nugget. As good as both their (Nugget and birthmom) and our (birthmom and us) relationships have been, I want Nugget more than anyone to understand we are his family now. I'm very conflicted.ETA: Our state doesn't recognize OA either.

I assume you update bio mom? Maybe the next time you send an update you can discuss how much fun your daughter had at the visit, but at the next visit it will be only you. When I discuss things that go wrong at visits, I make sure to let her know I'm 100% committed to open adoption and the things that went right as well. I don't worry about gifts or pictures, but like I said we are relatives so it doesn't feel weird to me. She has never given more than one gift though. That is kinda crazy. Thankfully, you won't have to worry about this again for a year. Your relationship with these folks will last a lifetime and will ebb and flow. I know when my kids mom married and had another child she became much less intense about my children. It can be super awkward at times, but I feel it's in my children's best interest. At times, it gets tough when she's on a spiral like right now, but she never comes around during bad cycles so it's been ok. As long as the drama does not come into my home I still want to keep contact. Keep communicating, drawing boundaries and keeping to them. I have found that you will more likely have her respect if you don't let her walk on you.

:femal:love: hye , my name : mae ainurifah 14 years old live in malaysia..want a adopt parent pick me at malaysia. i waiting :love: adopt me please

We adopted our daughter at 11 months old. We had her since birth and her mom had never had one visit with her in all those months. The requirement that she drop clean was too much, so she never even tried to visit. In that time we met with her adult sibling and thru her offered to let bio mom meet her this past Christmas. We felt it was in DD's best interest for us to meet her and see if she was safe/appropriate ourselves, get some pics for the future, etc. it was pretty bad.BIo mom was seemingly intoxicated, very loud, smothering, crying, refused to use DD's new name, called herself Mommy, would not back off even when DD cried and tried to squirm away. She kept apologizing to her. It was all about her needs, her insecurities, etc. So, we tried. We gave it a shot.Epic fail.

Remember my adoption started off in the domestic adoption area where 16 hrs a year of visits at most seems like a small thing to give to get the opportunity to parent their child. When the brother came along we had to follow DCFS rules for visits for a year and then we were in control. Well the truth is that they don't have the option to run to their fun family. They are our kids until they turn 18 and then they came make the choices that they choose to make. I pray that we will be so bonded and loved that we will make it through the horrible teenage years. We will raise our kids with the christian values that are very important to us and hope that they will continue to feel this way when they are older. We are scared to death that they will "pick" them over us but what adoptive parent isn't. The truth is that they don't have to pick and that will hopefully be the difference. They can have both of us. They have their past and we have their future together. We are giving them a chance to be around their siblings and see what kind of lives that they lead. Our kids will have so many more opportunities than they would not get otherwise. They will get to go on vacations, gymnastics, college, sports, and many other opportunities that they would not have been able to do. The biofamily doesn't work. We don't know how they afford the gifts that they give them but it isn't our job to ask. I appreciate you asking and truthfully until I was in this situation I did not even want to deal with open adoption but then it happened and we met. Biomom let me in the delivery room to watch my daughter be born. She let me cut the cord. She let me see my daughter breath for the first time. She let me raise her son when everything in her (but the addictions that she was dealing with at the time) wanted to continue to fight for custody of her son. She just gave me over 60 pictures of my son from the two years that her family had him. So I guess I don't have all the answers for you but in our situation it is working. If you ever get the chance read Jensboys blog post about adoption and mainly her open adoption ones.... they have helped me a ton. [url=http://anickelsworthofcommonsense.blogspot.com/2010/08/open-adoption-feelings-and-actions.html]A Nickel's Worth of Common Sense: Open Adoption: Feelings and Actions[/url]

It really is an emotional roller coaster for these bio parents, I think. I was glad bio mom in our case came appearing sober. I think setting up boundaries ahead of time is so important, or it could be a disaster. The OAA and then some communication beforehand is what helped us. The bio mom in our case even shared with me how emotional it all was for her, and the reason she no showed last year was because she didn't think she could handle coming to the visit and then having to leave her again. She is dealing with a lot, and I just hope this relationship can remain positive throughout the coming years.

Thanks lady, I'll check it out. I feel like I need to balance, like you said, Nugget seeing enough to know he is better off, and no so much that influence happens. Because let me tell you, bm does not have abuse or drugs against her. But her apple didn't fall far from the tree and her whole (and I literally mean whole) family is well known to CPS. She has always been well behaved around him, but still, I'm thinking once or twice a year around special days is enough. With us there of course.