Very Open Adoption

Have you thought about getting involved with an agency that specifically does open adoptions? I'm involved with one because I want to be able to see my child 1-3 times a year or more (depending on geographic distance more than desire, 'cause if we lived in the same town, I'd probably want contact once a week or so. :-P) I have a feeling my afamily isn't going to want that much contact, honestly, but it probably all works out because they're not that close to me, geographically, and I don't know that I'll ever settle down there. Stick it out and wait--I'm sure there's a bmom out there who's hoping to find a family like yours.

I am a bmom and I had a baby girl almost 4 weeks ago.I made an adoption plan for her and I am so thankful for the adoptive parents.We have a very,very open adoption. Since her birth, we have visited each other,in our home and in theirs,twelve times. It makes it a little easier to be able to see her as often as I do. Just yesterday I signed the relinquishment papers and that was the hardest thing I ever had to do.Thank God the A-parents were there and our beautiful baby girl. It really helped.

I truly feel that birth parents are giving us adopting parents a gift and I belive they have a right to choose. If I give a gift to someone, i'm not asking them if they'll like it, its "here is my gift". If a birth mom wants holidays with the kids, I see no problme with them coming over to our families home. My husband and I are compltey comfortable with the birthmom making the decision and we just follow. If we dont like their requests, we simply move onto another birthmom. That birthmom will find their perfect family. We had a failed adoption 2 years ago and although she kept the baby, we still have contact and we had a lot of contact with her entire family. The family interviewed us and asked us all kinds of questions. Everyone has someone out there, you just have to find the perfect forever family. You can choose open and later choose closed or do closed in the beggining and later do open. You make the decision ! Birthmoms.. remember! Your giving us a gift bigger than anyone can give. Dont settle!!

Can u clarify what you mean here.

I am also in the process of finding Aparents,and I want it to be as open as possible. At the very least I would like letters or a phone call. I have made the decision that I will not place in a closed situation. I feel that this child deserves to be fully informed of his adoption and his bparents. I feel relieved to see that there are Aparents that think along the same lines!

We are in a situation now which really makes me excited about the future! Our Emom is young(ish) and her family is very involved in the process. Coming from a lifestyle where my parents and my husband's parents had a very open, loving relationship which naturally drew in every neighborhood kid, friend, etc we see nothing wrong with including the birthfamilies. I have very close foster brothers. My husband has step-brothers and all their kin. Our lives are full of people who aren't related to us by blood but whom loved us and helped us grow up to be good people. As long as the birthfamilies are trustworthy, safe and loving, why wouldn't we share our lives with them? Lucky for us the family we have matched with is really terrific! Very stable. Good values. I believe that if their daughter had been older and better able to fully support a child as a single mother - then they would have supported her decision to parent. She would be an excellent mother. You can just tell. So it seems like a no brainer to have her involved in our lives. Children can't get enough love. They need as many consistent loving people in their lives as possible! Everyone brings something special to the table. We know that the Emom's parents will be big assets. They crack us up and they so love their daughter. This hasn't been easy on them but they are fully supporting her decision. They even helped select us! I think we are pretty realistic. We live several states away and the Emom is in college. So she doesn't have a great deal of time to devote to travel or visits. She also doesn't have a lot of time outside of work or school. In addition, we all remember how crazy college life could be! So we fully expect that she will lose communication with us at parts in her life - she's young afterall. But that doesn't mean that she isn't thinking of her child! Instead she's focusing on getting through college and then those early career years. As long as we keep the communication coming from our side - I think she will feel comfortable enough to fully participate in her own life and not feel guilty for being out of touch over exam time, Spring Break, whatever, etc. It's important to us that she know that we are "here" and that she can reach out anytime and that we won't assign any blame or guilt for her actually pursuing a life! When she finally graduates, we hope for an invitation! There's always the possibility that she will move closer to us after graduation! Or that we will move closer to her. Her life is such an unwritten story - so much will happen to her in the next 30+ years. The keys to our relationship will be communication, trust, and respect. People change/grow as the years pass. I don't pretend to know where our relationship will be when she is older, possibly married, possibly with children at home. So our plan is to stay open and accessible. To keep the communication lines current even if one-sided. To build a foundation of trust and respect. Sounds incredibly simple? But I can't even keep up with my Thank You notes! So this decision required a lot of soul searching and planning. We had to really invest. We didn't want to be the kind of AParents who said one thing and did another. We just hope that she can commit to us when the day arrives. We've supported two other Bmoms who decided to parent. But we are really invested with this situation and it would be a struggle to lose this lovely family and this sense of well-being. We'd be grieving more than the loss of a baby but the loss of a current and future relationship. Sappy? But true.

Best of luck with your situation. If you are channeling the true spirit of "Trixie Belden" (my childhood heroine) things will always work out.

If you read my post, "Giving up Abby" you will get an idea of how insanely open our adoption is. In fact, until for some odd reason fertility became an issue last year, my hubby and I were trying to have a baby for Abby's adoptive parents. We were even going to do surrogacy for them, until we found out Michigan has some brutal laws against it. I know that besides my own feelings and such, that Abby and my daughter Maddy are huge benefactors, seeing as they play together and will have sleep overs when they are older, etc. Pam and Bruce repeatedly say that they feel they have gained two new daughters, and now that I am married, a son. If you would like to talk further, feel free to contact me.

I gave birth to a baby girl last August and found the most wonderful family who wanted the same amount of openness as I did. The amount of openness was key for me when I was choosing a family. When I was meeting with them I told them if they were comforterable with the amount of openness I desired I believe they were the right family for me. I went christmas shopping in December with the Adoptive mother and we plan on going shopping again soon. I see the baby girl every other month. They gave the baby girl my name as her middle name. I'm just amazed at this process and I am really looking forward to seeing how our relationship develops over the years. I think choosing the right family and not compromising what you want for your child is one of the most important things you can do. If you realize you aren't able to raise the child yourself you are at least able to give them the gift of finding that perfect family that would most resemble your own.

Hi I know that you wanted to hear from bmoms but coming froma child who had a very open adoption I thought you might want their opinion as well. I had the opportunity to be adopted and it was a very open adoption my family was close to my biological family. We had the chance while i was growing up to meet each other and spend time together. There were a couple times that I actually got to go down and spend a week or two with my family down there. Having a very open adoption like that was really nice because i was able to know everything without question and that helped me out with my life. So coming from an open adoption child it was the best thing that anyone could have done for me.

Hi everyone! I am a adoptive mom and we have a very open adoption with our bmom. We probably see her about once a month and email a few times week. We have developed a great friendship with our bmom and her boyfriend. They are now expecting a child and we look forward to our children getting to know each other while they grow. Our open adoption is great and I think our son will surely benefit by knowing his bmom and knowing his story. I have much love for our bmom and love and evotion for our son and putting so much thought and love into our adoption. We feel very blessed!

I am the A-Dad of a wonderful 2-1/2 year old little girl. We have the greatest open adoption I could have ever thought possible. We see both b-families fairly regularly. The b-mom's family is kind of far away but we have made trips to stay with them often. The b-mom and b-dad and his family are fairley close so we see them quite a bit. I know it's still early and we could have problems ahead but I doubt they will be too tough because from the begining it's always been what's best for the child. I am sure we will make some mistakes but if we are always thinking of her I don't think we can mess up too much. The birth mom has actually started a group on her college campus to among other things present open adotion as an alternative for pregant college students. I have seen a lot of negative stories on here and I hope it's because the very positive ones like ours do not seek out (or in less numbers) sites like these. Our open adoption has really evolved and at the begining I wouldn't have imagine this. We really have adopted two entire families. We are difinitely Mom and Dad. We have never felt intuded upon. We have even asked b-GP's for advice. I think the bottomline is if you are dealing with "good" people and the child is the focus it will work (with God's help of course). My heart goes out to thoughs that have had not so great experiences. To answer more specifically the initial questions. Yes more time in the future. No, I do not think she will stay over night with b-parents but maybe b-grandparent. I do think b-mom and or b-dad migth stay with us. I can't remember the other questions. I just wanted to be an example of an very open adoption that (at least so far) is working great for perspective a-parents and b-parents.

I think open adoption is by far the healthiest way to do things.

my daughters adoption is open open as it gets. thats how i had to have it. i see her every week, get alone visits and family visits, and her parents babysit my ds for me sometimes. i love it. we are only 1 year in, bu so far so good. what makes it all possible was how TRUSTING her parents are. i nursed her when i saw her untill she was 5 months old. i was able to see her alone and do whatever i wanted (we took lots of naps in those early days!) without feeling like they were breathing down my neck. we definately do holidays together and day trips and such. they really validate my role in her life and are never jealous or possesive. ever birthmom is different. obviously if i were hard to deal with this wouldnt be as easy. it all depends what kind of birthmom you get as to how much you can expect. one thing i think for sure is that you hold out for a b mom that wants what you do because it is such a sweet and amazing relationship to have in your life. good luck!

Wow! I just now noticed this thread. I had posted a thread a little while ago and it looks like we are asking the same questions, just from different angles. I would like to find a couple that would allow us (the birthparents) to be like extended family. We would love to be just like an extra set of grandparents. We would like for the couple to call on us when they need a babysitter, invite us to tee ball games, dance recitals or whatever. I was wondering if that was asking too much. I wasn't sure how adoptive parents would feel about that. We are in our forties and just not in a position to actually raise this baby. However, we still want to be a part of our child's life.