Our family is created through adoption.  All five of our children are adopted.  I was in the delivery room (or OR) for the first four.  We met our youngest when he was a day and a half old at the hospital.  Our first adoption was “fully open” and that conditioned the way we thought about adoption for the ten years that we grew our family.  Open adoption is our “default.”  It feels like the way adoption is supposed to be – no secrets, open communication, on-going contact, through all the ups and downs of divorce, death, marriage, new children, health crises, celebrations, etc.

What does “open adoption” mean in your family?  Do you have different kinds of openness in the relationships you have with your children’s birth families?

I could write another book in answer to these questions, but I will restrain myself.   What open adoption means for us is full identifying information and ongoing contact over the years.  Yes, we have different levels of open relationships with each child’s family.  In my experience, the relationships that we do have are much like the relationships one has with members of one’s extended family.  Some are closer because you have more in common or it’s easier to communicate with particular people.  The goal of being in contact for the benefit of the child is the same, but the way it plays out has everything to do with the individuals involved.

I’ll give you some examples.  My oldest daughter’s birth mother, though younger than me, was already a mother to three daughters before our mutual daughter, Emily, was born.  From the beginning, she was more than the biological mother of our child.  She was our wise parenting teacher.  It felt like we were “equals” with different strengths that we brought to the relationship.  We trusted each other and depended on each other as “partners” in giving this child the life we both believed she deserved.  Over time, it has always felt like that.  We are each other’s “fan.”  Emily was the reason for our relationship, but I can’t imagine my life without her.

My second child’s birth mother was a teenager, and the ease of conversation did not come as quickly to me, though K.J.’s birth mother was completely trusting of our willingness and ability to take over as parents after she delivered the baby.  She was off to the county fair with her boyfriend, the birth father, shortly after the baby’s birth.  She was still a kid, doing kid things, and I was an older mother with a professional job.  But the great thing about open adoption is that EVERYBODY grows up.  Over time, I became a stay-at-home mom and she became a married woman with children, and the dynamics changed.

In short, our third child’s birth mother wanted an open adoption but has since faded from the scene.  She is a Facebook friend to our daughter and to me, but doesn’t have other contact.  However, Skye’s biological grandmother and other extended family ARE in an open relationship with us.

Our fourth child’s birth mother found us based on our openness, but has “disappeared.”  Our fifth child’s birth mother chose a closed adoption, but WE haven’t closed the door on finding her.  Both younger children want to connect with their birth parents.

One of the harder things about having different levels of openness in a family is how it affects the children.  They may become jealous or sad or angry because their relationships with birth family do not provide the same level of intimacy as relationships they see modeled by their siblings.  In working with adoptive parents over the years, I have encountered many who, in searching for a second child, intentionally tried to match the level of openness in the second adoption to the first because of these concerns.  In my experience, there is no guarantee that things will stay the same anyway.  Some relationships will grow and others will diminish depending on life’s circumstances.

There is no doubt that the relationships will change over time because circumstances will change.  The important thing is to keep your eye on the ball — which is to ask yourself: What is in the best interest of my child? Just the way you filter difficult information to a child based on his or her ability to comprehend it, age-appropriately, so the open relationship has to be monitored for safety and comprehension.

I’ll give you an example of where I screwed-up and lost sight of the ball.  When Skye was four, we became foster parents to her 3-year-old half-brother.  I told myself that I was doing this to “help” her birth mother stay in contact with her son and get him back.  In truth, I harbored secret thoughts that if she couldn’t get him back, we would be positioned to adopt him too.  Boy, did that backfire on me!  Skye’s birth mother felt that we were at odds with her because we were now part of “the system” that was preventing her from having her child.  The whole situation led to some painful encounters for both of us.  If I had really been thinking about Skye, I would have steered clear of the foster care system, been emotionally supportive of her birth mother, and let the chips fall where they may.  Because I chose a different path, Skye was exposed to more of her birth mother’s instability at a young age than was appropriate for her.  Skye is 14 now, and she is becoming mature enough to understand her birth mother’s “way of being.”  But I feel bad that I let my selfish desires get in the way of doing what was best for her.

I can almost guarantee that an on-going open relationship will not be smooth.  There will be highs and lows – both for you and for your child.  There will be disappointments.  And even great experiences have an underbelly reminder of “loss” built into them.  I think about my son, K.J., who is 15 now.  When we visit his birth family, he plays with three younger, full biological brothers.  They love him!  And he loves being the center of their attention.  It is joyful and a wonder to behold.  But both he and I recognize that he has lost the opportunity to be with them on a daily basis by virtue of adoption.  Would he have this joyful experience if he had not been placed for adoption?  It is doubtful.  He would have been the son of a 10th grade mother and high school dropout father with no resources to support him.  They might not have stayed together, married and had three more boys in later years.  Time passed.  They divorced.  Birth father remarried and had two other children, K.J.’s half-sisters.  Meanwhile, we (his adoptive parents) have been married for over 20 years.  But it takes the time and patience to work through the emotions and meaning of these experiences with birth family.  It’s much easier to be the infrequent guest and rock star than it is to live with siblings – biologically related or not – on a daily basis.

The times I worry the most are when one or more of my children do NOT speak of their birth families, and I don’t know what is going on inside their heads.  Just as you work at keeping the lines of communication open with birth family members, it’s important to keep the lines of communication open with your child and her feelings about these lost possibilities.  On the other hand, it is equally important to affirm the child’s positive connections to birth family.  Over time, you see personality traits, areas of interest, mannerisms, voice inflections – all kinds of things! – reflected by common genetics.  We acknowledge those as a way of saying: “We love who you are and don’t feel threatened by the fact that you are a member of that family too.  You can talk to us about all the feelings you are having without fear that we will reject them or you.”

I love watching my children begin to make decisions about what kind of relationships they want to have with their birth family members.  Since only one of our open relationships lives in Atlanta (where we live), Facebook has been an amazing facilitator of this process of the kids discerning who and how they want to be related.  My oldest, now 17, will comment to me about who is doing or saying what on Facebook.  She always has an opinion.  And she has the ability to decide how she wants to respond or IF she wants to respond.  I see her actively working at choosing who and what she wants to hold close versus the parts of her family – both adoptive and biological – that she wants to move away from.  She is in relationship with lots of different people, all related to her, but feels her own power to chose what is right for her.  She would not be in this position BUT FOR the open adoption she has known all of her life.  I am both proud of her and proud of us for choosing this route.

As the children become older in open adoption relationships, I find that I am gradually letting go to allow them more decision-making power about the direction and closeness of the relationships.  In the beginning, I orchestrated visits, sent pictures or emails, etc. on a “regular” basis.  We parents made it happen.  As they get older, we let them make more of the decisions about contact.  For example, Emily wanted birth family in Atlanta for her 16th birthday, and we facilitated that.  Right now, K.J. is trying to decide if he wants the same thing or something different for his 16th birthday.  We talk it through.  Since his family has more members and the relationships are more complicated, what makes sense?  With Skye, I still push the contact with her grandmother and relatives because she won’t initiate it.  With my 11-year-old, there has always been an interest in tracking down her birth mother, but I’ve had to weigh that against her birth mother’s decision to “hide” for reasons we do not understand and Journey’s strong desire to see her.

I often wonder what will happen after the children are grown, off to college, married, have children, and so forth.  Will I still be in relationship with their birth families?  I think so.  I think it is a little like marrying someone and inheriting all of his or her relatives.  I can imagine being at the birth of Emily’s first child with her birth mother on one side of her and me on the other.  What we will do with the dad, I don’t know!

With encouragement from friends, I began to believe we had a unique story to tell that might be useful to others.  Because we have different levels of openness in one family, and because ours is also a transracial family, the story has many dimensions and raises lots of interesting issues.  Also, because I am a feminist, I think I have a different voice to bring to the adoption community, which tends to be “pro-life” and more focused on the needs of adoptive parents.  I hope that, through my writing, I stood up for a woman’s right to choose and that I gave a compassionate voice to the first mothers I encountered along my journey.  I also wanted to use my story to raise money for some of the children who need it most.  The proceeds from the sale of my book support The Baobab Home, an orphanage in Tanzania.

Which do you like better, blogging or writing a book?

Interesting question.  I liked writing the book, in part, because I had a timetable for beginning and ending it.  Most things in my life are on going and messy.  It was great to “complete” something.  I started the blog, primarily, to advertise the book.  At first, I had no idea what to write and posted stories from the original manuscript for the book that had been edited out.  But, over time, I connected to others in the adoption community and to current issues that made writing the blog entries not so difficult.  I discovered I could get the same satisfaction from a blog entry well written as from the book, but in a much shorter amount of time.  So, in answer to your question, I liked writing the book when I was doing it.  But now I like writing the blog for similar reasons.

They do know about the blog.  This morning, when I was driving K.J. to school, I asked him if he had read it.  He chuckled, “No.”  Honestly, I don’t think they are very interested.  K.J. is the only one who has read the book from cover to cover!  My kids are so “over” their mother’s interest in adoption that it’s boring to them.  They look at my willingness to talk about adoption in all its variety the way they look at my willingness to talk about sex education all the time. They tell me on a regular basis: Stop!  Enough!

I imagine they will read it, or parts of it, eventually.  I do clear some of the more revealing pieces with the children who are written about.  For instance, I talk to Emily before I publish anything about her learning disabilities because – as I tell them over and over again: Anything you send out via text message, Facebook, email, and the like is OUT THERE for good.