Please share and I would love your participation. The contest part comes in here...I will choose a winner from the comments in a week. Leave a comment, tag a friend, follow and share. Winner receives a $50 Visa gift card. Wahoo...let the comments begin.
"my greatest desire, became my greatest challenge, which ultimately is my greatest blessing" I started this blog after seeing a friend start a blog for infertility and a place to go for support. Well, my husband and I are infertile and we have been blessed with the experience of adoption. This blog is for those who are looking for another option...the Option of Adoption.
Thursday, March 24, 2016
How "open" is "open adoption"?
I'm conducting a little survey/contest. We have a very open adoption in our family, but I have often wondered what it means to others to have an open adoption? What is the relationship between birth family and adoptive family. I'm putting this out there as my own little research. Please leave a comment here with your knowledge or ideas of open adoption. You do not need to be a part of a birth family or adoptive family to participate.
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13 comments:
Open adoption means opening up your heart. Opening it up to pain, rejection, hope, and ultimately more love than you thought you could ever feel for another person. Love for a child, their birth parents, and an extended family you never even knew you needed.
My knowledge of open adoption probably comes from hearing about yours. Where the children know and understand they are adopted and have a relationship with their birth parents as well. I'm impressed at how wonderfully it has worked for your family!
Before I met you and Carl I always thought of open adoption as in not totally cut-off (for lack of a better word). Communicating and staying updated with occasional visits a few times a year. I absolutely love the way you and your family have done open adoption though! Much better than how I once believed it was.
Before I met you and Carl I always thought of open adoption as in not totally cut-off (for lack of a better word). Communicating and staying updated with occasional visits a few times a year. I absolutely love the way you and your family have done open adoption though! Much better than how I once believed it was.
I worked with LDS Family Services for awhile and we described it as providing an opportunity for the birth parent(s) to have a relationship with the adopted child and/or the adoptive parents. There are a lot of different ways an adoption can be open (one card each year, letters, phone calls, face-to-face visits, birth mom being like an aunt to the child. I've loved the idea of open adoption (especially as we were considering adoption). I've loved reading your blog, Paula! Thanks for being so open and brave and daring greatly. :)
I've always had the understanding that it meant the birth patents were kept informed on the children but not a lot of actual contact. I also always felt that wasn't very open. I love the way you and Carl do it but to me it varies on a case by case basis. We have an "open" adoption with our daughters birth family but not her patents. The people who are positive influences in her life are welcomed to visit, call, or write as often as they want. Her birth brother comes over often and even spent the entire week of spring break at our house. We invited her paternal grandmother to visit for Christmas and do our best to give them as much time together as possible. Unfortunately our situation is different so we can't extend our family to include birth patents but if they were in a better place I'd love to take it as far as they get to play a part in decision making about Rae (moving schools, going to summer camps, as well as medical decisions). Honestly though I think it's based on everyone's comfort level and this is just what works for us.
Wow, thank you all for your comments and insight, this is all great views of open adoption. It is always a case by case senario and should always be handled with the best interest of the child in mind, but I love everyone's vision. Keep me comin'!
I have also always thought that an open adoption was where the birth parents either had visitation rights kind of like a joint custody almost or where birth parents were mailed pictures etc. from their birth child's lives, but didn't ever see them. I have to be honest and say I was totally against the first version feeling like it could confuse the child. I have loved loved seeing the way it works for your cute family, and it has really opened my eyes to seeing how wonderful and healthy it can be. Keep it up, you're amazing!
I am absolutely loving all the responses and viewpoints of open adoption. Please keep them coming. I have decided to extend the contest one more week to see other's comments. Please continue to share. Someone may need to hear all your beautiful comments.
Open adoption, to me, is an extremely unselfish thing. Being willing to allow birth parents and birth families to still be a part of your child's life and helping them understand the different relationships that they have is a hard thing to do and takes a special kind of love.
For a few years I wasn't sure I was going to be able to have any children and was looking into adoption. Watching how gracious and open you and Carl are to allow us to know Zander and Kaya and be a part of their lives was inspiring to me. It also helped me realize how selfish I am. I don't think I could share my children like that and open them up to those relationships that I wouldn't be able to control as much as I would want. Open adoption is a beautiful and wonderful thing that, in my opinion, takes a very unselfish heart and love. You are amazing, Paula! I haven't been involved much at all with Zander because I can't imagine that an open adoption is easy. (That me sounds like a bad person - I hope you understand what I'm trying to say). I love you and am extremely grateful for you and your example to me. :)
As Paula's Mom I have learned and experienced open adoption through their experiences. I have never been that involved with adoption until they were able to adopt. I had my doubts and expressed my concerns but a very strong willed daughter felt good about their openness with both birth families. As time has passed I see and have experienced a love for the two families involved and it goes beyond the birth parents. At first I didn't want to share my grandchildren, but sharing has grown into a deeper appreciation for what adoption is and can mean to all parties. I love my grandchildren and love those who were willing to place their babies in the arms of my daughter and Carl. Open adoption has been a rewarding and wonderful experience to one who doubted.
My experience with open adoption has been nothing but wonderful. There is terrible guilt and shame associated with giving up a baby, there shouldn't be but there is. With open adoption you are free of those stigmas and it's actually exciting to tell people your story, and people are always overwhelmed with the strength and courage it took to make such a decision. Of course I am especially lucky to have the 2 most wonderful adoptive parents in this entire world and I absolutely love them as I do my very own family.��
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