Open Adoption Roundtable #25

Has open adoption ever felt like too much? Have you ever wanted to walk away?

I've been away for awhile but this was too important a topic to not post my thoughts, for me if for no one else anyway.

Open adoption feels like way too much a lot of the time. And at other times it feels exactly normal and causes hardly a ruffle in our daily lives. But for us it always, always is the right thing to do for our daughter, no matter how it feels.

We've come to define our nuclear family over the past year as a version of the modern family--unlike the tv show, we're not as chaotic or even remotely as funny--but our family is in its own way a little weird and colored by many different branches. The challenge is that while we are blessed to know both Tulip's first mom and first dad, we don't know her half siblings or her first grandparents on either side. She has a cousin that is only 3 months younger than her, but he and his parents don't even know that Tulip exists. In fact, in our open adoption the only ones we are open with are her first mom and dad. They have yet to tell anyone about Tulip--that she is a gorgeous, blue-eyed cutie who is an amazing little girl. No one knows about her in our open adoption. How open is that?

This is the hardest part for me right now. Knowing that she has a family out there who is missing out on the special moments of her early life. We are so very grateful to share this with her first parents, because they are the most important direct links for her to have. But she has a sister and a brother and grandparents and aunts, uncles, cousins who don't get to be a part of her life. That part is very hard.

Our commitment to our daughter is to keep no secrets. When she is old enough to comprehend extended family, she will likely ask if she has any on her first parents' side. We will not lie. We will not keep it from her. We will encourage her to ask and talk to her first parents about this. We will let her ask the questions. We pray we are in contact with them still at that point so that she will have a chance to talk to them directly.

I understand more and more each day that open adoption is so very different for each child, each family. There is no manual, no how-to book that can prepare you or guide you through the moments of those first weeks and months after placement. A year later, there is no guide for how we are to proceed when we can't reach one of her first parents, or when one of them calls late at night, or when a visit is cancelled because it just isn't right for them. It feels very one-sided at times, and yet we've come to realize that we are the stability in their lives too. We are the constant for their daughter, for her future, for their decision to place her for adoption. We are the reasons that they can and are moving on with their own lives.

Open adoption feels like a lot most of the time. But walk away? Even if we could, we wouldn't.