Let it be known
When I’m talking about openness in adoption I’m talking about domestic infant adoption. There is a huge discussion about openness in foster-to-adopt going on (the trend in public adoptions is also towards more openness) and I welcome discussion of it here by those in the know, however I don’t feel qualified to talk about it and so when I say “adoption,” I’m saying domestic infant adoption. When I’m talking about a first mom or a birth mom, I’m not talking about a woman whose parental rights were terminated for cause.
(That makes it sound simple but of course there are women who make adoption plans because their child will be taken from them and they choose to place “voluntarily” so they can have some measure of control over the outcome.)
I’ve got an interview to do in about 40 minutes about this very topic and just got an email response back from some other questions so there’s a lot whirling around in my head. What I can’t figure out is why I’m so damn sad thinking about this. I cried over an email I sent to KimKim and I cried talking about it with Brett over dinner.
More to come.
Where the parents make a voluntary plan to avoid/deal with DHS involvement, I have worked several cases where contact was still able to be worked out in a way that was safe and met everyone’s needs. Where parents acknowledge the need for reliquishment, often really really good arrangements can be made. One case that I am really proud of involved a 15 yo birth mother with very low IQ (amid other problems) and she entered into an adoption plan with DHS that allowed for openess and supervised visits at a level appropriate to her special needs and situation. Dan Savage has written at length about his open adoption and dealing with the birth mother’s drug/homelessness problems and still keeping contact and openness for his son. I think that is a good example of addressing and accepting what Lisa V was talking about—not shutting down all roads of communication just because the birth parents have instability in their lives.
My child’s birthmom relinqueshed after a year of her baby in our foster home. Termination was just a week or two away anyway. Mom is totally safe and we have an open adoption. It is not always easy emotionally for any of us involved, but we are hanging in with it……There are lots of reasons why children go into foster care and not always because the mom is a bad guy. In our case there were a lot of circumstances all coming together at the same time which did not allow her to parent. I encourage openess in foster adoption if it is the best for the child…and I also wish there were better services in place for parents BEFORE children are taken away.
I’ve been bloghopping and lurking a lot lately regarding the openness question. I couldn’t figure out why closing adoptions after promising openness was making me so upset, beyond the factors of betrayal and the elements that upset me just because I couldn’t imagine renegging on such a serious commitment. Even with a trend toward continued contact in fost/adopt, there’s a good chance that our situation won’t be a part of that, and if that’s the case, there won’t be anything I can do about it.
I think what it comes down to for me is that I’m so very jealous of some people’s opportunity to have a relationship with their kids’ families.
I haven’t gotten much past that, though.