Of course not.

I’ve got some emails that have come in on the entries below and I guess somehow I have been giving the impression that all adoptions ought to look alike and really ought to look like mine. I don’t think that. Of course I don’t. I’m sorry if I’ve given that impression.

I’m going to use Nat’s adoption as an example now for two reasons: I know more about it than many other adoptions I read about online and because I think it’s one of the most ethical adoptions I am privvy to.

As you guys know if you read her (and I’m sure most of you do), they have pretty much a semi-open adoption with Mama Rose (Nat’s first mom). They’ve met her and they have an agreement to send cards and pictures to the mediating agency. Shannon and her partner, Cole, would love to have more contact with Mama Rose and they have enough of her information that they could force it. They could show up at her house or call her repeatedly but they don’t. They don’t because they respect Mama Rose and her need for this amount of distance. They don’t use inability/wish to be less present as an excuse to pretend she doesn’t exist. They still honor her and talk about her and acknowledge that she is and will be very important to Nat regardless of how their relationship plays out.

So given that we have more contact with Jessica, do I think our adoption is better? More healthful for Madison? Superior and ethically more sound? Umm, no.

Our adoption is certainly not “better.” How can we qualify a think like that? Our adoption is what it’s meant to be; Shannon’s is what it’s meant to be. What’s good about them both is that all of us — Jessica, Mama Rose, me & Brett, Shannon & Cole — are rolling with the punches. We’re figuring it out as we go along but always trying to balance the needs of the whole family in our equation.

Is our adoption more healthful? I don’t think there’s a level of openness that’s healthier than another. What I think is unequivocally healthy is that all of the grown-ups are on the same page as much as they possibly can be, that no one’s lying to the kid, that difficult subjects are approached in age-appropriate ways and not simply avoided. I think that having access to basic information (especially information that will allow a child to seek out a birth parent who is not present) matters for everyone.

Superior and more ethically sound? Actually I think Shannon has it all over on us in this. Nat was surrendered to the agency before Shannon and Cole ever entered the picture. I will always wonder how much unintentional pressure our presence pre-birth put on Jessica. On the one hand, she wanted to have contact before Madison was born (in fact, she was frustrated that our agency will not share adoptive parent profiles before a woman is in her seventh month) and she had a right to that but on the other hand, it’s something that I will wonder about. Shannon doesn’t have to wonder about that. She knows that Mama Rose made her decision thinking only about Nat and not about some ready-to-be-disappointed waiting adoptive parents.

My focus in this blog has been on what adoptive parents can/should do to create honest relationships within their adoption stories because I’m an adoptive parent. I can’t say what first moms ought or ought not to do although I guess I can say that we all ought to honor our agreements the best we can.

Adoptive parents sometimes have to make hard choices about how and when to limit contact if they have concerns about the impact visits or phone calls are having on their child. But we all know that sometimes adoptive parents use this concern as an excuse to get out of commitments. When we make these kinds of decisions, I only hope that we’re truly making them with the best interests of our children in mind. (I think if we found ourselves with this concern that we would seek our professional mediation so that there were no misunderstandings and we could discuss boundaries and when to revisit them.)

Also, all of us have different situations that feel more comfortable to us than others. I just read Dan Savage’s essay in the new adoption book (outside and racing Madison’s interest in throwing rocks into puddles so I can’t look it up) and I think it would resonate with both Kim and KrisAnne. But also he has a level of openness that might challenge other adoptive parents whose children’s first moms are in similar situations. As long as they’re upfront with their child’s birth family (”We don’t feel that you can visit us as long as you’re using” and not, say, moving without a forwarding address) then at least everyone knows exactly what’s going on.

Madison is done throwing rocks and wants up so I’m hitting publish.

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