Do we talk to AJ about his birth mother? No. He can’t handle it yet. I wish he could but he can’t. We talk to him, instead about Russia. About the orphanage. About the country he came from, not about “where” he came from.

I wish I could because she is part of me too. No matter where my child is from his birth parents are a part of him and we need to teach him that. We need to show him that. With AJ we just need to allow him to guide us and let us know when it is the right time.

To define open adoption would be like defining the word faith. Every open adoption is different in that every family has their own degree of openness in which they are comfortable. Technically Open Adoption refers to the sharing of information and/or contact between the adoptive and biological parents of an adopted child. This can occur before, during and/or after the placement of the child. However, there are typically three types of open adoption: confidential (minimal information shared), mediated (information mediated through an agency), and fully disclosed (involves full disclosure between adoptive and birth parents).

Adoptive parents should know that having the birth parents in their lives does not have to be a threatening situation. Having them close allows you to better know your child by knowing the birth parents.

Additionally, research conducted back in 1993 shows that adoptive parents and birth mothers are generally satisfied despite the “normal” amounts of grief that accompanies adoption.

Read some Birth Mother Stories at Adoptive Families

Read these stories on Open Adoption.

Post from: Blisstree

The Basics of Open Adoption

Most of the following questions are geared more towards domestic adoption but can give you a good idea about what to expect when looking at different agencies.  These questions are from the American Association of Open Adoption website and can be used to compare four different agencies at a time. The more yes answers for an agency, the better the agency is.

1. Do the agency web site & advertisements make it clear that the agency only does fully open, fully identified adoptions?
2. Is this agency easy to drive to from your home?
3. Do you have a friend who knows or has used this agency and gives it a very high recommendation?
4. Are there other agencies in your local yellow pages who have much larger yellow page ads under the adoption heading?
5. Is the agency a church affiliated agency or is it over 30 years old?
6. Does the agency encourage maternity clients to parent and also offer free support and guidance in how to parent a child?
7. Did agency staff make it clear that they prefer to do fully open adoptions and rarely, if at all, will they serve an adopting family wanting less than a fully open adoption?
8. Did agency staff accurately define open adoption as involving no secrets between birth and adopting families and ongoing, direct, in person
contact between them?
9. Does the agency strongly recommend, or even require, several counseling sessions by their staff before a maternity client starts considering the selection of a family for their child?
10. Does agency require a minimum of 10 hours of training & counseling for all adopting parents before they are approved for placement?
11. Does the agency encourage matching between birth and adopting families who live close enough to each other for easy visits?
12. Does the agency have fully identified resumes by families adopting, with
full names and addresses as well as local phone numbers on them, freely available for the selection process?
13. Does the agency always allow maternity clients selecting a family for their child to be able to study every waiting family available in the
agency for their child and almost never limit maternity clients to selecting from a few waiting families chosen by agency staff?
14. Does the agency provide a copy of their fee agreement for adopting parents with a clearly stated refund policy along with a clarification that
donations cannot be accepted during the adoption process?
15. Does the original adopting parent fee include money for all maternity client expenses anticipated with only the agency paying all such
expenses, even if they go above that set amount?
16. Is agency a member of the Child Welfare League of America?
17. Is the race of the child expected one of the last questions asked?

Post from: Blisstree

Adoption Agency Checklist

So, get out your address books and put that card in the mail and make sure to mark your calendar to call her on SATURDAY, NOT SUNDAY because every (and I mean every) Birth Mother needs to be recognized just as every other mom is (and it’s not just about flowers, either)!

Although May 10th is Birth Mother’s Day an adoptive family should honor their child’s Birth Mother’s role in their family every day. Families must keep in mind that she is ALWAYS part of their family. Yes, I know that sometimes circumstances prevent this from being the case but it seems that more often than not these days, Open Adoption is becoming more joyous and comfortable.

Need some meaningful ideas for your child’s Birth Mother?

Birth Mother Cards

Five Gift Ideas

Top Ten Gift Ideas

Recognizing Birth-Mothers

Do you recognize your child’s Birth Mother? How do you do it? When?

Post from: Blisstree

May 10th is Birth-Mother’s Day, Do You Have A Gift Yet?