Choices, Choices on the Shelf
At some point in their adoption journey, adoptive parents who have gone the route of domestic adoption much choose what kind of relationship they're like to have with their birth mother and father. The three options are open, semi-open, or closed adoption. After much prayer, asking friends who were adopted, and reading adoption research, we decided to start with semi-open and gradually go toward open adoption. Here's why–
A Tough Decision
To be honest, we struggled a great deal with this decision. At first, we figured there were so many potential complications with open adoption that we were like, "There's no way!" To be sure, it's not always possible to have an open adoption, and not always the best course. But over time we came to believe (and are finding it to be true) that there are a host of benefits for the little one you're about to adopt that make this a worthwhile option to consider.
The Three Options
Let me summarize the options:
- Closed adoption generally means you don't have communication with the birth parents, you don't know who they are, and they don't stay in contact with you after placement of the baby in your home. The relationship is closed. This is how most U.S. adoptions were in past decades.
- Semi-open adoption means you have some level of communication with the birth parent(s), but usually mediated through the adoption agency, so your name and location aren't revealed. In addition, you may agree to occasional meet-ups with the birth parents at the adoption agency (once or twice a year), but with adoption social workers present.
- In open adoption, at some point you trade first and last names with the birth parent(s), establish direct contact with them and meet up personally with them on a pre-agreed frequency.
What Tipped Our Hand
We quickly found that the balance of adoption research done shows that children come to terms with their adoptive identity more easily when they have contact and some kind of relationship with their birth parents. If children don't know their birth parents, questions can linger in the child's heart about why their parents didn't keep them, about their value and worth.. A host of fears can bounce around in the heads of adoptive children of all ages when they have unanswered questions about their past. We even had an adoption social worker who is an adoptive parent share with us that some of their children struggled greatly with their identity but that eventually meeting their adoptive parents and finding out their story really helped. Here, here, and here are some helpful discussions on openness.
A Pivotal Conversation
A pivotal conversation in our decision came when I sat down with a friend, a paratrooper in the U.S. Army. I thought, this guy's tough! He's been in combat. He's fought Al Qaeda. Nothing phases him. He surprised me by sharing how he wished with all his heart that he could have met his birth dad and birth mom, even if they weren't exactly what he would hope they would be. He just wanted to hear from them why they chose an adoption plan for him, and get to know what they're like, their personalities, their health history, who they are in their core. He never had that privilege and reinforced to me that this wish runs through his heart regularly. He told me what it would mean to our little boy or girl if they had at least a chance to settle those questions and know their roots more personally.
In conversation after conversation with adoptees and adoptive parents, they universally expressed gladness that they knew their birth parents, or deep sadness that they never had the chance. After much prayer, we decided to start with semi-open adoption and move toward openness with our birth mother, if we felt comfortable with her, and she with us.
What Openness Means In Our Family
In our next blog post, I'll address how we moved to openness, why we're glad we did, and how having a tested and true adoption agency is perhaps the most vital ingredient for a good relationship between adoptive and birth parents.
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