Adoptions Together Birth Parent Blog

Navigating Post-Placement Agreements

Recently, post-placement contact agreements have become the standard for setting up how updates will be sent and received and how visits between birth parents, will look for the next 18 years.  That piece of paper is supposed to make it clear what birth parents and adoptive parents agree upon.  When everyone signs the contract, it creates a concrete guide that is useful for all.  These contracts are legally enforceable in many states and birth parents, adoptive parents, and agencies can refer to it when one party or the other needs a little reminder. 

But they are not perfect yet.   

Things sometimes get tricky as time goes by. One party may not like the way things are going, but how can you change it?  Especially if there’s been a lack of adherence to the contract on one side or the other or even on both sides! 

For every agreement there are a set of stories about how it really played out.

What have your experiences been like with your post-placement contact agreement?

Do you feel like you really understood what you were committing to and expecting in the beginning?

What did you hope to achieve with the ongoing contact—more involvement in your child’s life, set the groundwork for a relationship in the future, etc?

What happens when you want to change something about the contract? 

 

Openness

Another week is coming to a close.  I'm feeling better, but still a little unenergetic.  Times like this have me surfing the web more than normal and looking around for any adoption information. 

I've been looking at some other birth parent blogs, and they have me thinking about openness in adoption - mostly b/c it seems to be an emotional subject.  There can be so many levels of openness, and I think they can all be tricky to navigate as the years go on.  As Molli noted in her earlier post, she has been hurt by her daughter's adoptive family not sending her pictures.  In the beginning of building an adoption relationship, there is a lot of involvement from everyone to choose a family and get ready for placement.  But life goes on, and it's hard to know what a relationship will look like from that day forward. I have been present at some amazing visits between birth families and adoptive families, but the visits seem surreal sometimes - it is a moment in time with a lot of involvement, but what is it like the rest of the time? 

In Aug 2006, Wet Feet, wrote about the "myth" of a happy birthmother in relation to open adoption: 

This grief has a trajectory. The happy birthmother fantasy is like an anesthetic. Adoption's epidural.  When it wears off, everyone has accepted your happy ending and moved on. Here you are, this hole getting bigger every year, having told everyone repeatedly that everything was great and you are happy and relieved and feeling very wise.* So you don't bother telling people things have changed, because the specter of the loose cannon bitter birthmother that no one trusts is right there. And no one wants to be her.

I believed it: I treated birthmother grief as a puzzle I could outsmart. Relinquishment without the consequences of loss. Because of openness, because I bonded so well with her aparents, because I wasn't going to actually lose her, I wouldn't be ensnared by grief.

The mythical happy birthmother is a tantalizing fantasy in open adoption. It makes adoption look like a true win-win-win situation. Nobody loses! The couple gets their family, the adoptee gets to know where they came from, and the birthmother can move on with her life! No one wants to be the one to spoil such a pretty picture.

Does openness help soothe an initial pain that later will still be there?  Do the visits themselves help with later mourning? 

Diarrhea of a madman wrote way back in April 2006: 

Open adoption is sold as a great thing for everyone. You can have an ongoing relationship with your child, how great is that? Except nobody points out that he will not be your child anymore. That you will have to watch him call someone else Daddy (while your soul screams “fucking impostor!”), that you will feel like a complete and total outsider, that you will be utterly impotent in every facet of his life. That every time you see him, every picture you receive, is a reminder of your ultimate failure to care for him as he deserved. That you will spend your days screaming on the inside, despising yourself, wallowing in shame and guilt, and powerless to close the disaster stricken floodgates.

I very much believe in open adoption, but I know there are pros and cons.  People are people - full of mixed feelings, disappointments, anxieties, expectations.  Adoptive families and first families are both human.  It's impossible to always feel good about things all the time. 

Frustration!

This post is from a guest blogger, Molli, and I'm really glad to have heard from her.  People in our lives often let us down in unanticipated ways, and adoptive families are not an exception.  How do you feel when people are not living up to their end of the deal?  Is it a different feeling than when it happens with a family member or close friend? 

Molli's post: 

When I made the descion to give my little girl up in 1999, it was very difficult. I went over lots and lots of family albums with my social worker. There were so many families to chose from and so many different options - religion, open/closed adoption, pictures every year or every 6 months, other kids or no kids, etc.

 

Then I finally found the perfect family. The choice I made I was happy with.  Religion, pictures etc. In the beginning, I had built a pretty good relationship with the adopting parents. They came to a couple of the doctor visits and also came to the hospital to see me when I had given birth to their new baby daughter. The first year I had received letters and pictures every 6 months. I had even received a wonderful Heart locket.

 

But as the last few years have passed, it seems as if they just don't have the time to sit down and chose a few pictures and write a letter to me. It's like pulling teeth to get it. I just don't understand. I mean we bless this family and give them the most wonderful gift ever, and they cant even keep their long term commitment with me, the birth mom. All it takes is 1 hr every 6 months. Not too much to ask for. 

 

I don't want to look at it as a a bad descion. I know she is well taken care of, but they are leaving me no option.  A promise is a promise.  Please help me to understand this situation.