My husband and I don’t hide the fact that we would like to have a closed adoption. I just think that if we make a clean break from the beginning that things would be better for our family. Last night I started thinking about how having a completely closed, know nothing about the birth parents, might cause some issues later in life.
My friend (who I’ve blogged about previously this month) knows nothing about her birth mother other than she was living in Oregon when she had my friend. When filling out the 2010 Census she wasn’t sure what to state as her ethnicity so she put Caucasian because that’s what she looks the most like. She has no idea what her birth mother and father are or anything about their health history.
This made me think about what would happen if we knew little to nothing about our adopted child. It would be nice to be able to tell them what diseases or issues they might be prone to getting or passing along to their own children. But then I start to think about how whatever happens we’ll just take it one day at a time. Even if I knew that the child’s birth mother had breast cancer doesn’t mean that my child will come down with cancer too. There are certain diseases and conditions that are recessive and only come up every few generations in a family line so knowing about the birth parents might not be enough to prepare us for what may happen.
The second worry is slightly silly, but could pose a real issue to our child. Being LDS the chances of having a child attend a BYU school are pretty good. If we adopted a child through LDS Services there is a chance that someone related to the birth mother and/or father would also have a child who attends BYU. There’s a joke about how small the LDS world really is and I believe it. I met someone from Missouri who had a grandma in Alaska who was visit taught by my husband’s grandma when I lived in Indiana. There are multiple accounts of people being connected by these small separations. (If Kevin Bacon can do it, so can the Mormons!) I have the faith that Heavenly Father wouldn’t allow my child to be attracted to their cousin, blood sibling, or other family member, but the idea of it bothers me slightly. In fact, I was thinking about it right before going to sleep and I had an interesting dream about having a daughter coming home with a boy who looked identical to her. It ended with me waking up saying aloud, “But he’s your cousin!”
With all of this in mind I am slowly being warmed up to the idea of a partially open adoption. I think knowing some information about the birth parents wouldn’t be the end of the world. I mean it’s kind of funny to not want to know anything about them when they get to know about us. I would want the parents to make an informed decision about us because they like the type of people we are. Or at least the type of people we appear to be on paper or via letters.
It’s also weird because these are the people who created our child; their blood is the same blood that flows in my baby’s veins. In the grand scheme of life will it hurt me to know that they are from New York and are teenagers? I guess if we choose to adopt from an international organization that places children from orphanages then I won’t have to worry too much about finding out too much. The more I think about it, the more I think the Lord directs my bizarre fears and concerns to point us to international adoption.
Hi Marie,
Open adoption isn’t really about you, it’s about your child. Open adoption is not for the adoptive parents’ convenience, or lack thereof. It’s what’s best for the child. Can you imagine growing up, never knowing what your biological mother or father looked like? What their names were? If they named you, what they named you, and why? Even international adoptions are starting to open up, slowly, ever so slowly. I really recommend looking into open adoption, why it scares you, and what you might be able to do to open up to it (no pun intended). Open Adoption Support is a great site for that!
Good luck on your adoption journey!
~Robyn
If you feel a closed adoption is right for your family (after you have made an informed decision based on a solid understanding of the pros and cons), you shouldn’t let anyone make you feel bad about your choice.
You will no doubt encounter some who feel comfortable publicly condemning you and accusing you of being “selfish”. Ignore them. Listen instead to your inner light, which will guide you to the right decision for your family.
Thank you both! I really am torn on which way to go. My gut says to make it a closed adoption because of various fears, but I really haven’t done a lot of research on open adoptions yet. I need to talk with people (I know a few personally) who have chosen to do an open adoption. One has a personal blog that she gave the address to the birth mother so she can see the child at the different stages of his life.
I love getting feedback from people! This really helps my husband and me with everything we’re deciding.
Marie,
When we first looked into adoption, we also were very nervous about openness. Now, nearly six years into our open adoption, we’re so glad that we opened it up and wish that we’d started out that way. (Our agency did only semi-open adoptions at the time. Thankfully, our daughter’s first mother had a great case worker, and he helped us to ease our fears and embrace open adoption. He knew the agency was in the process of change. Both we and the birth family were nervous about open adoption. We took things slowly and didn’t have a fully open adoption until nine months later, right after adoption finalization.)
Here are some of the cool things our daughter has gained from this openness:
Current information on her birth family’s health information. We are more aware of serious risk factors that weren’t in our original packet of health information. This allow us to be more in tune to preventing or minimizing these factors through diet and exercise.
An ongoing relationship with her birth family who (despite living across the country) has been able to be here for her first day of school, Halloween, a camping trip, and other special and normal events. We are going to her birth uncle’s wedding in June. Her birth grandparents were able to come visit us on her birthday once. We were able to allow her a chance to call her birth mom the night her first tooth came out. Next year, her first mom will be able to attend her baptism!!! How awesome is that!?!
Photos!!!! More stories than would ever have been recorded in letters. With in-person visits, or even over the phone, stories sometimes flow more freely than by letter. She has been able to hear from her first mom about her life in the womb, family stories, why her first mom chose us as parents and most importantly, how much she is loved.
And of course, we have benefitted, too. Her first mom is one of my closest friends. We have a relationship that is really special and very hard to explain. We are spiritual sisters and I love her dearly. Of course, there are times where we have to hold back our jealousies. I hate to admit it, but she has TONS more patience than I do and is INCREDIBLE with kids. I know that, had circumstances at the time been different, she would have made an AMAZING every day mom to our daughter. She made the best decision she could with the information she had at the time. That doesn’t make relinquishment easy. She has confided that she was hoping initially for a closed adoption so that she could shut out her grief and pain. But once she held our daughter, she committed herself to staying in touch for her sake. Every time we get together, I feel incredibly humbled that she chose us to parent our incredible daughter!