First time here. Looking for suggestions. Any help would be appreciated.
We adopted our son 9 yrs ago. At the time our son was born, we offered to have an open adoption and have as much or little contact w/ the birthmom as she wanted. She did not want to meet us. She said she did not want to have an open adoption. We recieved a call from our lawyer last week letting us know that our son’s birthmom would like a letter knowing how our son is doing. After not hearing from her for 9 years it brings up all sorts of emotions. This was a domestic adoption. The birthmom lives two or three towns away, 20-30 minutes away at the most.
Any thoughts on how to address her in her letter? Or to talk about “our” son? Any thoughts on how to refer to our son. Because she is so close, we are nervous about using his first name and sending picture.
Any thoughts on how to handle this situation.
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Heres advice from a real life firstmom.
Write as much as you can, vagueness is always frustrating. Write as you would to your sister, cousin, former classmate, etc. Write as you would to an other average person about everything you can tell her. Include pictures, good ones, and yes, a phone call from your son to her would likely make her very very very happy.
I have always wanted contact and have had a limited amount of it. I have learned that some firstmoms find it hard to know about an adoptive parents parenting process being that they are reminded how much they have really lost. I think this is because many of these firstmom that do not want contact are afraid that they could not have contact and yet not assume the role of parenting, something they are trying to give to the adoptive parents.
I also think that this first mom might have finally decided to try and overcome her fears in contacting you. After so much time, I have read that many first moms feel powerless and at the mercy of adoptive parents to provide even the smallest glimpse into their(your) childs life.
I know you wanted to give your sons first mom the chance to know everything at the beginning, but obviously, she was not ready to know. Now she is, if she is really reaching out of her own accord, she probably wants to know everything you can tell her and more.
Being that your son is at a age where he can have a say in all this, I would also ask for his input. If he is not willing to talk to her on phone, I wouldn’t *make* him do anything, of course.
I’m a birthmom. I think the danger in using “our” to talk about your son is that on paper, if you aren’t careful, it can sound like you are saying “my spouse’s and mine, not yours!” I’d use his name, honestly: “Robert is playing Little League this year; he’s a dynamite first baseman” etc. I’d include a couple of pictures, perhaps from different ages, if you have some. I wouldn’t probably spend time in the letter thanking her, because that can come across pretty weird–but I would probably ask her, if she was willing, to write back and tell me about herself–then I’d be able to say “Oh, Robert does that same thing!” which she might be interested in hearing. (I’ve just named your son Robert for convenience here, I hope you don’t mind.
) If you’re still interested in more openness, mention that; tell her that you’d love to meet her, or take her out to dinner, or whatever feels right for your situation. If Robert is interested, you could have him write a short letter to her and include that, as well. Good luck!
To me, this is easy, write her–tell her everything. Tell her how much you love your son, how thankful you are that he is in your life, how much you love her for having him–knowing that adoption was not an easy choice. Try to get to know her. Ask her to write back. Start a relationship. Ask her out to lunch or dinner. Have her over for lunch or dinner and to play with your son. This relationship is nothing to fear. She may not want anything more than just an update right now. But, me, personally, I would push for more. My daughter’s birthmom wanted a closed adoption and we kept working our way into her life. Helped her feel confident to love her daughter–to show that love in front of us. Now we have a beautiful relationship and I cannot even imagine that if she chose a different family. . . that they may have let that go. To think about what they would miss makes me so sad. Let her love your son. Let your son love her. He will love you even more for that. All three of our children’s birthmoms come to our house. It is awesome. Not all three situations are picture perfect, but they all love their children as much as I love them too! I also love them, for who they are and my kids love each and every one of them to death. AND it has not always been easy. . . nothing ever so special ever does come easy. So, I encourage you to write her and tell her everything and to love her for who she is. Start there and see where it may go! You will probably wish you would have written her sooner!
I’m an adoptive mother with an open adoption and I think you should be cautious about this. I strongly believe in open adoption, but you really have to know your birthmother before sharing too openly with her. You should send your communication through the lawyer (and not email as she will then have a means of communication) and not share identifying information yet. I find it amazing that I never ever find any of the negative experiences online but they do happen.
Our first adoption was a semi-open agreement that opened after a month. On the advice of our agency and social worker, we shared our identifying information and an email adress the first time that our birthmother requested it. They said ‘she’s a birthmom, she loves her child and just wants to know his name, where he lives. What harm is there in that? She needs this to be emotionally healthy going forward, to help her deal with this loss. What harm is there is letting her love her son?”. Well, our birthmother would email us weekly. She would say inappropriate things and ask questions to engage us in more conversation than our contact agreement stated. Within 6 months she was on our doorstep without warning. She lives 2 hours away from us and for the first year of our sons life, she was constantly showing up at our house, at the park, in various places in our hometown. I had hang-up phone calls every single day for a year. My husband & I gave it the best try that we could. We visited with her and talked to her in great length about boundaries and expectation. We had so much more contact than our agreement stated and in the end she actually phoned a lawyer saying that we hadn’t been open enough. Which ended everything as after one meeting with all of us in the lawyers office, he told her she had no rights and that we had gone above and beyond.
We were lucky as our son is not old enough to remember this. My cousins have an open adoption with their daughters birthmother. And last year, when their daughter was 14 years old, her birthmother just disappeared. This young girl is devastated. After coming to terms with being relinquished but still having this person in her life (because that IS a struggle for adoptees), she suddenly disappears. This is life changing moment for this girl, and not in a positive way. She has been councelling for months now and is not recovering.
I would be cautious about what you say to this birthmom. Letting her know that your son is alive and doing great is one thing, but sharing too much is another. Getting in touch with your sons birthmother could certainly be something wonderful. And if it is, you’ll have lots of time to get to know eachother and share stories then. All three post above say to open your heart to this but nobody ever talks about the other side, and there is one.
personally, I don’t think that OP sons first mom is the type to stalk her, like the one you describe. I mean, she didn’t try and communicate, or anything… for almost a decade!!
I think that limiting info would only devastate this first mom. Sure, you could leave out idenifing info if things felt a little uneasy. I mean, I am sure OP that you know things about your sons first mom and being that she is so physically close and that she has never tried to contact you before is a sign that she respects your parenthood.
OP, I hope that you try and tell her as much about your son’s everyday life as possible, his likes, dislikes, events that he enjoyed, events that he didn’t. How the family dynamic is between you all, that kind of thing.
I have to say, that even though I have been figuratively tempted to ‘show up’ in my own sons world, because I know exactly where he lives, goes to church, everything. I could move there, and make myself a part of his adoptive familys life. I know though that it would be inappropriate and counter-productive.
The reason I am even imagining anything like that is because I don’t feel like I know ‘enough’ about my son. Every time I learn more though, it gives me a sense of peace and strength to live my own life, right where I am.
I very much respect the birthmoms here who are giving you the advice to share as much as you can. Unfortunately, like Miranda, we have had a negative experience with our son’s first family by providing too much information in an effort to be kind. We were following the advice of their social worker and our attorney to try to help them by communicating as much as possible and sharing contact information. Neither the birth mother or birth father have shown up on our doorstep yet, but the birth father has tried to call my husband at work to threaten us with a lawsuit after we posted the poem “Legacy of an Adopted Child” on our personal family website, which we had allowed them access to. The birth mother used to email me daily and get very upset if I didn’t respond ASAP- this has slowed down, thankfully. Now, our attorney has advised us to back way off (tough to do after-the-fact) and our social worker has flat out advised us not to share any more information outside the once-a-year email with photos and the annual visit. He is very concerned that they may actually try to snatch our child and has advised us not to share any information about our routines, where we go, etc.! Admittedly, we have an extremely unusual situation, but I wanted to echo Miranda’s words of caution. I very much hope and expect that you have a different experience. My advice: start slowly and build on your communications as your relationship- and your trust- grow.