Am I doing enough?

I am an adoptive mom to a beautiful 7-month old in an open adoption. When signing some of the final paperwork with the agency his birthmom chose to have a verbal contact agreement rather than written. I haven't really been able to get her to verbalize what she wants. I have her email address and a phone number, but she prefers contact through email. She added me as a friend on her facebook page so I'm taking that as a good sign.

I have been sending her a monthly email with all of the details that I can think of as to what the little fellow has accomplished that month. We also update our flickr page pretty regularly so that she can see pictures whenever she wants. Her pregnancy and adoption plan was kept hidden from her family and she lives with them.

Is the monthly email and flickr page enough? I hesitate to print pictures or make little keepsakes because I know she still wants to keep the secret from her family. I also get the impression that the idea of an open adoption is new and she feels it's not her place to "make demands" even though we've tried to make it clear that she can ask for a visit or anything any time that she wants and that we would welcome visits with her family if/when she chooses to tell them. I also know that she's going through her grieving process and I'm not privy to what she's thinking. We've gotten together twice so far, but because of the secrecy a physical get together requires covert operations with military precision (which make me feel icky, but that's a whole separate post). I had bought her a card for Mother's Day, but then had no way to get it to her. I guess that I should have sent her an email instead and now feel like a jerk for not doing so.

So I guess this is a two-part question -
1) Is there something else that I could/should be doing? Or should I continue to rely on her to tell me when she needs/wants more and not push it?

2) Should I continue to list every little detail in my monthly email or is that too much? What do others include in their regular letters?

Sorry for all of the rambling, it's still new and I'm trying to figure it all out and desperately trying not to muck things up in the process.

Why do we advocate for open adoption? What is the definition of a successful one?

I didn't set out to have either an open or closed adoption..when my dd's first mother was pregnant, I remember asking her if she had an idea of what kidn of contact she wanted, and she always said I don't know..but I felt a need to get a better idea, so she said for sure she would like pictures a lot the first year..

we ended up having in person visits once a month for the first year, and I was finding it difficult to maintain that from a pragmatic time perspective, and also an emotional/energy standpoint.

For the next 3 years we have been getting together pretty consistently about every 3 months..we used to email a lot more, but we are both busier..we always are sending each other those funny forwards about angels, etc.

One of the hardest things about having an open adoption is the lack of immediate support in the general community .. if something uncomfortable happens, I have learned I can't just tell any friend..myparents are supportive but my MIL is still weary of the whole concept, but has respected our choice. So, I have learned to deal with a certain amount of stress about it "looking like its not working"

In fact, I have a cousin who told my mom she would not consider adoption because of our situation. I have another cousin who adopted from Korea and thinks we are nuts. Its hard but I have grown from learning to be true to my self.

when people ask me "WHY" I can tell they assume that it is some "concession" we "agreed to" in the negotiation of our adoption, which is not what it was like at all.

I think my motivator was the desire for good kharma in the building of my family. Yes, its complicated and effortful to have a real relationship with my dd's birth family (as it is for them as well) but it feels so much LESS right to not continue contact..it just feels wrong.

Truthfully, I wonder at times if it does help birth families? or adoptive parents?

My gut is that its ultimately about honoring a child, and where their story began..and like all parents, we do our best.

The birthfather told my husband and I that he and the birthmother got the distinct impression from us that we were not comfortable with them or any contact from them. It, of course, hasn't stopped him or his parents... but it kinda opened my eyes to why the birthmother never contacts us, and rarely responds to e-mails.

So...that leaves me to this quandry...do I try to explain to her WHY we may have come across "guarded" or "uncomfortable" at first? Which, of course, would bring up the topic of the birthfather's parents and what they put us through for the first 18months of the adoption. Which I don't want to get into now...I already have in previous posts. She probably already suspects that his parents caused problems for us because she subtly tried to warn us before the birth of our daughter. I just don't want her to think we don't want communication from her...I actually would like to hear more from her.

Or...do I not bring this up at all and just remain deligent in my e-mails to her and continue to set up our annual visit, hoping that, in time, she will see that we are quite comfortable with her and her family.

I am pretty stressed out right now. I am a foster-mom of a 2 year old boy and am in the process of adopting him. Uniquely, the birthmom (her rights were terminated by the county) and I have forged a good relationship and we plan on keeping the adoption open. I guess I thought this would be easy but now that I feel like he is "mine" it is so hard for me to hear him call her "Mommy" and cry when she leaves. He also calls me "Mommy" and cries when I leave. I am getting so confused about my own feelings and trying to separate those from what is best for my son and also taking into account the BMoms feelings and it is all becoming an emotional bowl of spaghetti. My friends and family are no help. They try but they just don't get it. I am a single mom too, so I feel so confused about what is normal. I was committed to an open adoption and still am, I think. I just have a lot of concerns now that it has "started".

If you don't think I sound too crazy, can you offer advice? Is it healthy for my son to call us both "Mommy"? How can I possibly tell the woman who gave birth to him that she can't be called Mommy? I worry about the effect of the monthly visits on my son. He cries at the end of every one. I feel like he thinks his BMom is abandoning him every month! My friends say he is too young to be upset by that and that I am projecting my feelings onto him. I don't know.