What Happens Next?

Well once we are approved as adoptive parents we create a profile (you may also have heard this called a Dear Birthmother letter) that is shown to pregnant women who want to place their children for adoption (we've already started our profile).
This is considered a semi open adoption. Now that term scares a lot of people. I know it scared us at first! All we could think about is adopting a child and then the birth mother showing up at our door at all hours of the night!

Open Adoption
There a several levels of openness in adoption these days. There are Open Adoptions, SEMI Open adoptions and closed adoptions (closed adoptions are not as popular as they used to be)

Open Adoptions are basically situations where parents adopt and the child sees it's birth parent(s) quiet often and they maintain a relationship. Some Birthparents and adoptive parents stay in contact talk on the phone before and after the birth etc.

We have agreed to a SEMI Open Adoption.
A semi open adoption is where we create a profile that includes pictures of us, and a story about our life and why we want to adopt, what kind of parents we plan to be etc. and have a birthmother look at our profile and choose us. We have also agreed to meet with the birth mother and answer any questions she may have. This meeting takes place in the company of a social worker. The social worker is there to insure that everything is on a first name basis and no personal identifying information is exchanged beyond the 1st names.
We have also agreed to work with parents who would like to receive pictures of the child, every few months. The pictures are sent to the AGENCY and then the AGENCY forwards them to the mother.
This is all to insure that no one's knocking on anyone's door in the middle of the night. That includes adoptive parents from what I hear colic can cause a parent to want to ship their baby somewhere!

So there is a little lesson on open adoption. It's not done like in the old days where mothers never knew who adopted their child and what ever became of them. In some cases birth mothers don't want to meet with the adoptive parents though. We don't mind meeting with the birth parent(s). We were leary about it. But we thought that it would be a wonderful story to one day tell our child that he/she was not left on a door step. He/she had a mother who knew she could not parent, so she CHOSE us to be their parents.

That leads us to another popular question that people ask. When do you tell your child he/she is adopted? Well from what we have been learning people tell there children earlier these days. It has proven to be a very negative experience when adopted children find out from family members by "mistake" or adopted adults find out by accident or inadvertently. It causes children to carry a sense of shame and of not being wanted. When things are kept secret children to think that it is something bad. Agencies and adoption professionals encourage parents to discuss adoption with children early so that is a very positive experience and simply a fact of life and not a secret. There is not particular set age for "telling" children. You just have to know when your child is ready.

I think that is enough for today.