Triads and Tribulations

Paying a visit March 19, 2010

As adoptive parents in an open adoption it is important for us to keep up our end of the bargain.  We promised our children’s birthparents that we would come back for visits.  Unfortunately, we live 7 or so hours away and that is not always easy to do, but it is important to us and I feel it is important for our kids.

Recently, we had a visit with our children’s birthparents.  I will be the first to admit that I was apprehensive going there.  It’s not that I did not want to go, but rather that it was new territory.  It’s the uncertainty of the situation.  How will everyone handle it?  Will it be weird?  How will the kids handle it?  It was the first time we had seen them for a visit that was not related to the birth of a child.  It had also been 10 or so months since we had seen them and that’s a long time. 

From our perspective the visit was awesome.  I hope they feel the same.  We were welcomed by so many people including extended family.  Our children have an older sibling being parented by the birthparents.  The kids were able to play together and everyone seemed truly happy to see us and spend time with the kids.  It seemed for the most part relaxed and easy.  This is why I feel open adoption is important.  It gives our children that connection with their biological family.  There will hopefully never be uncertainty about where they came from.  They will be able to ask questions and see who they look like and where they were born.  How can it be bad to get love from two families – biological and adoptive?

Open adoptions are not new, but they are not publicized by TV and other media much.  The perception of the general population is that adoption is still “kicking it old school.”  You know the “closed, know nothing, never hear from the birthparents again” kind of adoption.  So much research has gone into adoptive relationships and all of it seems to point to the fact that open adoption is a good thing.  Before our visit, we had so many questions and comments from friends and family.  Either people were so curious about everything or they were so scared for us to go (like the kids would be snatched away or something).  I was so happy to report that our experience went so well.  There should be more movies/TV about this stuff and not the negative/sad stuff that is out there (watch for upcoming posts on some new great shows out there on MTV).

I don’t know how often we will be able to visit nor do I know how often they will want us to visit, but I feel content that visits will happen in the future as well.  Hopefully, the lines of communication will remain open and we will always have some connection.  Open adoption is an ever evolving thing.  It changes and morphs as you go through time.  Hopefully ours will pan out in a positive way.