How to Handle Open Adoption Even When the Birth Parent Chooses to Close It - Weekend Wisdom

Question: How do we handle an adoption that has been closed from the first mom’s end? We don’t even have a photo of her despite our request.

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Transcript

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.

Welcome to Creating a Family's Weekend Wisdom. I'm Tracy Whitney, the host for this
short discussion about open adoption. Today's question comes from Tabitha. I've
summarized it so that we can get right to the meat of her dilemma right away. She
asks us, how do I handle an adoption that has been closed from the first mom's
side of things? We don't even have a photo of her despite our requests. For
context, it will help our listeners to know that Tabitha and her husband were under
the impression and planning for an open adoption, at least to the extent of contact
via email, photos, or communication through the agency to start. However,
the birth mother has since shut that down and is no longer in communication, not
even with the agency. So Thank you, Tabitha, for sharing your story and reaching out
for help. We appreciate that this represents some vulnerability on your side of
things, and we want to acknowledge that. But we also want to say congratulations on
your recent adoption. I hope that you and your new little guy are settling in well
together and learning each other well and maybe even getting some sleep in the
process. So Let's start with kind of like a foundational premise that will help you
navigate your questions and help me navigate through this with you. The very first
important thing to remember is that even when there is no contact or even if there
is no contact right now, this relationship with your child's birth mother matters
profoundly. It matters to you or you wouldn't be asking. And you know that it
matters to your child now and down the road as he grows. You went into this
adoption, believing that it would be open at least to some extent, and you are
feeling frustrated that the door feels pretty firmly shut right now. You don't even
have a picture of her. And I understand that that can feel heartbreaking and
frustrating and confusing and deeply unsettling for what it might mean down the road
for your child. I get it and I'm sorry that is a challenging thing to sit with,
especially in these early days of also being sleep deprived and kind of overwhelmed
with the newness of all that has just happened in your life when you welcome this
little guy into your home. So let's settle that there first. like this season is a
lot of new, a lot of big, and a lot of hard. And it's okay to not have all the
answers. It's okay not to know what the next step is. It's okay to just focus on
his precious little face and meet in all his little needs and taking care of him
right now. So I hope that kind of takes off some of the pressure. But then we can
talk about how this might have happened, where to go from here and that kind of
stuff next. Open adoption exists on a spectrum, and one of the most brutal truths
is that openness cannot be enforced from either side of the relationship. Birth
parents can and often do step back, sometimes just a little bit, sometimes
completely, even when they had shared an expectation with you that there would be
some openness moving forward. And it's good to know that this isn't really about
rejecting the child. It's not about rejecting you as the adoptive family more often,
most often. It's about them trying to grapple with their own grief and their pain,
their confusion, their fear about the future, or just trying to heal through both
the birth process and the relinquishment process. They just may not have the capacity
right now to stay connected right now. The period after placement can feel really
lonely and isolating and overwhelming. And sometimes they cope with that by pulling
away. It's good to understand that this is really more about her capacity,
not her as a person, and it's not about you or your worth or your child's worth
or that she's regretting her decision, although she may be. It's really just about
her capacity to cope with what's going on right now. That can help kind of soften
what might feel pretty personal to you right now and help you recognize that it's
really not personal. It's just about her capacity right now. And I keep saying right
now because, again, on that spectrum of openness, it can be openness where there's
in -person visits and connection and relationship ongoing and sustaining for both of
you or none at all and that spectrum is really wide. But it's important to remember
that the timeline of it is also on a spectrum. So right now there's no openness.
It may open up later as she develops her own capacity and as her life circumstances
change. So you've already taken kind of that essential step by requesting
communication through your agency. And it's important to make sure that the agency
knows that that openness and that willingness to communicate is always going to be
there. But on that, there's a few other things that you could consider. Number one,
keep the door open. So this would be physically keeping yourselves open to contact,
but also mentally and emotionally,
remaining open -hearted, open -minded, like that spirit of openness, even if no one is
willing or interested in walking through it right now. So again, that means letting
your agency know that you are still open to contact. It also might be a little bit
proactive on your part where you're continuing to send contact to the agency, sending
updates, sending photos, sending little video clips, unless the agency tells you
otherwise. The second thing to remember is to not close the relationship on your
child's behalf. So even if contact isn't happening right now, again, keeping that
mental, emotional capacity of openness and then giving some practical feet to it
gives your child more options later as they grow and as they start to own this
relationship and own their story. It also means number three that you probably need
to shift your goals. Shifting your goals might mean kind of a shifting of
expectation or a shifting of mentality that says, right now, open -activness is not
possible, but I would like to mentally, emotionally, and physically prepare and
preserve the possibility of openness. I'm saying these things kind of in a one,
two, three, but they're not really steps. They're just all interwoven ways to work
inside of yourself through the issues that you're feeling and create an openness of
spirit, openness of mind that allows you to shift and deal with your expectations as
time goes on. At the heart of the dilemma that you're feeling about this
relationship that you expected to be open and is now closed is this child.
And everything that you should do should be about what is best for this child in
this season of his life. So as he grows, his questions will grow.
And you have questions galore, but he will have more. And he will have them in
different seasons of his life kind of expressed to you in different ways. Like when
he starts thinking and talking about his adoption and you start laying the foundation
for how to talk about adoption, his questions might be like, what does she look
like? But then they might grow into, do I look like her? Or who do I look like?
It might start with your mommy, you know, decided she couldn't be a parent right
now. And it might morph into, well, then why was I placed? Why couldn't she take
care of me right now? It might develop into, does she think about me? Does she
love me? Does she care about me at all? Even without contact, the way that you
hold space for all these questions now and later will send a powerful message to
your little guy. Experts who work with adoptees always emphasize that children do
best when, number one, their birth parents are spoken about with respect and
compassion. Number Two, when their curiosity about their story is welcomed and not
feared. And number three, when the adults make it clear that the connection is not
dangerous or forbidden and that curiosity about that connection is always, again,
welcomed, not feared. So you are going to have to figure out how to kind of
practically live those things out and practicing starting now,
even when he can't understand what you're talking about, start talking about it now
to get yourself comfortable with and familiar with the language around this adoption
story. So you can start by talking about we don't have contact right now,
but that doesn't mean it won't change. You could say your first mom is really
important to us, even if she isn't part of our daily story. You could say things
like, if you want to know more, mommy and daddy will help you figure that out.
He's too little now, again, to understand all of this, but your efforts to practice
this language and get comfortable with this language and develop that heart intention
to always be open to his questions and to maybe contact with her someday will help
you be prepared when he does ask questions. It will help you be prepared if she
does reach out later and say, hey, you know, I'm doing okay now and I'd really
like to have a relationship. It lays the foundation for his identity to thrive even
without direct contact. And I want to be faithful to point out in the midst of all
of this that it's okay to admit that this is hard for you.
It's okay to say to your partner or to your therapist or whoever that you're
struggling with your expectations of openness and now it's closed.
Many adoptive parents grieve the loss of openness that they had hoped for or that
they had expected, not because they need it necessarily, but because they really
wanted it for At any time we want something for our children and that thing doesn't
come to pass, it's hard for a parent's heart to grapple with. And there's lots of
extra layers and nuance to this kind of hard. Processing all of those feelings about
the hard with support, again, with a counselor, with a trusted friend or other
adoptive parent or a therapist, somebody who's adoption competent, somebody who's got
some good life experience under their belt, those are things that can help you cope
with how you're feeling right now and then develop tools to navigate it later as
your son grows. I would be remiss if I don't point you towards hope,
however, because closed now doesn't mean closed forever. It just does not have to
mean that. And it might not be the openness that you wanted. And it might not be
the openness you wanted right now, but it doesn't have to stay like that forever.
So it's important to remember that many birth parents reach out to the agency or
directly to the adoptive parents if they have that contact information after they've
had time to develop some coping skills or, you know, make peace with their choices
or heal and come to this relationship with greater levels of confidence and emotional
stability and an intention to support and serve the child well. When that happens,
our kids benefit enormously if we can say truthfully, we always believed that this
relationship mattered and if we can welcome that contact on their behalf. So keeping
photos and letters and updates ready, even if the agency doesn't want them right
now, even if you don't know where to send them, kind of keeping them in a special
box or a video file on your computer, those are ways of honoring that possibility
of openness and honoring how important his story is to your family. So the kind of
big takeaway from this would be that even without current contact, you can parent
your little guy as if this relationship with his birth mother matters because it
does. When you stay open to openness, you're creating emotional safety and honesty
and trust. You're giving him a stable foundation from which to express his own
curiosity and his own needs later as he grows. And those are gifts that you can
give your child now that will carry him for a lifetime, you know, bolstering his
identity, even in the absence of specific information, is a treasure for him for as
he grows and grapples with all of his identity and all of his story. I really
appreciate, Tabitha, that you reached out and asked this question. It does represent
some vulnerability on your part, and I know that it might be hard to grapple with
some of this stuff right now. So I'm grateful that you asked for help. And I hope
that the perspective I shared helps you and helps your husband as you grapple with
these big questions. Listeners, if these thoughts and suggestions resonated with you
as well, we would love to hear from you. We want to know what's your adoption
story like. You can leave us a comment in the show notes. You can leave a rating
or a review, or you can send your own questions to info at creatingafamily .org with
weekend wisdom in the subject line. I look forward to talking to you next week,
and I hope that you have a great week in the meantime. Thanks for listening.