Before I go on to address my feelings of guilt from the last post, I wanted to answer a comment left by Heather and give a bit of background in case you missed it.

First the comment:

Just curious - how was the frequency of visits established? Is it something that developed over time or was it actually discussed?

In my situation, I... more

We’ve got a visit with K’s birth mom tomorrow, and then another visit when she comes to our home for K’s third birthday the following week.

Part of me likes the visits, and another part of me wants the visits to slow way down to just a few times per year.

If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know that K was taken from birth mom and put into foster care because of mental illness. We adopted K after having her from almost birth. In the last three years birth mom has stabilized on medications and is bringing up her second daughter pretty well….. even... more

Dr. G wrote a great thought provoking post about open adoptions that close over on her blog.

I’m going to quote her blog, and then post my comment below, and then comment some more.

From Dr. G:

I did not even know that an adoptive parent could close an open adoption with what sounds like relative ease. Am I to understand that an open adoption is only open for as long as the adoptive parents want it to remain open? Are there any legal safeguards for the first parents who enter into an open adoption arrangement? Can first parents "refuse"... more

We had a visit with K’s birth mom today.

I always want to write about our visits, but I never know what to say.

B mom is doing great. Her daughter, about ten months old now, is doing all the age appropriate things like crawling and sitting up and standing a bit. I'm glad, although I suspect hearing loss or lack of interest in the baby hearing and paying attention to sounds. She saw the doctor yesterday and they say everything is fine. Only time will tell.

Our... more

continued from previous....

I love K’s birth mom. She is a very sweet girl trying her best. And compared to some of the other moms, does a great job of raising her second child – K’s half bio-sister.

Open adoption can mean a lot of things to different people. Open basically means... more

There is a lot of talk about open adoption in blogland right now, (and more posts here). These links have been written by birth moms and I don't agree with everything written, but that's ok. I’m not an expert in open, or closed, adoptions, but I have my experience, and that makes me an expert in our situation.

One of the posts by ... more

K’s birth mom called. "I have some news." she said.

"Yes....?"

"I don’t want to discuss it over the phone. Can we meet tomorrow?"

(Oh my, what could this be? Can I come right over right now?)

"Yes, tomorrow is good."

My stomach is in knots.

What could it be?

I never knew I’d love being a mom. I wish someone would have told me how great it was. You’d think somehow in my forty-four years I’d have gotten a clue that motherhood would be fun, but it took being a foster parent, and new mom at forty-four to discover the joy for myself.

We had nine legal-risk foster-adopt children who all went home to birth family. Some stayed as little as three days, some as long as seven months. We loved them all, but didn’t have an opportunity to adopt any of them.

And then out of the blue, we got our little girl. Only thirty days old,... more

One of the things you have to think about in foster – adopt is an open adoption. With some foster adoptions, you already know the birth parents or some of the birth family. Perhaps you’ve been taking the child to visits with their birth mom – perhaps even for reconciliation or reunification.

If the children are older, they may know where the parents live, or how to reach them. They may have court mandated phone calls.

After adoption, it is up to you how much contact you want to have.

I’ve been reading a bit about open adoptions. There are many schools of thought as to what... more

We are taking K’s bmom out for dinner tonight. We haven’t spoken for almost two months, except to set up this date, and I never received a reply to my letter about her open adoption questions. I’m a bit nervous about it, even though I’m the one in charge. In my mind I imagine she might be a bit nervous as well. I don’t think she knows quite how to interact with us, or with K, and well, actually, I don’t really know what is ‘correct’ either.

K seems to be the only one perfectly clear on this... more