Open adoption questions posted by O Solo Mama

These questions were posted on another blog by O solo Mama.  I'm going to answer these questions completely honestly.  I'm sure that it will rub some people the wrong way but I need to be true to myself and how I really feel.  Here are the original questions

1. If open adoption is so great, why do so many people suck at it? By this I mean, not honouring commitments, closing the adoption, telling the other family they’re not “doing this thing” correctly or playing the “for the sake of the child” card?
Why do people suck at it?  I don't think people come in realizing that adoption is a lifetime commitment to the natural parents and the child.  You don't just take on a new child but there whole family too.  Just like in a marriage you don't just marry one person but bring their whole family into your own.  You can't expect the natural parents to go away after a certain amount of time, I know this is sometimes expected.  The commitment you made to adopt a child is the commitment you keep for the rest of your life.  I am sure it is hard to realize that your decision to adopt, what made you a parent, tore apart another family. I'm sure it is hard to see the pain and hurt in the natural families eyes.  And there is also insecurity on the adoptive parents.  Having the natural parents around reiterates that the child has other loving parents.  That the child will never fully be just part of the adoptive family.  That the child has another family also that loves them unconditionally.  It has to bring the insecurities out.  It forces you to realize that you are still infertile and are raising someone elses child.

2. From the standpoint of first parents, open adoption sounds like something that could prolong suffering. Could this suffering potentially outweigh the good of knowing where your child is? Who helps the first parent?
Open adoption does not prolong suffering.  Live for years not knowing what your child looks like, what their personality is like, what their name is.  That is literally living in Hell.  Live for years not knowing if your child is happy, sad, hurt, or even alive.  Live for years feeling like something is deeply wrong with your child but not having any contact for years to verify these feelings or to ease the feelings.  That is what it is like to live in a closed adoption.  Seeing your child and having contact while not easy at any level is less painful.  It's important for the child to fully know their natural parents.

Who helps the first parent?  I have found I have had to seek help myself the agency did not do anything to help.  I would not go to the agency I placed with for help.  They give half truths about adoption and do not acknowledge the true pain in adoption.  I have read books, seeked supportive people, reading blogs have helped.  Being involved with search and reunion groups helps. 

If I had real help during my pregnancy there would be no need for adoptive parents.  If I wasn't going to LDSFS to look at "all" of my options I would have kept.  If I wasn't called a birthmom weekly for months, if I wasn't repeatedly told that I was carrying a child for a worthy family, if I did not believe those lies and had true support I would have kept.   There would not have been a need for adoptive parents.  What most natural moms don't realize is when you have a child you are insecure and scared.  I felt unprepared for all of my kids to come into this world.  The questions the agency asks about financial well being, how are you going to provide everything including a college education.  I still can't answer all of them.  I do not have a college fund ready to go to cover four years of college for each child, some months are still very hard financially.  Does that mean I should place all of my children?

3. I’m guessing kids are not hung up on how many relatives they have. Tell me that the thing that hangs up the public all the time about open adoption and other unconventional relationships—two mommies, two daddies, three, four, parents—is the least of your worries because it seems to me it is.
Our society is very uncomfortable with multiple parents especially with natural parents.  We are supposed to go away and not point out our loss and pain.  To acknowledge us as parents in some peoples eyes makes adoptive parents not the "real" parents.  Adoption is a legal way to get a child it is not natural.  Acknowledging that children have multiple parents is the truth.  Just because a child has 4 parents when there are step parents involved does not change the facts that they can love all of 4 their parents.  I have 4 children, I do not love one child more than the others.  Each take a separate spot in my heart.  Each of them are individual and different. 

4. Do you ever feel like you should give this child back? Does the thought ever seize you totally as you watch your child with her bio-family: “ooops?” (OR for f-parents: Do you ever feel as though you need to take this child back? That nothing is stopping you beside an agreement that feels false? Does that feeling go away?)
This is the absolute hardest question.  To be honest to myself is not politically correct.  If I could do things over would I?   Absolutely I would have never placed her.  I think that is such a huge mistake in my life and hers.  When she is with me, her siblings, and my husband it is natural and feels how things should be.  Alyssa is too old to "take back"  it is now her choice to decide who she wants a relationship with.  Do I want to take her back, truthfully the answer is yes. 

5. How do children ever cope with knowing they could not be kept? When they see their natural parents having more kids, what do they think? Who helps the child in this situation? Both sets of parents?
I think we both help with this situation.  Both parents have to respond to this.  I do not know how the adoptee feels and I always was worried how Alyssa would feel especially since I was unmarried when I got pregnant with Alex and they are only 2 years apart.  She could answer this question much better than I.  I'm sure there was hurt for me to have another child so fast.  She says there wasn't but I'm sure there had to be. I can't really imagine she wasn't ever hurt by that.

6. Can you say comfortably that some surrendering mothers could not cope with an open adoption or do you think that it should always be the standard?
I do not know any natural moms could not deal with an open adoption.  I think it is harder on the adoptive parents.  Fully open adoption should be the standard.  I'm talking more than just pictures and letters but a true relationship.  I'm talking about an extension to the family.


7. Is there ever a reason (aside from extreme/illegal behaviours) to close an adoption totally?
No simply absolutely no.  Alyssa's biological father is a pedophile.   I see in that situation where the child can be in danger than to the 1 person the adoption should be closed but not to the rest of the family.  Alyssa does have a relationship with her bio dad through letters since he is in jail.  Alyssa is friends with her grandfather and aunt(on her dads side) through facebook.  She also is in contact with her uncle and they text each other.  He has helped her find some of her family history.  I'm sure having contact with her dads family helps her find herself in ways she didn't know was missing.  I know seeing pictures of her dad's family has helped.  She understands better where she comes from.  I truly can not wait til she meets her dad's family in person.