I got an email from an old friend yesterday and asked her if I could share it with my readers.
"Being adopted myself, I will urge that one idea be considered -- that if you CAN have the kind where the youngster knows both his/her adoptive parents and his/her birth parents, it might be cheering for all concerned. NOT knowing, as one does not when it happened in the Napoleonic code state of Louisiana in 1954, has been something of a lifelong, ummmmm, sense of something missing. Just knowing, as I do, that my mother, 26, was working on her master's degree in library science at a southern university when she fell in love with a married chemical engineer, 25, is NOT SUFFICIENT to fill the hole an ex-newspaper editor feels in the "background" for the story! I felt very much loved by my adopted family and their extended families, but there was this hole in my self-knowledge....."
Before this email, I was totally against an open adoption (for selfish reasons), now I am willing to consider it, for the future of our child. (Oh! did I say "our child"?)
Thank you my dear Lynn. I wish you luck in your search for your birth parents.
Recent Placement--So Hard. So Wonderful.
2 years ago
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2 comments:
I felt the same way about wanting a closed adoption for awhile. But we went to a seminar at an open adoption agency and they brought in a couple who has adopted twice. They talked about the issues, the problems, and how much they gain from it. I don't want a fully open adoption now, but I am willing to do yearly visits and letters with pictures.
Hindsight is always 20/20. If I knew then what I know now, I totally would have done an open adoption. I worry for my son's first mother. One day, when Dylan is old enough to understand, I hope he will decide to find her.
After we started the adoption process we discovered the "anti adoption movement".
While heartbreaking, it is something I think every adoptive parent should try to understand. Like any fringe movement, many people in their group come off as being completely off the hook so the real reasons behind their feelings are often lost. If you take the time to read between the lines, you will see they have some valid points.
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