Common Fears and Facts about Open Adoption

Throughout the process, A Child's Waiting adoption agency offers support and guidance to everyone involved in open adoption. Generally, when an adoptive family is educated about what open adoption means and how it can benefit the child, they are open to the relationship. Some families who do not understand the meaning of open adoption report fears about having the birth parents as a part of their lives.

At A Child's Waiting adoption agency, we try to educate both the adoptive family and birth family by providing open adoption information and facts about what options they have so everyone involved can feel comfortable. In most cases, after an adoptive family interacts with a birth parent, they soon realize that their fears were unwarranted and actually have a higher level of satisfaction with their adoption.

Adoptive parents need to realize that no matter where or at what age you adopt a child, you will, as adoptive parents, need to deal with your child's birth family whether you know the birth family or not. The birth family is a part of who your child is, and will become. Open adoption allows you to know your child better by knowing his birth family.

Another common feeling that new adoptive parents state prior to education is that they are fearful that the birthmother will change her mind and try to come back for the baby in the future. In reality, birth parents are happy with their decision for placement because they can see that the baby is happy.

Open adoption is a life long process that grows and changes over time. Some adoptive families may initially fear that there will be no boundaries in the relationship and that the birth family will try to take on the parenting role. As an open adoption agency, we help the adoptive parents and birthparents implement an agreement about what everyone is comfortable with prior to the child's placement. It recognizes what everyone's roles will be in the child's life and if needed, mediation by our adoption staff is available throughout the child's life. This individualized plan also will offer adoption information and guidelines on the number of on-going visits as well as how often letters, pictures, emails, phone calls, etc, are to occur. Birth parents put a great deal of thought and planning into identifying an adoptive family for their child and they do not want to do anything to upset the plan that they have set for the child's life.

Some potential adoptive parents who do not understand open adoption may fear that open adoption will cause confusion for the child. If you think about your own life as a child, were you confused about whom your mother and father were when you were around a spoiling Aunt or loving Grandmother? Those individuals have a biological connection to you but there was never a time that you thought they were your parents. Your real parents are the people who are with you day in and day out, pick you up when you fall, sit with you when your sick, and support you on a daily basis. In an open adoption, the birthmother's role is to support the adoptive parents as the child's parents. The birthmother does not compete with the adoptive parents. The roles of adoptive parents and birth parents are very clearly defined simply by the nature and dynamic of everyday life.

As the child grows older, the roles of the adoptive family and birth parents will change. Some adoptive families fear that the child will want to go and live with the birth family. This is unlikely to happen when children know their birthparents. They have no unrealistic fantasies about their birthparents. Children of open adoption bond with their adoptive parents just as strongly as children who are raised by their biological parents. In an open adoption, the child will always have a relationship with the birth family.