Open Adoption: A True Life Experience, Page 2
Four-and-one-half years following the birth of our daughter, we were privileged to be chosen by another birthmother to parent our son, Timothy. His birthmother and grandmother knew immediately that they wanted a truly "open" adoption, including in-person visits, not only to stay in touch, but to have an ongoing relationship with us and the child.
Last year when he was three, his birthmother was married in a beautiful formal wedding, and Timmy was in the wedding party. Our whole family were invited guests. Our adoption of Timothy did not replace birth family; it simply extended our definition of family.
In a closed adoption where there is no possibility of contact with an adopted child's birth family, the child faces the possibility of a profound loss that he will cope with for the rest of his life. (See Being Adopted . . . The Lifelong Search for Self, by David M. Brodzinsky, Ph.D., Marshall D. Schechter, M.D., and Robin Marantz Henig, Doubleday, 1992) Part of our job as adoptive parents is to help the child deal with his or her loss. This loss is not imagined; it is about actual people missing from his or her life. Grieving almost always follows loss. It may take the form of anger, depression, despair, helplessness or hopelessness. It can be blocked or delayed, but it is the normal and healthy response to experiencing a loss.
As adoptive parents armed with all this information and involved in one very successful open "kinship" adoption, we found ourselves in a slight predicament. Sibling rivalry is alive and well in all families, and adoptive families are no exception. We have discovered that the sibling participating in an open adoption can be the object of the jealousy of a sibling without access to her birth family. And so, to pick up where I left off in Elizabeth's story, at about the time she was seven years old, we began noticing a subtle change in her personality. She seemed to be unusually and frequently unhappy, moody, sullen and quiet. It finally dawned on us that this could be adoption-related loss and grieving behavior. She had a brother who frequently and regularly saw his entire birth family, birthmom, grandparents, great-grandparents, uncles. They treated her as a member of their family too, but they were not HER relatives, they were Timmy's.
We began the process of further opening her adoption. Through her birth grandfather, we contacted her birthmother and a visit was finally arranged. In November, 1993, Elizabeth met Candy for the first time since birth. We had a fantastic weekend and, of course, took lots of pictures. This one visit had an immediate, visible, positive effect on Elizabeth's attitude. She has become much more cheerful and much less negative.
© Nanci R Worcester
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