Our Open Adoption Experience

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Our Open Adoption Experience

My wife and I have a 2 1/2 yr old that we adopted as a newborn. It was a very touching and positive experience for us. I would like to share it with you. Please bear with this long story. I just didn't want to cut anything out!

We had been trying for several years to have a child with no luck. I was very interested in adopting but my wife felt that until we had exhausted all (affordable) avenues of treatments she wasn't interested in adopting. She did make a point of telling people that if they knew of any "situations" please let us know. Networking is, I believe, the most valuable way of finding birthparents.

I had made my own effort to start the home study with the hope my wife would go along. I did all the initial paperwork and finally told her that we needed to start the interviews with the social worker. She told me, "STOP PUSHING ME! I'm not ready to adopt!" That hit me like a ton of bricks. I wanted a child. I was approaching 40 yrs old and the agencies already told us that they wouldn't work with us because the waiting list was several years and I would be too old. My wife had already undergone 13 unsucessful inseminations and countless painful shots of Pergonal and Metrodin (infertility drugs), and Progesterone (hormone also administered through injection). That wasn't enough trying for her. She was trying to work out how we could afford an In Vitro procedure. It could be several more years until she was ready to adopt and then we would just FIRST start looking for a child which could take several more years!

Then one day she called me from work and said she got a call from a work acquaintance named "Jim." Jim was in the process of a foreign adoption when he got a call from his minister that there was a pregnant teenager he heard of on the other side of town that wanted to place her baby for adoption. My wife had told Jim about our desires about adopting (even though she really wasn't THAT interested). He passed the opportunity on to us!!

My wife asked if I was interested and I said, "YES!!!!!" We had to work through her minister. We called him and after a brief conversation we met the next the night at his church. We learned that the girl ("Beth") was 16 yrs old. Her father, an abusive alcoholic, had sexually abused her, gone to jail for it and committed suicide after getting out of jail. She then met a boy and got pregnant. She waited 5 months before telling anyone so she wouldn't get pressured into an abortion. She had regular prenatal care....no drugs or smoking. She was very careful with the baby.

We finally met Beth and her boyfriend a week later at the Church. Beth wouldn't even look at us and barely spoke to us. Her boyfriend did all the talking. She looked down at the floor, spoke in whispers, and looked very very angry. It was probably more embarrassment than anger.

I felt that she needed some moral support, so I wrote her a long letter after the meeting telling her how much my wife and I had enjoyed meeting her. I said it was very scary for us to meet her because we wanted a family so badly and she had the power to decide if we would be good enough to be the parents of her child. I also said that I admired her for her decision to place the baby....that many other women would have taken a different path. I told her how we had something in common in that our bodies betrayed us. Her body betrayed her in that she got pregnant when that was the last thing she wanted and needed at this point in her life, and that my wife's body betrayed her in that she couldn't get pregnant when that was the thing she wanted most in life. The letter really seemed to make a difference because the next time we met she was very friendly and said what a sweet letter it was.

We met once more before the birth at the church with the social worker. It is required by our state law that a simultaneous meeting take place between the birthparents and the adoptive parents. The social worker had to make sure that the birth parents understood what was involved in adoption and what would happen in court. They needed to know that once the adoption is final, that means that we would be the legal parents and they would have no rights to the child. They had to sign papers documenting that they were informed of the ramifications of the adoption and they were also informed of other options that were available to them other than placing the baby with us (They could place the baby with an agency, another couple or other family). We also discussed whether there would be any contact after the birth. Beth said she wanted a hospital picture, but nothing else. She said she didn't want any contact after the birth.

A few weeks later, at 11:30pm we got a call from her minister. "It's time; we're at the hospital!" It was two weeks early! We rushed over to the hospital and spent the night in the waiting room with Beth's mom, sister, and brother, and the birthfather's parents. We also went back and forth to the birthing room to see Beth. It was a little uncomfortable for us in the waiting room. What do you say to these birth grandparents? It would have been their first grandchild. I felt like we were taking a child from them!

On top of all that, my wife went outside and was crying. She didn't think she could go through with the adoption. She said she didn't think she could bond with another person's child. I did the best I could to comfort her (and not shake her, silly!). At first my fear was the birth parents would change their mind.....now it was fear my WIFE would change her mind.

Finally, the next afternoon, Beth gave birth! After the baby was cleaned up, we went to the birthing room. Beth looked at my wife and said, "Are you ready to be a mom?" Her mom and sister were there, as well as her boyfriend and his mom. We all hugged and cryed our eyes out. They all held the baby....especially the birthfather. In fact, it looked like he wouldn't give him up!It finally hit him that he was the father of this baby. That was one of the scariest moments! Finally his mom said, "Paul, Give the baby to his mom." Then we held our son for the first time. All my wife's fears about bonding, went away. The baby was her son and she couldn't have felt different if it was her biological son.

The next day at the hospital we saw the birthfather's mother. She handed us an envelope of pictures of her son from the time he was first born to his recent high school graduation picture. She said she wanted to give us pictures so our son would know what his biological father looked like. Again, we all started hugging and crying! A few hours later our son was in his home and in his own crib!

We didn't see the birthparents until the court hearing several weeks later. There were no problems and the court proceedings went smoothly.

There wasn't any contact with the birthparents until a few months later at Christmas when we got a Hanukkah card and pictures of Beth, her Mom and Beth's brother and sister. Now 2-1/2 yrs later we got a very touching letter from Beth's mom with updated pictures and news of what's going on in her family. She didn't mention wanting to see our son, but we are sending her a letter with current pictures and an invitation to meet somewhere so she can see how well he is doing. I'm not sure if Beth will want to see him or not.

This was a very positive experience for us. Not all adoptions go this smoothly. One thing I recommend is that the birthmother/birthfather be counseled before and AFTER the birth. It is important to make sure that they have a support system behind them that support the adoption. It is important to find out ahead if there are other family members that might come forward and decide they will raise the child. It is better to find out ahead of time than after the baby is born.

Networking is a great way to find birthparents! Tell EVERYONE you know that you are looking to adopt. Don't be embarrassed to approach these people again to remind them!! Tell your doctors (esp. OB/GYN's).

Also consider joining adoption support groups in your area. Get involved with them!!! Adoptive parents have already been networking. Very often additional opportunities come to them that they can't take advantage of and pass on to others. Check with Adoptive Families of America for support groups around the country.

If you are reading this, it is probably on-line. Check all the resources you can on the World Wide Web.

I know it is difficult to be positive. You want a child badly! We strongly believe that G-d has us endure hardships to come to happiness down the road. We firmly believe that our son was meant for no one else but us! The infertility was an emotionally devasting experience, but if we didn't have the infertlity problems, we would not have our son now.

Good luck!!!

Dave 73777.660@compuserve

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