Open Adoptions

[mistealea]

Hey mamma's is your adoption opened as in the birth mom or parents still sees the child or closed? If opened how does your child react? We adopted my son at the age of 6 who is my DH's brother after taking him in at the age of 4. It is an opened adoption so his mom still visits him and my DH let's her take him for over night visits. Idk if it confuses him cuz when he gets home he has an attitude. It makes me sad that he calls her mom one since I am the one who has been raising him for almost 3 yrs. How do you ladies coop with opened adoptions

[Mom2be360]

Me I wouldn't like, it but its, cool I feel I like close adopt would fit my family better

[Isaacsmom913]

Ours is closed-our birth mother is just not stable enough to handle an open adoption.  A closed suits our family far better.   I hope someone  else can help you a  bit better than I.

[SarahSuzyQ]

We are still working out the details of our adoption from foster care, not yet certain the level of openness that will protect our child while he is still young... But we will be open to having more contact as he is older and able to articulate if that's something he desires, as well.

It sounds like your situation has some unique challenges as being an intra-family adoption as well. Have you spoken with your DH about your feelings, that you wish to be recognized as mom, etc? He may very well view it as helping his mom by raising his brother, rather than by gaining a son... Though legally that's what has actually happened. At any rate, it just might help to share your feelings and desires with your husband for starters.

As for being called "mom", I think there are lots of ways to transition to that... But first I think everyone needs to be on the same page as to what your role is in his life. If BM and DH and DS all see you as just the aunt who is raising him, then asking to make a name change might not be the best place to start.

I'm sure the transition in and out of your home is difficult for your son, assuming that expectations and rules are different at BM's house. That is challenging for a young child of any age (your is 7?), even to spend time being spoiled by grandparents and then getting back to "regular" life... But complicated by the feelings around why he is no longer able to live with his BM. Do the visits happen at regularly scheduled intervals? Can you set them up to be maybe once every so often, so he has some time to prepare for them?

[jen1130]

I would look into a family therapist. This may be one of those things that some outside support will be very helpful.

[bleumonster]

Mine is open but I do NOT allow overnights and never will. We haven't seen her in almost 2 years because she doesn't respect boundaries and it gives my DD an attitude and conflicting loyalties.

[Ashiopeia]

We adopted 4 yr old, 3 yr old and an 8 wk old from foster care. "open" normally refers to just having any info about birth parents versus the old school "this baby came from that town". Anything more than that is just that much more open. I personally don't "like" your plan because I think that would be confusing but if I adopted one of my sister's kids or some relative I'm not sure I'd feel the same. As for the "mom" thing I'd say let him call her mom. Especially if you are letting him have sleep overs. Clearly there was never closure there and there won't be since you're helping them maintain their relationship. But that's what you decided on. If you're second guessing that then you really need to talk to Dh and figure out if this is what's best for ds. I don't know the circumstances of why he was adopted so I can't make a judgement on whether or not I think it's healthy.

Very early we had to address the mom issue because my kids would correct people if they said "hey your mom is calling" or whatever. I told them that people see us as a family and the kids agreed and I said "so that makes me the family mom, right?" they agreed. I explained that bm is their "tummy mommy" and always will be so they can call her mom. But I'm "family mom" so they call me mom too.

Regardless of wether or not you maintain the current sleep over and open status you all need family counseling. Even under the best circumstances this boy was adopted for a reason and needs to deal with it and your family could use help.

Good luck.

[AdoptingMommy]

As of now we have a semi open, but talk very often, we have cell numbers ect. We will be meeting late this summer, We have had our dd since birth and have always had a great relationship with her bmom. She is a wonder mother to 4 beautiful children, She knows sara is ours and to this day thanks us for taking such amazing care for her. She has always called us mom and dad and respects us, she had already named her, but was so happy we named her and discussed it with her. She has always called her the name we choose. So Im comfortable with her. We have a love for our daughter we know love should be multiplied not divided. And If my dd has questions she can get the answers, we want them to have a bond, bc we are secure as her parents that she will always love us and appreciate all she has been given:)

[Malley]

I adopted my daughter's boys who had been living with me. Once we finalized I did not allow anymore unsupervised visits. Just the short visits we do have causes behavior problems for about a week at a time. In my situation my dd wants to play mommy but not do the hard work of mothering. I feel like I made alot of sacrifices to raise them and my life has changed completely and I'll be doggoned if she is going to flit in and out whenever she needs a mommy fix or wants to take them to show them off to someone which is her main reason for wanting them. Right now I am getting constant calls from her wanting 2 or 3 visits a week as well as overnights. I have told her no, she isn't ever taking them back to raise and she is living a fantasy of being mommy. It is very hard to adopt intrafamily. Someone is going to get hurt, no way around it. The stability and emotional well being of the children have to come first. I went rounds about mommy names. Now Derek calls her Old Mummy and I am mom.

[Mom2Jayce]

Ours is semi-open. Our son is only 8 months old but I have a fear of things like this happening in the future. We do keep it semi-open because he is a brother from his birth mother and a sister from his birth father. I want him to know he has siblings. Our adoption is similar in that he was family. His birth father is my husband's cousin. I am afraid this may make things harder so I do not plan to allow overnight visits.

[mistealea]

When his mom agreed to finally give up custody the only way she would do it is if she gets visits. He asks to stay the night and its hard to say no cuz she did raise him till he was 4 (now 7) and my DH has a close relationship with his mom. We only do the over nights once a month so we do limit it but we do need to set limits to her coming over. Now that we have a 2 and a half month old she wants to come over all the time and see her grandson and visits with the 7 year old. I talked to my DH bout it and he says that its his mom and my 2 month olds grandma and she has a right to see them. It confuses my 7yr old I think cuz he gets an attitude afterwards.