Chapter 10: What is Open Adoption?

After we brought our son home, I tried to send Taylor pictures through text every day those first few weeks. We promised we would keep in contact with her as much as she would like -- afterall, she lost everything and we gained everything. When our son was two weeks old, the agency called to tell us that she had signed her termination of parental rights. What we didn’t know was, she had signed all the adoption paperwork months prior to the birth - the agency lost said paperwork and she had to sign them for a second time after our son was born.  They were still in the process of locating the biological father, so until they found him and had him sign termination paperwork as well, our adoption was still in limbo.  Meaning, technically biological mom has the opportunity to change her mind and if biological dad decides he wants to try to parent, he can with a very minimal, if any, scrutiny. My husband was most concerned about this. His mind jumped to:  What if the birth father just happened to be some normally upstanding citizen who simply had a son he didn’t know about, then wouldn’t he want the opportunity to parent? While Taylor assured us he wouldn’t be that willing to participate in any of this, Justin was still worried. 

Finally, three months later, our sons biological father was found and he signed his portion of the termination paperwork. He had no interest in meeting us or our child. I was both overjoyed and disappointed.  Overjoyed that our son was that much closer to being our son legally, but disappointed because my son may never know his biological father. So documents were filed with the courts making this adoption 99% done. Biological parents would now have to prove they were coerced into signing the termination paperwork to revoke their terminations. We hired a lawyer to review all of the adoption documents and double check that everything was done correctly. I heard too many stories to trust the agency to get it done, I wanted a third party to review it all. Now we just had to wait to sit in front of a judge and make it official. 

Waiting for all this to happen was, to say the least, extremely stressful. While we maintained contact with his biological mother and got to know her and understand that her decision was final, we weren’t sure what the biological father would want to do. No matter how much Taylor assured us he wouldn’t be interested in the slightest, we still worried. 

I remember cherishing every moment with our sweet little baby boy. Snuggling him as often as I could. Singing to him and loving him to the ends of the earth. What would we do if we lost him? It was too painful to even think about. We pushed off the worries and focused on our son. I stopped working as much on my real estate projects and spent time at home figuring out this motherhood gig. 

When our son was four months old we had him baptised. It was a private service with our sons biological family, my family, and Justin’s family in attendance. Our friend from our adoption tribe was a pastor and let us use his church and his services. Somehow I convinced my photographer friend to attend and take pictures for free. I treasure those pictures to this day.  I coached my parents and Justin’s parents on what to say to our sons biological family. The coaching was this: Smile appreciatively and only say nice things or just say nothing at all. I don’t know what exactly I was afraid they would say, but I didn’t want them messing up an already complicated and delicate relationship that we were attempting to hold together. I could see Taylor was a wreck, but she held it together as long as she could before running out of the church in tears. Should I have not invited them? Was this too hard for her? What should I do? I caught her just before they drove away and said thanks for coming, gave her a smile, and waved goodbye. She couldn’t speak but she gave me a smile back. 

After a couple months of sending pictures to Taylor a few times a week, I tapered off. Often times I’d send photos either over email, text or Facebook and she wouldn’t reply. I wasn’t sure she was looking at the photos so I stopped sending them. That didn’t go well. She contacted me asking for more pictures. It was hard. I knew she needed the reassurance, but I was conflicted too -- I wanted to be his only mother. Constantly texting and emailing her reminded me I was not really his mother. I was just a placeholder. While I know that’s not true, my emotions got the best of me. 

There is a quote going around the internet that basically states, ‘if a parent can love more than one child, a child can love more than one parent.’ This does not need to be a competition. I had to continually remind myself that I will share a title of mother with this woman for the rest of my life. She will not take him from me and I should not take him from her. This is complex and again, took me more than a few months to figure this out. 

When our son was just over six months old, we sat in a courtroom with our lawyer and promised to the judge that we would treat our son as biological with all the benefits that entails from this day forward. It seemed such a sterile term -- at this point I didn’t care if he was completely alien, he was 100% my son in every possible way.  He was now legally our son, but I didn’t need a judge to tell me that. Our lawyer cracked a few jokes which made Justin and I massively uncomfortable. We were told by friends that some judges can be very serious in these situations and some judges find them to be a breath of fresh air. Turns out, we got the judge that LOVED these situations. Our son was blowing raspberries the entire time, making sure everyone knew he was the reason we were all here. Again, several friends and family members attended. We call this his Chester day, rather than his adoption day or his ‘gotcha day’. This was the day he became a Chester. We don’t really celebrate, but we bring it up every year and say, this is the day you became a Chester… kinda like the day mommy married daddy and she became a Chester. We don’t want to make it about him losing his first mother, it’s about him becoming part of a family. 

Over the next several months contact with Taylor was on and off. Sometimes I would hear from her and sometimes I wouldn’t. Our safe meeting place had always been the local zoo. No matter the weather or the current emotional situation, we could just head to the zoo and just wander amongst the animals comfortably. Sometimes talking. Sometimes not. Our son was just a baby, so this was for us, not for him. It’s like our common ground. This particular zoo is built on a mountain side making it feel more natural and less like an animal prison. We are able to feed the giraffes lettuce by hand. Don’t worry, we made sure the lettuce was not recalled. We then walk through the Australian outback exhibit where the wallabies run free - oftentimes baby wallabies lie basking in the sunlight. We have several paths to choose from, but always seem to end up in the reptile house where we can help feed the snakes and turtles. To this day, we still enjoy zoo dates with her.

When our son was about 7 months old, we decided to invite Taylor over for a sleepover. I was excited she got to see us all in our natural habitat but also a little worried. How is this going to go? Is she going to wish she wouldn’t have placed him with us? Is she going to feel more heartbreak than healing? I’m not sure what I expected, good or bad, but the whole thing was uneventful. I had her put our son to bed and sleep in the guest room next to his room….and... nothing crazy happened. As she left the next morning she turned to me and said, “Thank You. Thank you for reminding me of what a wonderful decision I made.” 

Cue tears. 

We had gone to her parents house where she lived several times as well. They seemed nice enough and were appreciative of our willingness to give them access to our son. I say it “willingness” because of the history of adoption in the United States. Adoption has historically been shrouded in shame. So many families were told to keep the adoption a secret. Don’t tell your children they are adopted. Never speak to the biological families. Just raise the child as if you birthed them yourself. In our adoption training and through studies I’ve personally read, this is no longer the norm. Of course, every situation is different. Not every form of contact is safe for every family. We have to decipher all of this as parents. 

There are so many heartbreaking stories of adoptees and biological parents being split from their loved ones in painful ways. Not all of this was adoptive parents fault, they were taught to do things a certain way. Relationships are hard. 

My main reason for maintaining physical contact with my sons biological family is because I believe my son needs to know his beginnings from the source. It’s his creation story and he deserves to know the truth. While it has been complicated to explain to him at such a young age, he is growing into understanding. We believe his biological family is safe to be around. They are good people with good intentions. Granted we have had our differences, but that is how relationships work. While my son doesn’t call her “mom” and she doesn’t call him “son”, they have a very special relationship like none other I’ve seen. Titles at this point are moot. Relationship is the key. 

I see Taylor as a sister. She IS my sister, she gave me a son. I owe it to her to be available and open. I owe it to her to treat her like a sister. We both struggled in dramatically different ways -- I couldn’t have children and she wasn’t ready for children. Neither of us wanted our lives to go this direction, but now neither of us could imagine our lives without the other. 

The other thing that makes this relationship work is that we both have boundaries. She can’t come by unannounced or bring lavish gifts, but I’ve never had to tell her this. We seem to silently have the same level of boundaries with each other. I don’t push her to tell me about her personal life and she doesn’t come barging into mine. We respect each other. I’ve asked her to be honest with me about her wants and needs when it comes to our relationship and I try to be as honest with her as I can. Sometimes even I don’t know the honest truth about how I feel about the whole situation. I know I’m ok with it, but I still have times where the jealousy needs to be pushed down. Mother's Day is hard for me because I know I’m not the only one being celebrated. While I get to celebrate Mother's Day with my children, she gets to celebrate Mother’s Day in a completely different way. As she puts it, ‘as an opportunity to celebrate her son and the life she chose for him’. 

I still have so many mothering insecurities that have nothing to do with adoption. Mothering isn’t easy, but it is worth it. 

While I have chosen contact with our biological family, it doesn’t mean contact is right for every family. There is enough mom shaming out there, I don’t need to add to it by stating my way is the only way. The glorious thing about parenting is that you can pretty much do whatever you want within the limits of the law. A mom is a mom. A dad is a dad. There is no adoptive or biological attached to the front of that word if you are raising children. Parenting is hard enough. Good parents do their best. Most parents will have regrets. We are all in the same boat here.