Open Adoption Roundtable #16 : Production, Not Reproduction | A blog about open adoption

This is the first time I have participated in the Open Adoption Roundtable, a series of questions posed by Heather@Production not Reproduction. These pictures represent what open adoption "looks" like in our family:

Rebekah's extended family on her dad's side, Christmas 2006

Nikole with baby Stephen

Us with Rebekah and Silas at age 3

Stephen with his bio grandmother and great-grandparents

Open Adoption Roundtable #16 : Production, Not Reproduction A blog about open adoption

Imagine your child as an adult describing their open adoption experience. What do you hope they will be able to say about you? How did you view their other parents? In what ways did you support their relationship with them?

I hope that as adults, both of my boys will say that I did everything I could to support the relationships with their birth moms and their extended families. I want them to have seen me as loving and respectful and to say that I never tried to prevent them access to their biological families; that I did what I could to foster their relationships with them. I pray that they will see that I always had their best interests in mind, and that I never lied to them or kept anything from them that helps them understand who they are and where they came from.

People often question openness in adoption, especially the openness of our 2 situations, as they are consdiered WAY open by most standards. Even our adoption agency social worker says that she uses our family as an example of the "far extreme" of open verses open adoptions that may consist of only one visit per year. Glad we could be of service :o)

As I write this, we have just come back from dropping our 8 year old off to spend the weekend with his biological great-grandparents, great aunt, and bio cousin. Yes, we got "Do what???!!" from a couple of friends and family. The thing is, I don't want him to see a distinction between us and his bio family, I just want it to simply be "Family". I hope that the adult Silas (and Stephen) will see that we did not let fear or jealousy or whatever keep us from fully embracing all members of our extended family, by blood or adoption. Only time will tell...