Delanie feels confident about her decision to place her baby for adoption. What concerns her and keeps her awake at night, besides the fact she’s 38 weeks pregnant, is her indecision about an open adoption vs a closed adoption.
She herself was an adoptee in an open adoption.
Throughout Delanie’s childhood, her birth mother had visited irregularly, unexpectedly calling or randomly knocking on the door. When Delanie was young, this was exciting and fun.
As Delanie got older, the unexpected visits usually occurred when the teenager had plans. Delanie’s birth mother felt offended if the daughter wasn’t enthusiastic about the visit or wasn’t willing to cancel plans.
These interactions were often tense, and Delanie’s adoptive mother was left to defuse a volatile situation.
“You will know better,” Kathy, a Heart to Heart Adoptions case manager, said. “You know how an adopted child feels. You will make sure your child’s needs are put first.”
Differences in Closed Adoptions and Open Adoptions
An open adoption and a closed adoption differ. There is also a difference between a healthy open adoption and an unhealthy open adoption.
One way we try to ensure a healthy open adoption is through a computer app called Our Hearts Connect, where families can send messages, videos, and pictures back and forth to one another. If there are any concerns about the relationship, the messages can be monitored by a third party, keeping the relationship healthy.
Let's delve further into Open Adoption versus Closed Adoption
Communication and Contact:
Open Adoption: In an open adoption, the birth parents and the adoptive family continue communicating. As the baby grows up, the child can be involved. This could include letters, photographs, emails, phone calls, and even personal visits. All of this is at whatever level both parties feel comfortable with. At Heart to Heart Adoptions, if we knew of a situation such as Delanie’s with her birth mother, we would counsel the mother to be more aware of her daughter’s needs.
Closed Adoption: In this kind of adoption, once the adoption papers have been signed, there is little or no contact between the birth parents and the adoptive families. The adoptive family often never meets the birth mother in the hospital or after the signing. At Heart to Heart Adoptions, we try to get as much information as possible about the birth mother, including health history, education, talents, interests, etc. There will be no updates after signing.
Identity and Medical History
Open Adoption: As the child grows, birth parents will be available to answer questions about family history, medical background, as well as cultural heritage. This can often be very helpful for the child to understand hereditary tendencies and learn about cultural background.
Closed Adoption: The child may not have complete access to information regarding their biological parents. This may pose a problem if the child has to deal with hereditary challenges or wants to learn about their cultural background.
Psychological Effects
Open Adoption: Birth parents may find comfort in having information about how their child is doing and having a little bit of involvement. However, emotionally, for birth parents and the adoptive family, it can be hard to maintain contact without setting boundaries.
Closed Adoption: Many birth parents can get a sense of closure with a closed adoption as they may need to move away from the situation emotionally. However, it follows that this also can mean the loss and uncertainty about the child’s well-being.
Relationship Dynamics
Open Adoption: Navigating this relationship carefully is what promotes a healthy, positive relationship between the birth parents and the adoptive family. This requires clear communication and boundaries that both parties have agreed on.
Closed Adoption: Because there is not an ongoing relationship, there is less to navigate between the birth parents and adoptive family. The child may have many questions later about their birth parents that are just too difficult to answer.
Impact on the Child
Open Adoption: Children who are adopted openly may have an extended sense of family and identification. They can find the answers to their questions about origin directly with the biological parents, which affects emotional and psychological development.
Closed Adoption: Children who come from closed adoptions do have a few problems, most especially with questions regarding self-identity and the origin of their birth. Mostly, these children grow up in life and try to seek out their biological parents, leading to complex feelings and situations.
In other words, open adoption supports the beginnings of relationships and openness that may or may not benefit identity and emotional outcomes but are also clearly defined with boundaries and communications.
The closed adoption, of course, gives privacy and emotional distance but can leave voids in the child’s awareness of their background and identity.
Open adoption can be enhanced when there is the option for counseling and help. We offer help when we discuss open and closed adoption.
Read our next blog as we discuss the difficulty in having a closed adoption and how Garrett, in a closed adoption, connected with his birth family.
