Open Adoption Roundtable: A New Year

The Open Adoption Roundtable is a series of occasional writing prompts about open adoption. It’s designed to showcase of the diversity of thought and experience in the open adoption community.

Call them resolutions, commitments, changes, or choices–how will you be proactive in the area of open adoption in 2010?

So far, all of the bloggers have focused on their own open adoptions. Many have “resolved” to keep in better contact.

I could say that I’m going to work at getting letters and pictures out more frequently. I should do that. I don’t know if I will. I’m too much of a completist. Printing 5 photos and mailing them just doesn’t work for me. I want to choose photos that have meaning, write about them, and so forth. Instead of lots of little letters, I send two whopping packages. I think I should find a happy medium.

I need to find a way to be honest with S. The choices she’s making are not OK. But I don’t know how to tell her – to essentially send her a wake up call – without her cutting off contact.

On a very small level, I need to investigate the possibility of getting a photo of Jack’s birth father, and what that might entail in return.

Now, when I initially read the prompt, I read it as “What are you going to do to be an open adoption advocate?”. Not sure that advocate is necessarily the right word, but you get the idea.

When we look for an agency for our next adoption, we will not choose one that discriminates against people. We will likely not choose one that discounts based on race (but that’s another post). We will look at the support they give expectant parents, birth parents, and adoptive parents, at all times. Basically, we will look for the ideal, or close to it. I plan on blogging about the entire process, and hopefully, I will raise some good points instead of boring you. I want people to think about adoption practices, instead of just trying to find the best balance between cost, timing, and service. What about ethics? That’s what I didn’t think about the first time around, sadly.

I am also trying to get out of the realm of my experience, and learn more about the experiences of others. While I’ve always found other people’s stories interesting, I’m starting to hear and read them more critically. That is, I’m paying attention more and trying harder to learn. I’m finding that some things I’ve thought were the way they were are really  just that way because I think they are. Some of my feelings are rooted in the insecurity of being an “adoptive” parent.

So that’s what I’m going to do. I’d like to know what you’re going to do. And I highly recommend reading what others are going to do.

Photo Credit.

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