Open adoption--does it really solve all the problems?

Lorraine

When I gave my daughter up in 1966 all I really wanted—or thought I could ask for—was to be able to know her one day. That bare concession to the mother and child bond would not have made leaving her behind any easier, but it would have calmed my mind about the future. As I write today, open adoption is touted as the panacea for the pain of a closed adoption., or at least mute the anguish of mothers like me. Perhaps it would have been so—to know that she was safe and protected. But I don’t know how I would have reacted to other people being there for her, to be present but unable to make the decisions I thought best for a child of mine, a child related to me by blood, a child who shared my genetic makeup and family history.

Today of the roughly 14,000 to 18,000 infant adoptions each year, about 55 percent are fully open,[1] with the parties agreeing to ongoing contact that includes the child. Most of the remaining are what is called—semi-open, letters and pictures exchanged through the adoption agency, an agreement that ends after a few years. From self-reported surveys we are learning that first mothers in fully open adoptions, generally fare better than mothers in closed adoptions, experiencing greater grief resolution in the long run, but that relief comes later. Yet mothers who interact with their babies, and help choose the adoptive parents, actually report more grief and regret in the short term, the first few months after birth. We do not find this finding unusual, but compatible with the shock of losing a child, no matter how it is done.[2]

But what is, or is not, an open adoption is still evolving. Many agencies offer what they call open adoptions, but in reality the particulars of many of these arrangements are designed to obfuscate true openness: communication between the first mother and adoptive parents goes through the agency, and the individuals may not actually know each other, or their addresses. This fuzzy category includes about 40 percent of adoptions today. [3]

BUT WHEN THE OPENNESS CLOSES....
When one of the contestants on Sixteen and Pregnant, a reality TV show, complained to her social worker that she did not know who the parents really were, the social worker responded by saying something to the effect of, Well if you wanted a fully open adoption, you should have said so. It was clear that the young—and now anguished—teen mother had not been aware that she had a choice and could have asked for direct contact. Young mothers are likely not be focused on details they assume are being handled in their best interests by the ever-so-solicitous social worker who has been holding their hands through the pregnancy and birth. If you are made to think that a semi-open adoption (which isn’t open at all) sounds like a great deal, but aren’t told you can ask for more, why would you?

States have laws sealing records—birth certificates, court records, adoption agency records, and some courts have taken these laws to mean that open-adoption agreements are unenforceable, either because they are not authorized by the legislature, or, in fact, that such agreements are explicitly prohibited. In other words, a first mother could not enforce the agreement in spite of the fact that the agency arranged it—because it shouldn't have been written in the first place and the mother has no legal right to know where her child is anyway.

Often the arrangement stipulates letters and promised updates for a few years, but then after that contact is up to the discretion of the parties involved—not the child, of course, but the adults. Adoptive parents often exercise that discretion and end all communication; the first mother has no recourse. One agency source says that 80 percent of all such quasi-open arraignments actually close within a few years. What can a mother do?

She can plead with the agency to pressure the adoptive parents, but the agency has no incentive to do so—why risk getting a name as a nagging agency from the people who actually pay the bills? The first mother who supplied the baby? She’s not the client, she’s the supplier, and even with all the good will in the individual social worker’s mindset, the first mother is someone who is part of a past transaction. Instead of coddling the grief-stricken mother, she needs to focus on the future—the people wanting to adopt, the pregnant woman she’s talking to now. Totally ignored in this arrangement are the needs of the adoptee—but that individual is not really the client, because—he or she is an infant whose direct needs of food and shelter are being met.

DIRECT COMMUNICATION IS A MUST
Women who enter into adoptions believing they will be open—but later find them closed are, not surprisingly, the most distraught, for not only have they lost their children, they were duped into giving them up with promises not kept. Some mothers talk of being pressured into doing so in the hospital right after birth when they were wavering over keeping the child; then the parents renege on the agreement. They have no recourse and now doubly blame themselves. [4]

A friend told me of an adoptive father, a magazine editor, who refused to do any television appearances because his “birth mother might recognize” him. What did that mean, I wondered: Had his child’s first mother picked he and his wife out through a photograph? Had there been the promise of contact that he now avoided? Why did he feel the need to hide? Was this a supposedly open adoption? But the basic question was: did he at all think about the needs or wishes of his child?

Another problem with arrangements for communication only through the agency is that adoption agencies are, first and foremost, businesses. Like any business, they are subject to market whims, and they can close. There is no central depository to take the records, and only luck determines if anyone will pick up the case load. When a San Antonio agency (Adoption Services Associates, ASA) shut down in 2012—after handling some estimated 5,000 adoptions—both prospective adoptive parents and birth families were in the lurch. Another Texas agency, Abrazo Adoption Services, stepped in to help the frantic birth mothers who relinquished through ASA, who were promised regular updates and photographs until the child was five, as well as the possibility of a reunion at age 18.

Abrazo was only able to locate the adoptive families of about a dozen of them, and only half of them were receptive to continuing contact with the birth mother! That would be six. Several thousand first mother who thought they had an open adoption arrangement were left in the lurch. When Abrazo’s director, Elizabeth Jurenovich, suggested to some of the ASA adoptive parents that the promised reunion take place—an ideal that many first mothers had clung to—the reaction surprised her: “ASA only made us send her a letter and picture once a year for five years afterwards, that should be enough!” one adoptive father shouted on the phone. “We didn’t want to adopt her and her family, just the baby!” Conversely, a handful of adoptive families who did want to keep up contact with the first mother—but only if Abrazo would act as the go-between. Incidentally, Abrazo only handles fully open adoptions.

LAW IS WOEFULLY BEHIND THE TIMES
States are beginning to catch up to changing adoption practices, and some have laws that offer some degree of enforcement, as well as allow judges to modify the agreement if circumstances change. But the law is woefully behind on this, and most first mothers looking to enforce an open-adoption contract will find themselves in the lurch and looking for a lawyer who won’t be able to offer much help.

In short, many agencies trumpet open adoption to trusting and confused young women, but in far too many cases those agreements are no more than marketing scams to encourage pregnant women to give up their babies. Without a steady supply of babies, and couples willing to pay thousands of dollars for these babies, adoption agencies cannot stay in business. Agencies promise, adoptive parents promise, but experience indicates that only a small percentage of those promises—in the semi-open adoptions—are being kept.

However, if the promises of opened are kept, first mothers fare significantly better than those in closed adoptions. Four years after relinquishing their children, women who chose the adoptive parents—and were not coerced by parental pressure—report less grief and worry, and more relief and peace, than those who did not have this opportunity.[5] More than half of the respondents had received follow up pictures and letters. But four years later, a mere twelve percent (which loosely coordinates with our informal source) said they had phoned or visited since the child had been placed with a new family.

Closing an open adoption is not all the adoptive parents’ doing. Some first mothers do not keep up contact—it may be too hard to visit and not be overcome by grief and guilt; the adoptive family might live in a far-away state; and some women are simply less bothered by their children being raised by others and drift away. Yet adolescence is precisely the time more contact, not less, is likely to be beneficial to the adoptee. First mothers may be led to believe that the openness is merely for their benefit, and are totally unaware of how important it is for the child.

AND THE CHILDREN? 
How do the children fare? Since open adoptions in any number date from the Nineties, research on how they are doing has yet to appear. A few random comments found on the Internet say that such arrangements are not necessarily easy for the child. Some adoptees try to return to their first families; others are content to live with the adoptive family that has nurtured them from birth, while being able to spend time with their first family. Whatever the situation, however, it is complicated emotionally for the individuals involved.

The best solution if a mother cannot raise her child is for the child to be absorbed into the larger genetic family of aunts and uncles and cousins, with the child growing up always knowing who his mother is. Open adoption is a step forward, but it is not a panacea for the myriad issues that stem from relinquishing a child to someone he does not have a strong genetic connection to.--lorraine  (from my upcoming memoir: hole in my heart. Not to be reproduced or copied without permission)
______________________________
[1] Openness in Adoption, March, 2012, p. 7.
[2] Safeguarding the Rights and Well-Being of Birthparents in the Adoption Process, p.
[3] Openness, Donaldson, p. 7.
[4] Safeguarding the Rights and Well-Being of Birthparents in the Adoption Process, p.50.
[5] Pearila Brickner Namerow, Debra Kalmus, and Linda Cushman,“The Consequences of Placing versus Parenting Among Unmarried Women, Families and Adoption (The Haworth Press) Vol.25, No. 3/5, 1997, pps. 175-197.
SOURCES
E. B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, Openness in Adoption: From Secrecy and Stigma to Knowledge and Connections, 2012
E. B. Donaldson Adoption Institute: Safeguarding the Rights and Well-Being of Birthparents in the Adoption Process, 2006

FROM FMF
The promise of 'openness' lures vulnerable mothers to be
Considering Open Adoption? What You Should Know

READING
Being Adopted: The Lifelong Search for Self                                

by David Brodzinshy, Marshall D, Schechter and Robin Marantz

One of the best books looking at the adoptee experience through the different ages of the individual. I was mesmerized when I read it, years after I found my daughter. I lent it to a high school teen who was adopted, who devoured it and lent it to her best friend, also adopted. It's chock full of insights about what is going on and the lifelong implications of being adopted.

Children of Open Adoption (above)
by Kathrleen Silver and Patricia Martinez Dorner

A book that examines the effects of open adoption on the children. Two pioneers in the field examine scores of open adoption experiences from infancy to adolescence. Among topics covered: bonding, grief, communication, entitlement, and adoption understanding among children.