Open adoption

My husband and I are signed up for a seminar on open adoption next month. It's something I never would have considered a few months ago, but a little research (and desperation) can go a long way towards changing one's mind. There is a non-profit adoption agency in Georgia called the Independent Adoption Center. The agency's literature makes open adoption sound very appealing.

Of course, the initial impulse towards open adoption is fear. Fear that the birth mother, once seeing how adorable and snugly her baby is, will want the child back. Fear that having a regular relationship with his or her birth mother will make our adopted child want to leave our home and live with her. Fear that somehow, our adopted child won't consider us Mom and Dad the way he or she would if the child never met the birth mother.

But if I'm honest with myself, I realize these are all selfish fears. I've got to ask myself, what's in the best interest of our future adopted child? What would I want if I were adopted. I think I'd want to know who my birth mother was as soon as I was told I was adopted. It's just such a huge unknown for a child to handle, and if there were pictures and notes from the woman who gave birth to him or her, perhaps it would be easier to accept in the long run. And there wouldn't be the fantasy of a perfect birth mother out there, waiting to rescue him or her from the daily struggle and troubles of a real, loving, noisy, messy family.

I hope the seminar is as enlightening as I need it to be.