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Pink,
I understand why you feel betrayed as you made an agreement, although I feel the agreement may have been unrealistic to actually fulfill. I am also in a relative adoption and as far as my daughter's birthdad goes, he has no interest, but I did at least have a conversation with him about his intentions. Sometimes it is better to be on the offensive, rather than the defensive. He'll probablly tell you exactly how he feels if you contact him first (if/when you feel that is appropriate)
if he is dangerous, I can understand your concern. But the reality is, you cannot really control who or who does not know about the adoption and who or who does not contact you. All you can do is make a plan for if/when it does happen. I think that in an open relative adoption, it is unreasonable to expect certain people not to know, especially the birthparents' friends and family. If your adoption is final, maybe there is something positive that the birthfather's family can offer, such as medical history and pictures. I wanted until our adoption was final to contact the birthfather's family. I don't have a relationship with my daughter's birthfather (he is in the navy and didn't want to admit she was his), but I did send a letter and pictures to the paternal grandparents. I have not had any response, but I felt it was important to my daughter to have at least attempted contact. Is your fear that somebody else in the family circle will tell your daughter something before you have a chance to? I have the same fears for my daughter. What I am doing about them is keeping a journal and pictures and will be discussing her adoption with her as soon as she is verbal. I also will not let her be with anyone I do not 100% trust unsupervised. There are certain family members who I know cannot be alone with her because they like to stir up trouble.
If uninvited contact is made with you and you are not interested in having contact, it's probably better just to tell the person not to contact you rather than use a lawyer. Lawyers just breed anymosity from my experience and it is very dehumanizing to receive letters from lawyers when the people involved can speak up for themselves and not pay 150.00/hr. (IMO) Now if the person does not respect you request, then you can always look at the legal route.
You can send me a private message if you want to talk further since we have similar situations. Good luck!
Lynn
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