[BrandyHagz]

If you allow it – ANYTHING can hurt your open adoption relationship. I’ve actually found that listening to any one ‘opinion’ (right or wrong, good or bad) can damage any of my relationships…adoption or non-adoption related.

To be totally frank – and I might upset a lot of people here, but you asked - I’ve actually done more potential ‘damage’ to my open adoption relationship by ‘listening’ to many of the people here…

I actually find myself second guessing things that have always been totally ok – my daughters mom has actually encouraged me to stop reading here – because she feels I am trying to hard to make her feel like a mom…when certain topics/discussions come up.

Additionally – most of the readers/posters here are still dealing with toddlers (or younger) children in open or semi open adoption – they’ve yet to face many of the issues that we’ve faced in our OA…they’ve yet to get where we are…

In their defense, however, many of the things they feel/say now are the same things that my daughters mom felt/said when M was a baby/toddler too.

In closing – to answer your question – yes – Anti-Adoption actives have hurt my open adoption – but so have pro-adoption folks. It’s why I caution people to read this forum as a guide, not an instruction manual.

My situation isn’t for everyone in OA – I realize that – but my situation isn’t wrong or bad either…and if I listened to everyone who has told me that it is – they’d have done far more damage than any anti-adoption zealot could have done.