[blessedbybug]

When you “matched” with an emom, did you feel like you should interview her?

No. It didn't even cross my mind. In both siutations, she had picked us and we had already decided that unless we heard anything alarming that we didn't already know (which wasn't much) and we wanted to get to know her and see what happened. We met them both prior to the baby's birth and made the decision based on the information they gave us. We know more now that we didn't know then, but the fact is, we wouldn't have known how to ask the questions that would have given us this information sooner. And really, in the end, we probably don't and will never have the whole story unless they decide to work on openness and honesty that goes both ways.

Or consider if you would want her presence in your life and what that meant?

We did not even think of it that way. We probably should have. They hard thing for us in the end was realizing that open adoption is a much different thing when the other family isn't healthy and/or making destructive choices.

Did the agency help you understand the implications of an OA and having lifelong contact with the emom?

Sort of. We are thinking people (okay, so DH thinks LOTS ~ too much? ~ before he does ANYTHING...I am a more impulse kind of gal...) so we knew that just like any other relationship, an open adoption would ebb and flow and change but most of all, grow over time. We expected that. But honestly, we didn't think about all the implications of entering into this relationship with others who had very different lifestyles that we had. We chose not to judge them, but to have compassion and hope that things would work out. It has been and will continue to be a hard, hard road in keeping things open and growing.

Also, did you have different emom criteria the second time from the first OA?

Ironically, no. In fact, since we had been through what we already had in the months following DD's placement in our family (which was lots... no details except to say there was lots of tough and trying situations that caused lots of worry and decisions over that time), we chose to be even more open and ended up with a second placement with another family in a very similar situation (which included addiction, homelessness, abuse). We were no longer naive, but the second time around we had come to terms with the fact that it wasn't going to be easy no matter what. And we needed to be open to whatever could happen.

Having seen the other side, I know the agency we used did a lot of counseling around what the emom’s criteria was and then finding parents who fit the criteria AND she felt comfortable with. Just wondering if that’s a two way street?

There was lots of consideration for what the expecting parents wanted in the potential parents of their child. And we had some incredibly deep discussions as well about our willingness to consider certain situations, more the second time around then the first.