[c.a]

Lisa CA - you're not the only one. We adopted through foster care and have a legally binding Open Adoption Contract. We are required to send two letters with photos per year and have two one-hour visits per year.

There is nothing really that the bmom is bound to do - except jump through a few hoops in order to actually get her visits. She is required to write to us one month in advance of the approved visit month with proposed dates. And if she fails to comply exactly - our obligation ends.

Within six months of our adoption, she failed to write at the prescribed time and we would be within our rights to consider the contract void and deny all future visits. She wrote three months later. We talked about whether to walk away and hold her to the letter of the contract, but decided to schedule a visit and are very glad that we did. We have now had two post adoption visits. Both were much longer than the required one hour (the first was about three and the second four). And we are working at tentatively building a relationship.

Although our state (Massachusetts) can enforce open adoption agreements, the adoptive parents have much more leverage. You can sue to enforce the open adoption agreement, but it an backfire as the Judge can only (1) enforce contact as written (2) limit or cutback contact; or (3) end all contact. The Judge can never overturn the adoption itself.