[tobeafamily]

One of the most critical areas in domestic parental placement is post placement openness.

Flexibility, honesty and trust are the key tenets. To agree to something that you're not comfortable with is to be dishonest. That breeds mistrust. Without these, you cannot succeed and it is the child who is ultimately failed.

It's not unlike marriage. Think about it: Your fiancee is saying "I really want us to live in the country and raise cows". You're thinking "Well, a house in the outer suburbs with some land would be OK, I'm not living in the sticks and definitely no cows". You really love the guy, and it makes him happy, so you say "OK we'll do that" thinking you can work it out after the wedding. In your heart, though, you're never wanting to ever be within 10 feet of a cow. The closer you get to the wedding, the more he's talking about cows, the more you're worried that you're going to be seeing them. How do you think this marriage is going to turn out? Same with adoption and openness.

Both parties have to be completely 100% in-your-bones comfortable with what you're agreeing to do. Otherwise, you will forever be 'fighting' what you want to do vs. what you agreed to do. This benefits no one, least of whom your child, who will even in their earliest days sense your conflict.

Understand too that relationships change, and that goes for openness in adoptive relationships. If you're feeling uncomfortable and pushed now, I can promise you there's a huge potential for that to get 'worse' as your child grows.

I would go further than Brandy and Maia = this is not a match at all. I would walk away from this couple and let them find someone who's truly going to be comfortable with the level of openness they seek. You all will be happier for it.

And if you're wondering, yes I'm well aware of how hard it is to walk away, I've done it more than once. We did finally make the connection that brought us our son. All of us were perfectly comfortable in our level of openness, 2 1/2 years later it couldn't be going much better than it is.

IMHO

Regina