[Volfe]

Here is my last bit of advice to you:
Ask the birthmother to WRITE down - in private - what she'd really like from this relationship (adoption) for herself and her child. Include pics/ visits/ calls/ email - all forms of contact. Include what she wants the child to know her as, by what name, etc.

Write down your own versioin of this. Do this seperately.
Do not do this together!!

Write it, then think about it for a day, then meet to exchange and discuss...

If you do not match up, it is not a match.

~~~

To further Amom's position...
Many times the first year is hardest on a birth mother and Visits and very frequent contact are best. Then, as time helps to heal the wounds of grief, as lives grow and become filled, as people move on.... Contact does not need to be as constant. But it should be up to the individuals involved, the triad members, to decide these changes as time passes on. Keeping everyone informed is key (IMO).

I personally told my baby's amother that I would need frequent visits, contact, pics and updates the first two years and then would back off on visits but I wasn't sure what the baby's sisters would want to do... keep contact frequent or not. Our contact is instead infrequent and the amom pushes meetings back, etc. This is not fair.

I only know what I wanted so surely because I have a son in open adoption already. I know how great open adoption can be... I also know how horrible the betrayal can feel from feeling closed out of a planned open adoption.

I wish I had told her to write down her hearts desires and ideas for the future with our child in regards to open adoption.