[BrandyHagz]

So, there has been a lot of discussion recently about birthparents posting pictures of the children they’ve placed in public places like MySpace and other personal websites – but something that hasn’t been discussed and something that I wonder about is how birthparents feel about having their pictures (pictures taken of you at visits or pictures you send) posted on places like MySpace, Blogger and other personal websites.

Personally, for me, I couldn’t imagine posting my daughters pictures on the internet – heck, I don’t even post her name…its just a privacy thing for me, no one has ever asked me not to, I just know how I would feel to find my picture posted without my knowledge on a pubic website. I would like to think, if S decided to build a personal site, she would ask my permission before posting pictures of myself or my son – to me, its just common courtesy.

I wonder how other birthparents in open adoption or semi-open adoption where you exchange pictures would feel about finding pictures of yourself posted on a public website without your knowledge?

Hopefully we can keep this respectful – its just a topic I wondered about – since its being discussed regarding other sides of the triad.

For the record, I’d also never post pictures of any of the other adults involved in her adoption (birthfather, adoptive parents or any extended family).

[SchmennaLeigh]

I need to talk about "now" and "then."

Then is back when I first placed. D did the typical new Mom thing and set up a baby website for the Munchkin so all of the family and friends could look upon her adorable self.

Well, here's where it gets weird based on my "then" issues. I was a new firstmom. I didn't know what any of that meant for my life. I was confused, hormonal and scared that my secret would ruin my life. (Hush. This is a then/now thing.) They had a picture of me with Munchkin in the hospital on the front page of their website. Now, it was password protected to enter... but all of their friends and family had the password... and it just felt SO STRANGE to know that their friends and family were looking at this picture of me (which was horrible, btw; post-partum hospital hair? lovely) and thinking any number of things, many of which I assumed were typical stereotypes of firstparents.

I never said anything.

Now that our relationship has grown, I don't really care what D does with my pictures. I'm secure in who I am as a Mother and a firstmother and I don't really care if Joe Schmoe from High School googles my name (which wouldn't bring you to D's site anyway) and sees a picture of me with Munchkin. I recently "outted" (outed?) myself on our family blog and I don't give a rat's patoot who knows I'm a firstmom.

So, anyway, D and I had a discussion about this very topic when we were spending some alone time in NJ on our vacation. She had wanted to bring it up for awhile but kept forgetting because we normally talk about Very Important Things like when our baby boys last pooped and the newest Britney Spears gossip. (LOL) She had noticed that I didn't ever post pictures of Munchkin on my adoption or family blog. She said that if I felt safe putting Nick's picture somewhere, I could feel free to post Munchkin's picture. And that was a relief to me that she brought it up. I simply hadn't been doing it out of respect.

Anyway, that got long winded.

Frankly, I would have like to have been asked if my photo could be shared on the internet before it was. However, it's not a huge issue for me. I'm not necessarily invisible on the internet.

[lahdh4]

I haven't posted pictures of J in a public area such as Myspace or here. Well, I did here but took it down after a day. I have posted them in one forum that is for bmoms only and we all share new pictures of the kids.
I hope that they (aparents) don't post pictures of me without me knowing. We only have 4 pictures where all of us are in the picture and they were taken with my camera so they only have the ones that I have forwarded to them.

[numbr1dbcksfan]

Well I know that they have the link to my flickr and had the one to my MSN before... so I assume it isnt an issue. I would never personally Identify her and she lives across the country from men... lol

Needless to say.. if she had photos of me.. or even wanted to direct people to my photo site I would have zero issue with it.

I sort of think that if you post it in the photo area of myspace that it is safer than even posting here because you at least need to be able log in to myspace to see someone photos (unless you use a flickr/photobucket/etc coding).

Im a fairly open book though...

[sugarbabysmommy]

sorry, just realized I hadn't read the title line correctly and missed that this was not meant for general discussion, so I'm deleting

[opalwench]

I'll preface this by stating that we're in a relative adoption with Jeff's sister and it's still pretty new.

We're not on Myspace, but Jeff posted an album of pictures of our birthdaughter on Facebook (not sure if many other people here use that, its mainly a college student networking site, but it's getting bigger.) I linked to it, and we also posted a couple of pictures on Flickr and LiveJournal.

As far as I know the aparents won't/don't have an issue with it. Facebook actually won't show the pics to certain people unless they have a type of "connection" with us in some way. The LJ/Flickr pics would probably be hard to identify her from as well, though.

I know that posting on Facebook actually was helpful because it meant that Jeff's brothers got to see pictures, since we haven't all been at a family gathering since the birth/adoption and they weren't able to make it to the hospital.

I know I wouldn't have issues with my picture being shared. Well... for the most part. Within Jeff's family and their circle of friends/acquaintences I'm cool with it, and the same goes for our friends. I have a small amount of worry about some of my family members finding out before I got to explain it to them, but I'm dealing with that.