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This message was originally posted by hope4kids.

Hi, I haven't posted here in a long time. I still have the same baby I had before. Finally DCFS declared her medically complex and moved us to a private agency more capable of handling her needs. It has made our lives much easier!

The goal has changed too since the last time I posted and it looks like we are heading towards adoption. I will probably adopt her by the spring! I am excited. She has been with me since just after birth and we have been through so much together. She has come so very far.

My question has to do with any experiences anyone has had with open adoptions. You see, her dad is still very involved in her life and would like to stay involved but surrender his parental rights to me so I could adopt her. He is stable and cares very much for her. He has anguished over the decision to parent or to sign the surrender papers. He could have her back if he wanted to, but he feels like that would not be the best thing for her. She has some complex medical issues and needs a lot of care. He works two jobs and doesn't really have the time to meet the medical needs. In our state it will be completely up to me how much and what kind of contact he has with her post-adoption. I don't know what decisions I will make there. I don't think I want him to have our address. I do want him to see her regularly, but I don't think I want him to have unsupervised visits. He never has had an unsupervised visit, and if something happened medically on a visit, I don't know if he could handle it. I don't even know what all I need to think through. All I know is I only want to commit to things I have every intention of following through.

When the adoption day comes, what role does dad play? Should I invite him to be at the courthouse? I have so many questions. I am sure there are even miore I should be asking myself.

Any thoughts?

cathy

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This message was originally posted by megwing.

Congratulations! What good news! :-)

I think allowing continued contact is a good idea, in whatever form you are comfortable with. For one thing, your daughter won't have to always wonder who her birth dad was and he'll be able to answer questions about her history that she may really want to know. Also, it is always helpful for you to be able to contact him because there may be questions about medical history and what not that you haven't thought of yet, but will want to know later.

Just my two cents... I hope that you are able to find some compromise that works for you... Have you asked the dad what kind of arrangement he'd hope for? Maybe his desires aren't that far off from what you'd like after all...

Megan

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This message was originally posted by jolean12.

Congratulations!!!

You go with what you feel comfortable for visits but I agree that it may benefit everyone.

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This message was originally posted by Matthew.

If you have visits you have to set the ground rules and keep to them. We have adopted a 9 and 12 yro and the birth parents keep phone contact BUT at our discretion. The birth parents are very low functioning and have the impulse control and social maturity of an 8 yro. You have to reiterate ground rules and proper boundaries on a bi-monthly basis.

Our daughters are doing fine. And have transisitioned completely. One thing we have noticed is that when they have had contact with the birth parents they are repulsed by their lack of hygeine and overall appearance. That has worked to our benefit and is a good chance to discuss personal care and responsibility.

The only thing we have had to deal with were very immature co-dependent foster parents that were not policed by DHS very well. Just lay down the rules with them also so you don't have to deal with birth parents and immature foster parents.

[Archive]

This message was originally posted by glk.

We are in the process of adopting a sibling group (ages 8, 7, & 15 mos) and have an agreement with the birthmom allowing her phone contact & personal contact (alternating) every other month; however she has moved to another state and the personal contact may not happen all that often. She has to contact us first to arrange the times, etc., for her visits and they are all at our convenience. We have tried to contact the dads but haven't heard back from any of them so right now we have to assume they don't want any contact. It's unfortunate for the two older kids, as they know their dads and would like to keep track of them!

The relative we are having the most contact with is an aunt who had been a relative caretaker for the two older children for over a year before they were placed with us. She made the choice to not adopt all of them and to have the placed with us, and we have an open arrangement with her. She is part of our family for all family functions and is our respite caretaker for the kids. It has worked out great for her, us, and them. Unfortunately, this is a very rare situation - she's a stable, caring, competent young woman who just knew she couldn't take on these children in addition to her own.

I do believe some contact is better for the kids; at least if they know and have ongoing contact with the bio family members you have less trouble dealing with the "fantasy family"! Our older adopted son had a wonderful fantasy family and it took alot of therapy to show him just what his bio mom was really like!