[Sherry]

Saturday dh and I meet A's birthmother. This will be an open adoption with continued contact. I would like suggestions on appropriate amounts of contact and ideas on how to do it.

We live 6 hours away, so visits aren't going to be frequent for sure. Currently A is receiving weekly phone calls and once a month visits.

I suggested phone calls at Christmas, birthday, and birthmother's day and a visit once a year, letters anytime. I think they are expecting more than that and we're flexible but at the same time this is an adoption, not a foster care.

I would really appreciate input!

~Sherry

[Stormy]

The only advice I can give is from our experience with an open adoption. Our worker advised us to set up a plan on the lighter side of commitment. That was great advice because it has allowed us to easily keep our promises. You can always do more than your agreement, but doing less may cause problems in the triad.

And good luck

[riley6]

How old is A?

We have two sibling groups that we have open adoptions with. Unfortunely, the parents aren't appropriate around the children and all the children have severe meltdowns after the visits, so visits have stopped. We still have cards and pictures when ever the kids want to send them. The parents never send the kids anything.

I would say no visits the first six months. You have to establish yourself as A's parents. I don't know the reasons WHY the tpr took place, but if it's due to abuse, seeing the bio is going to trigger behaviors in A that you'll have to deal with after the visits.

I would start out VERY slow. You can always increase. We also added a clause in our agreement that if the child's therapist felt the visits were detrimental to the child or if the child no longer wanted the visits, we would discontinue them until such time that was appropriate.

Good luck with your adoption!

[JuliannaTeresa]

I agreed, so I would not lose 12 year old Daughter to starting our Visitation with a "Joint Custody" arrangement.

You would be surprised at what the Biological will do from 6-10 hours away!

Daughter is with me Monday-Thursday weekly. Thursdays after school at school her Biological Uncle picked her up and she stayed with him until Sunday night.

It finally felt like a Divorce situation to Daughter, so 'the arrangement' has been modified alot.

Stay with your plan, and show you have boundaries to this that are in your Daughter's Best Interests!

[glk]

I think it depends on the age of the child, and the behavior of the bioparents.

We have negotiated an agreement with the biomom of our group; the older two children frequently lived with her until they were 5 & 6 and they are very connected to her. Actually, I think they are just worried about her most of the time. Anyway, we have agreed to phone calls every fourth month & visits every fourth month (contact of one type or the other every other month, alternating phone & in person); no contact of any kind on their birthdays or on holidays; and letters from her as often as once a month. We even limited the amount she can spend on them for gifts. She has to contact us to set up the time, etc, for the contact so if she doesn't contact us there will be no phone call or visit.

She never signed the agreement, and the adoption is not final yet but we are using it as a guide for contact. At this time she has always been appropriate with the children and she lives in another state - about 20 hours away - so we're allowing phone calls every other month. We can stop contact altogether any time she is not appropriate and the contract (even if she had signed it) is not legally enforceable but I believe the two older children would really struggle if they were denied contact with her.

Our youngest child is only a toddler so the whole thing doesn't mean much to him, except he gets to talk on the speaker phone which is kind of neat!

The kids have an aunt who had actually raised the older two most of their lives; she is still very involved with us, and we have "adopted" her and her child as part of our family. She made the decision not to adopt the children so we could, and she has been wonderful! The only problem we have is that the older two still look to her as the person they will mind, etc., and when we are all together that gets annoying. She's been good about it and I know it's not her fault nor her problem. We don't have a formal agreement about contact with her but have worked out a relationship where the children still have her as their aunt and she gets to spoil them but isn't the parent figure anymore! She does most of the babysitting we need and that is helpful, too.

Only you know what you are willing to do but the contact can be helpful. Our oldest son had no contact with biomom (and doesn't want any now) but when he was struggling with puberty we had alot of trouble dealing with his "fantasy family"; I believe if he'd had contact with biomom there would have been nothing to fantasize about!