An open adoption arrangement may be buffeted by passing time and changing circumstances. Here’s how to make your relationship endure.
“Welcomed By Our Daughter’s Birth Family”
I asked my family not to come to the hospital when she was born, then mourned their absence. Enter her birth relatives.
Letting Her Go: Chinese Birth Parent Search and Reunions
The first study on this topic provides fascinating insights about adoptees’ and parents’ motivations to search, search methods used, the initial reunion, and ongoing contact.
What to Share in the Holiday Letter to Birth Family
It’s normal to think about your child’s birth family during the holidays. What should you share in a holiday letter?
Ask AF: Health History
What should I ask my birth father about my birth family’s medical history?
The First Year of an Open Adoption: Four Families Share
Families with different levels of contact offer glimpses into their relationships with birth parents during their first year home.
Should You Friend Your Child’s Birth Mother?
Facebook has dramatically changed the way information is exchanged in adoption. Experts and parents offer advice on navigating social media.
“From Our Hearts”: Letters to Our Child’s Birth Parents
Writing about the little things in letters to our daughter’s birth parents often tells a bigger, warmer story in the end.
What Should We Include In Our Contact Agreement?
We’ve been selected by a birth mom who is due in two months. Our attorney advised us to draw up a contact agreement prior to the birth. What should we include?
How Should New Parents Navigate the Hospital Experience?
Our open adoption expert explains how prospective adoptive parents can best navigate the emotional time spent at the hospital with the birth mother before bringing their new child home.
Is Open Adoption Right for Your Family?
A legal guide to open adoptions and open-adoption agreements.
Visiting with Birth Parents
When we adopted our son three years ago, our relationship with his birth mother was semi-open (letters, phone calls). Since then it has grown more open, and we’re discussing a visit. Any advice?
“Seeing My Daughter’s ‘Happily Ever After'”
My daughter, Rubie, has the kind of life I’d dreamed of for her, and is where she belongs. I only wish I had known that sooner.
“Pulling Back in Open Adoption”
After a bump in the relationship with our daughter’s birth mother, we’re learning lessons about love, patience, and acceptance.
Adoptees on Open Adoption: “I Have All My Pieces”
Teen and young adult adoptees who grew up in fully open adoptions talk about their relationships with their birth parents and adoptive parents and the many benefits openness has brought them.
Ask AF: Explaining the Birth Mother Relationship
My husband and I have a friendly relationship with the birth mother of our 3-year-old daughter. We talk on the phone, exchange letters regularly, and visit a few times a year.
Understanding Open Adoption
Among experts who study it and families who practice it, open adoption varies widely. Here’s a look at open adoption today.
A Meeting of the Open Minds
Two adoptive moms and a birth mother candidly discuss the adoption match, birth siblings, contact agreements, and more.
Ask AF: Explaining Biological Siblings to an Adoptive Sibling
We have an eight-year-old biological child and a six-month-old we adopted as a newborn. Our younger son has several biological siblings—and I’m wondering how to explain this to my older son.
A Durable Relationship with Your Child’s Birth Parents
Over the years, an open adoption arrangement may need to evolve to accommodate the changing needs of everyone involved — above all, the child.