For those involved in open adoptions...?

We have no written contact. I made a promise mother to mother and for me, it was a sacred promise. I have honered it to the best of my ability and hope to be able to continue to do so until my daughter is old enough to be the one who controls her relationship with her other mother, then I will step aside.I have had fights with my husband in order to honor the agreement.

My daughter's mother is on my facebook so she has access to all pix and updates I post. She has my address and phone number so she can call or come over whenever she wants. It hasn't always gone perfectly but it is a work in progress.

I am not sure that any contract, no matter how legal it looks or sounds, will stand up until laws are changed. I do not think any court holds jurisdiction.

Our open adoption works but only because we are commited to it. I think the only way open adoptions will ever be a good idea for first moms is if the laws are changed and an open adoption contract becomes as valid as a custody/visitation agreement between divorce dparents, and family courts enforce the contract.

Since open adoptions or visitation is not legally enforceable in the US, one tactic you might use is to choose an adoptive family who is already in an open adoption. If they have other children they've adopted, and those moms get to see their children, that's a great sign. You could work with your agency to find such a family, and possibly even ask to talk to the other mom, if she would agree. See how she feels the openness is handled.

I live in Australia, where open adoptions are a requirement and therefore legally enforceable, which may make my answer less relevant.

Our agreement is drawn up, consented to and signed by the family court, ourselves and the natural parents. There is a written caveat to the agreement in which contact terms are laid out-not specifics such as date, times, etc-but how much contact the natural parents are entitled to and details of the supervision required.

Should one of the parties choose to apply for more/less contact, yes it would be brought before the family court and there would need to be an evidence based request made.

As the adoptive, and therefore legal parents, we do have the 'last say' on whether or not our son attends contact on a day to day basis, meaning if he is unwell, etc it is up to us whether or not he attends. However, should we decide to just stop sending him, again the courts would intervene and enforce the order in place. It is handled very much like a divorce situation over here, in which parents have the right to contact even if it is only supervised. Currently our son sees his natural parents once a month.

Originally, our daughters mother wanted a closed adoption, her tubes tied right after and didn't want to even see our daughter once she had given birth. I got to know her and asked her to reconsider for both her mental well being as well as the future of our daughters the openness of her being contacted and having access. She did get her tubes tied with in days of giving birth but that was her choice. She did change her mind about the open piece, just prior to the birth and we all (all parties) agreed early on that since agreements weren't enforceable and with her not completely sure she was super committed to it, that we'd work on it in good faith and agree to be as openly communicative as possible. It has worked. It hasn't been easy - but it has worked. We even agreed to keep the option open that if she wanted to reconsider and parent within the first 6 months of our guardianship, it would have hurt like nuts--but we'd honor that choice too if she agreed to after that amount of time to allow us to stay in their lives in some capacity. She elected to follow through and wanted us to adopt her child and we did. However, we are open and continue to be open.

The circumstances were a little unusual but we worked through it.

Our "agreement" was pretty specific. It was four pages ( typed, front & back) long. The adoption was finalized in CA.

The APs chose not to honor it immediately following finalization. They agreed to mediation, they even picked the mediator - and then refused to cooperate. I have letters from the mediator to prove it. We hired a lawyer who specialized in adoption. He was expensive and useless.

There were possible ways I could have pursued it in court but at that time I felt it would be too stressful for my son - by then he was 4. He is now 14. I am still waiting for his APs to "keep their word".