Sorry We're Closed

This is a must share post from Lorraine at First Mother Forum. She's talking about the situation with the adoption agency that closed and left thousands of mothers hanging with no information about their children. When I lost my daughter to adoption there was no option of open or semi-open adoption. If it was adoption, it was closed - that's all there was to it. You were severed from your child, sometimes for life. You go through your life not knowing if your child is alive or dead, healthy or sick, well cared for or abused. When I first heard about open adoption I thought, surely that must be much better for the mothers emotionally. Boy, was I wrong.

I don't know how anyone or any agency can claim that what they're doing is open adoption or even semi-open. I think semi-closed is probably more accurate. The openness only seems to be on one side. In so many cases the a-parents know the full name of the mother and where she is but the mother knows nothing about the a-parents. Only first names (if they're the real first names) are shared with the mother and she has no idea where they are. She also has no control over contact. They can talk about agreements in the "planning" stages but it doesn't mean a damn thing. How can anyone even pretend that a mother has any control over the situation when she has to depend on the agency to forward any correspondence to the a-family and has to wait to hear from the a-parents? Even if she has some contact info on the family she still has to wait for return calls, letters or texts. If they're failing to live up to their end of the bargain the mother has to be careful to not be too pushy for fear of pushing the a-parents away. There is always the risk of the a-parents closing the adoption and there's nothing she can do about it. Again, she has control how?

I read over and over again, the heartbreaking stories of mothers and fathers who sit and wait, who had open adoptions that closed. The wound of adoption is bad enough but then to feel the betrayal of everyone involved from the agency to the a-family after promises of contact have been made just means the wound gets ripped open over and over again with each picture that never arrives or letter that's never sent. With every "open" adoption that closes there's another mother who has lost her child all over again. Infant adoption shouldn't be happening the way it is anyway, but then to do that to the mother AND the child is just pure evil.