"The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption" Barren B!tches Book Club

I'll be perfectly honest...I haven't finished the book yet.  But, I can comment on the first half of this book.  I LOVE IT.  I LOVE IT SO MUCH I'm going to give a copy to our adoption agency and Baby X's first-mom.  Because LORI IS THE BEST.  (sorry about the shouting, I'm a little excited)

Most of the books I've read on adoption have been adoptee memoirs, or vaguely textbook-y with a dash of lecturing.  While they've been good, and I've learned quite a lot from different perspectives, this is the first book I've read about open adoption specifically that speaks plainly, warmly and from a perspective of being in the middle of it.  The insight from Lori and Crystal as well as everyone interviewed for the book is priceless.  Every story has layers and fits and starts, and Lori does a good job of stressing that there is no "correct" path, but that open adoptions have a life of their own, an ebb and flow depending on the circumstances and personalities of all parties in the adoption constellation.  I have many favorite quotes and tidbits that help me frame open adoption in my head, but I think that this one captures it all.  Adoption creates a split between a person's biology and biography.  Openness in adoption is an effective way to heal that split and help the child become whole.  I believe that this is true in every aspect of adoption, not just open adoptions.  One of the ideas stressed to us in our training through the adoption agency is that us parents should be open with our children about their entire adoption story.  Whether you find yourself in a closed adoption, a fully open adoption or somewhere in-between, I firmly believe that being open and willing to discuss adoption issues has to go a long way in helping adoptees gain a sense of self. 

And now for the discussion questions:

The term “Real Mother” or “Real Parents” comes up quite frequently in an adoptee’s life.  Lori suggests in her book that we see each set of parents (birth and adoptive) as “Real”.  Do you agree?  How would you personally handle this terminology? And are there other ways to effectively deal with this term if used by your child or directed at your child by another?

I agree that each set of parents should be seen as "Real".  It's kind of like organic labeling.  Just because an apple is labeled organic, does that mean the apple not labeled organic is inorganic?  A trite example, but the spirit is the same.  First families and adoptive families are people.  Who can say that one of them is not real?  If the adoptee and parents agree that all of the parents are real, then that gives the adoptee a way to answer an invasive question.  The invasive question of "where are your real parents" can be answered "they are all real".  Personally, I haven't come across this terminology being used, but if I do, I would struggle to not snap at the offender.  I would like to think that I would calmly ask them what they mean to ask, giving them a chance to re-think their wording.  More likely, I'd just glare and snap some sarcastic comment back at them.  It's a work in progress, but I'm hoping, I don't have to deal with it as people seem to be more aware of positive adoption language.  I'm sure Baby X will though, as kids are so literal that it's much more likely to come up in his world.

Pages 40-42, Lori talks about the tricky issue of birth mother expenses, who pays what, when and why. She doesn't offer any hard and fast answers because there aren't any, but ends with this: "sit with the facts you gather and let your heart have its say...if your future child one day asks you about your decision, will your conscience be clear?"

This was an interesting section of the book to read as I've struggled with the idea of paying so much money for services tied to adoption.  The agency we work with has a flat fee that goes into a crisis fund for expectant parent expenses.  We won't know if our contribution has been used.  I think that this is the best way to handle the expenses issue.  The expenses are never paid by prospective adoptive parents, and even though there's still murkiness in the idea of paying someone's expenses when they make an adoption plan, I think that it helps in dampening any feeling of indebtedness toward the prospective adoptive parents.  Personally, I can't see myself sitting down and agreeing to pay someone's expenses because I wouldn't want the expectant parents to feel coerced by me.  I also wouldn't want to pay expenses because I don't want to be taken advantage of either.  In our state, only medical and legal expenses are allowed, which makes it one of the more strict laws when compared to other states.  At least on paper...
 
Please return to the main post to read more opinions on Lori Holden's The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption. 

"The Sound of Hope" Book Tour

The Sound of Hope, by Anne Bauer is an adoptee's memoir.  Here are my answers to questions posted by other readers on this tour.

1.  I was struck by how differently the many adoptees in the book (Bauer, her brothers, her adoptee friends) approached the possibility of finding their birth parents. While I totally understood the author's need to find her birth parents I was surprised that other adoptees didn't feel that same urge, or that it was trumped by guilt or ambivalence. Did you identify more with the author's drive to find her parents at any cost or did you better understand better the other adoptees' ambivalence? Why?

I identify with Anne more than her brothers on searching.  However, I definitely have a "need to know" part of my personality (evidenced by my most recent posts and thoughts toward infertility).  I couldn't get a read on Anne's brothers because it seemed that their upbringing may have also contributed to their feelings of the hand they were dealt.  I suppose that unless they write their own memoirs, we (and maybe even Anne) can never be privy to how they really feel toward their birthparents.   Her brother  Brian let her down because at one point he promised to help her search and then when she was determined to search, he rejected her.

2.  Could Anne's adopted brother's drinking problem have been brought on by his tense upbringing verses heredity? With having such an alarming rate of adoptees with drug and alcohol issues, mental health issues leading to incarceration, could some of unhealthy adoptive home environments have anything to with the tragic outcomes as well? What could we do as a society to look at the root of the problem and come with some better solutions?

There was a study in Sweden that showed the following statistics studying 18 115 adopted children born between 1950 and 1993; 78 079 biological parents and siblings; and 51 208 adoptive parents and siblings.  The conclusion from the available abstract: Drug abuse is an etiologically complex syndrome strongly influenced by a diverse set of genetic risk factors reflecting a specific liability to DA, by a vulnerability to other externalizing disorders, and by a range of environmental factors reflecting marital instability, as well as psychopathology and criminal behavior in the adoptive home. Adverse environmental effects on DA are more pathogenic in individuals with high levels of genetic risk. These results should be interpreted in the context of limitations of the diagnosis of DA from registries.  In my opinion, this study concluded that the most at-risk individuals are those who have high levels of genetic risk.  Not to mention that there are so many other factors that can contribute to the risk of drug and alcohol abuse. 

 Maybe this question is leading to how the adoptive parents approach the child's curiosity and issues toward their biological families.  In some situations, no matter what, biological or adoptive, there will be a child who has issues with addiction.   In situations, such as those described in Bauer's book, we aren't given all the facts.  But there are a partial listing of facts.  There was most definitely mental health issues and addiction in Anne's family.  What we don't know is whether her brothers' biological families have addiction as well.  In this particular case, it could have been both biological and situational, or the dysfunction within their family caused the stressors, which activated addictive tendencies.  But, who's to say that addiction would not have played a part in their lives if they weren't adopted?

3.  A variety of words are used to describe family in this book: mother, father, adoptive mother, adoptive father, biological relative, original family, first mother, birth mother, and even bionic mother (her Dad's word). Did you notice this word choice, and if so, what impact did it have on your reading?

 As someone who struggles between first-mother and birth-mother on a regular basis (I like first-mother, but get annoyed when I have to explain it), the various terms tended not to bother me much.  I did find it really odd that her father used the term "bionic" mother.  It seemed sarcastic, like he couldn't really acknowledge the presence of her first-mother despite his acquiescence that Anne have a relationship with her.  As the story progressed, I felt more and more uncomfortable with that term, and still feel a little un-moored thinking about it. 

To continue to the next leg of this book tour, please visit the main list at LavenderLuz.com. 

"Found" Book Tour

This book tour was an interesting one for me, as I've recently become an adoptive parent in an open adoption.  To give a little perspective, here are the particulars of Baby X's first days of life.  He spent time in the hospital with C and we know that she fed him and held him.  He was discharged into temporary foster care aka cradle care (second caregiver).  There was some kind of family emergency with the first cradle care family and Baby X had to be transferred to another available cradle care family (third caregiver).  We were brought into the picture two weeks after he was born (fourth caregivers).  As you might have guessed by now, I could be a little defensive about some of the author's conclusions about the primal wound.  On the other hand, I also worry about the effects of being passed around to so many people in the first two weeks of life, although all signs are pointing to Baby X attaching well to me and S.  Still, there are those times when he's upset about something, screaming his head off and arching away from me as I try to comfort him.  Those times give me pause.

Without further ado:  My responses to discussion questions posed by fellow book tourists.

The detachment, anger and loss I read in the author's voice at times made me question my own pursuit of a child that will not be genetically linked to me. For others who have or may be pursuing parenthood through adoption or third party reproduction, did anything in the book give you pause? Make you question how your family has come together?

Many statements and situations in the book gave me pause, considering that we conducted little research about adoption before making our decision and have been learning along the way.  However, more than once, I wondered how different her story would be if she had been placed in a properly vetted situation instead of strings being pulled to get her sick mother to the top of the list.  The beginning of her story points to the many pitfalls in the system, and it's unfortunate that the system fails first-parents and adoptees.  As uneducated prospective adoptive parents, the one thing we were careful to choose was an ethical adoption agency.  We looked into a few around our area, and the pickings are slim if you want an agency based in Colorado rather than some big national agency based in some other state and operating in Colorado.  Despite the transparency, despite our openness with C, and despite our high comfort level with our agency's counseling services to expectant parents, there is still a twinge of doubt.  Mostly, a twinge of "what will Baby X think/react/feel once he can fully understand that all these adults made a decision without his input?"  And then the other side of the coin is that Baby X was born and was going to be placed in an adoptive environment whether we were there or not.

What event (besides being adopted) do you think most affected the author? Why and how did it affect the author so profoundly?

The author mentioned that she had been sexually abused a few times throughout the books, although she offered no details and focused solely on the primal wound as the all-encompassing issue in her life.  I find myself wondering how much being sexually abused as a young girl and not having any type of support system affected her overall well-being.  I can't imagine that that type of abuse would not have profound effects on anyone, whether adopted or not.

If a first mother is not willing to have contact with her child or adoptive family, is it prudent to attempt to compel the first mother into an open relationship?

No.  Compelling people is not going to work out well.  Sure, we may think that having an open adoption is the best thing for the child, and it does seem to be ideal in many situations, but not all.  In that type of situation, I think that keeping the lines of communication open to the first-parents, but not pushing it is the best way to go.  The adoptive parents don't know the whole story, and the child's first-parents may have their own reasons for not wanting an open relationship.  However, trying to encourage an open adoption is essential on the adoptive parents' part. In addition, I think that being open about the child's story to the child is also important.  Even if the first-parents are not willing to have regular contact or visits, the adoptive parents should be open with the adoptee about their birth story, and be willing to help search if the adoptee wants to search.

To continue to the next stop of this book tour, please visit the main list at The Open Adoption Examiner.