in which I try to talk open adoption

When we started the process of adopting Tristan, we were pretty intimidated by the idea of a fully open adoption. I knew from a lot of reading that openness is becoming the norm, and that there's a spectrum of openness, from exchanging letters or pictures through a third party to actual in person visits before and after the baby's birth.

There's no "normal", necessarily, because no 2 adoptions will be the same. If you're in the process of adopting, you would be wise to develop a very flexible attitude, about everything.


We were tentatively matched 3 or 4 times before we met Tristan's birthfamily. We met one other expectant mom in person, and she decided to parent her baby. So when we got the call about Tristan, we had settled into a wait-and-see mentality, just because that's the nature of this stuff. You're dealing with real people, their lives and emotions, and their children. It's reasonable that they would be invested in who they are choosing to parent their child forever.

I'm no expert, I'm new to all this... but I can tell you this much. Women who choose adoption for their babies love their babies. So for us, once we met Tristan's birthfamily, it was not a struggle to love them, and to want to find ways to make their tremendous sacrifice easier.

I'll keep talking about open adoption, because it's fascinating to me, and this is my blog, after all. I just can't talk about it any more tonight, because it's taken me 6 hours to write this entry, due to certain people who have decided they prefer to never be put down, ever, even when they are sleeping. So more later, Lord and Tristan willin.