Domestic Infant Adoption
Catelynn Lowell from Teen Mom and boyfriend with their baby and her adoptive parents.
Ok. So, back to the adoption talk. The last posts were about adoption in general and a great adoption book.
This adoption thing took me to the internet. Lots and lots of googleing. There are many types of domestic infant adoption. I will narrow it down here to : open adoption, semi-open adoption and closed adoption.
Lets start first with closed adoption. This is the type of adoption most people think of when they think of adoption. This type of adoption in domestic infant adoption would consist of a birthmother choosing an agency or facility to work with. The agency would then match the child with a family and keep all information from either party private. There is no contact between birthmom, adoptive family during or post adoption. It is usually very difficult for the child to track their birthmother down post adoption. Some people really prefer this, but there is lots of controversy about it these days. Honestly this type of adoption is becoming rare, yes you can still do it, but it is becoming obsolete in domestic adoptions. If you are looking for a completely closed adoption, you might want to look into international adoption.
Semi-open adoption. This is sort of a new term, it used to be lumped into open adoption, but is now sort of its own category. A semi open adption can vary between situation based on what you, the agency and the birthmother agrees to. Most often I have seen this in adoptions that happen between state lines, where they cannot see each other all the time. The common ones I was looking at are where you and other families get matched with a birth mother by an agency. The birthmother then looks at your profile and chooses a family. It is a very interactive process as opposed to closed adoption. You then either meet the mother in person or on a conference call facilitated by the agency. You are present at the hospital at the time of the birth. Then contact sort of drops off, you do not exchange personal info such as address and contact info, all the rest of the contact is done through the agency. Usually you send letters and pictures of the child on a yearly or semi-yearly basis, and they can send some back. No post adoption visits usually happen. So with this type they are getting to see the child grow up through photo albums and letters but do not have personal contact. Some people choose to set up a separate email account and communicate that way, some people choose to visit when the child is much older. So it varies, but the basis would be getting to know each other before the adoption takes place and continue minimal contact through the agency after the adoption takes place.
Open adoption. This is more and more prevalent today. And if you have ever seen Catelynn on MTV's Teen Mom, she has an open adoption. Most commonly you would go through the same match and selection process as above, but the relationship grows from there. Again it is different from case to case depending on what you and the birthmother agree upon, but most common and in Catelynns scenario you also do letters and photo exchange through the agency. No personal info is exchanged i.e. location, last names. But the added bonus of 1-2 visitations a year is taken upon. So your child grows up knowing their birthmother. Sometimes this can vary greatly. I have seen stories where1-2 visits is typically the case, but then others that are very very open and even have the birthmother as a baby sitter. So the amount of openness is at your discretion and will be discussed with you, the agency counselor and the birthmother.
These are just short introductions about the adoption types. Not true in all cases, but is typical for most. So please do more research on it if you are interested.. I just am using this to walk through our internal thoughts and facts about our potential adoption journey.
So what do Rich and I want to do? We are leaning at the semi-open adoption. More to continue on this subject later
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