Things I learned in our first open adoption in Foster Care

#1 You can’t take back info (or pictures) once you give it to the birth family

With Samantha I was too trusting, I was naive, but nothing too serious happened.

 

We invited her over after we had finalized, so she knew where we lived. She told one of her friends who then came by a few times to see Emma (once was at 11PM!) Nope, not doing that again. However, my husband does want her to know where we live. It's still up in the air....

At our final visit I gave her a CD of all the pictures I had taken of Emma, including ones with my husband and I in them. After Samantha posted ALL of them on her Facebook/ MySpace I had second thoughts about giving her all those pictures to do as she pleased. This time I am giving Kim ONLY pictures with just Braxdon in them. My only exception is a video of him taking his first steps, it does have my daughter in it, but the hugeness of the milestone is more important to me.

#2 Don't be afraid to make contact with your child's siblings (if you have any)

Honestly, I don't know WHY I waited so long to make contact with Em's siblings adoptive mom. I feared rejection and heard that they didn't want anything to do with us. After 20 months I did contact them and they wanted contact with us too! This time, I will contact right away, either they do or don't want contact with us, only one way to know!

#3 Get as much info as possible and from different sources!

I don't get why Samantha made stuff up or lied about the things she did, but it made making Emma's life story HARD! What was fact, what was BS, what do I include??? I would ask her simple things like Will's dad's name. One time she would tell me it was Wes, the next time it was Wyatt, and another time it was Wade. Once I got in contact with Will's family (via Emma's Facebook account) I got the real name and info!