Open Adoption Roundtable #15: Money

Open Adoption Roundtable #15:

Does money have an impact on your open adoption? If so, how? (Could be issues pre- or post-placement, expectations, assumptions, costs of visit activities, travel, gifts–you name it.)

Now, in our post-adoption relationship? No? Yes? Doesn’t money affect everything in some way?

I suppose my answer would be a vague “kind of.” Vague as that sounds, the specifics themselves aren’t all that specific.

If I had endless funds, I would jet-set back and forth from my non-city to the city in which Munchkin’s family lives on a regular basis. Forget driving six-and-a-half hours, filling up with gas, factoring in meals on the trip and so on. I’d just get a private jet, fly over for an afternoon and fly back.

The reality of it is that our visits do take careful planning and budgeting. No, my family isn’t exactly strapped for cash. We make ends meet with enough wiggle room to do fun things. But road trips always require more money that you think and I’ve learned over the years of our open adoption that careful budgeting in the month or so leading up to a visit is a requirement. Budgeting is not something foreign to me as I’m a thrifty kind of gal anyway, so when I say that this aspect of our open adoption affects us, I don’t want people to assume that it affects us negatively. It’s just something that is done like when I budget for a new purchase or the holidays.

Isn’t it funny how the word affect can have such a negative connotation in my head?

As far as gifts go, when Dee was just parenting the Munchkin and I had no children under my own roof and no mortgage and lesser financial responsibilities, the gifts were bigger, grander and more frequent. Now that she has two children under her roof and a busy family life to maintain, I don’t expect a huge birthday present. Let me rephrase that: I didn’t expect it back then either, but I was always thankful for the gesture. Similarly, I’ve paired down gift giving somewhat as I’ve got these two kids and a mortgage and bills and a busy life as well. I don’t necessarily see this as a bad thing. In fact, as we don’t really give a lot of gifts around here on anything other than birthdays or main holidays (minus BOOKS!), I’m not treating Dee or the Munchkin all that differently than I’m treating my husband or my parented sons.

Of course, if you want to get into the aspects of how money impacted my decision to place in the first place, I’d need another five or ten posts to describe it all. For those who are hopping over here through the Roundtable discussion, I was placed on Level III bed rest at 18 weeks due to a previously undiagnosed kidney disorder. Prior to that point I had been working and trying to save money to provide for a child that I had every intent to parent. Unable to work, the wheels fell off of my plan and I straight up panicked. When you combine panic with financial issues (or ruin) and a lack of support from people in your life, well, panic increases. I have hindsight now to realize that there were communication issues and financial problems are almost always temporary but I try not to dwell on those things all that often. My life is what it is now and I am trying (very hard) to make the best out of all aspects of that life.

One thing I learned from my panic-stricken pregnancy was something I carry with me to this day: making permanent decisions regarding temporary situations should be done with careful, well-researched precision and the help of others who have been through similar issues.