The Chronicles of Munchkin Land

It’s time for a new Open Adoption Roundtable. This time we’re talking about Open Adoption Agreements.

Write about open adoption agreements. Is there one in your open adoption? What effect does it have on your relationships? If you could go back in time, would you approach the agreement differently?

About one month after the Munchkin was born and placed with Dee, I once again had stable Internet. It was at that time I learned open adoptions were not legally binding in our state, meaning that Dee could close the adoption and essentially fall off the face of the Earth with the Munchkin. I would have no recourse. End of discussion.

I was slightly upset. To put it mildly.

I had not been informed of this fact. The unethical facilitator through which I placed did not tell me this information in any way, shape or form. ANLC presented open adoption as all good. They told me that I would be sad for awhile, but that it would get better. Little did I know they were telling Dee that eventually, most likely after a year, I would disappear. I was lied to, by omission, about the true facts of open adoption. ANLC lied in order to make sure that I would relinquish.

I called them on it shortly after I found out the truth about open adoption. Literally. I called them. When I asked why I wasn’t told that open adoptions weren’t legally binding in my state, my “counselor” replied, after a lengthy pause, “Who told you that?” As if it was some big secret. As if she had been outed, right then and there, as a liar. She then tried to cover her tracks, claiming that since she was in California, she wasn’t 100% sure about Pennsylvania law. I lost it at that point.

I turned to Dee at that point. She and her then-husband were equally upset. They turned to their Pennsylvania based lawyer, not the facilitator, and had a good faith agreement drawn up.

I’ll be honest: I don’t even know what it says anymore.

The agreement matters very little to me. Dee knows I’m not going anywhere. And if I do, she has my social security number and could track me down quite easily. I know that Dee isn’t going anywhere. We decided long ago that we were in it for the long haul, even through the crappy stuff. Our relationship goes beyond paper and signatures. We are family. I don’t need an agreement with my mother to continue a relationship with her. I don’t have to have my dad sign a piece of paper that he won’t disappear from my sons’ lives as their very important grandfather. My mother-in-law never had to promise to love us: she just does.

In saying that, I recognize that families have falling outs. People cut each other out for all number of reasons. It’s a fact of life. I recognize that the space exists for Dee to disappear. Or for me. I think it’s always a fear in the back of my head, my heart, but I don’t dwell on it. I don’t let it affect our relationship, like I don’t let the fact that my brother could decide to never see his nephews ever again affect the relationship I have with him. Quite honestly, every relationship is a good faith relationship: you have the faith that you’ll wake up tomorrow and your mom will still love you, your friend will still be your friend and that your husband will still be in your bed.

I’m okay with all of that, I suppose.

I’m not okay with the way that ANLC lied to me. I’m not okay with agencies and facilitators lying to expectant parents considering relinquishment and adoptive families alike about the ins and outs of open adoption just so they can get what they want which is, of course, the money. I’m not okay with this form of coercion that is alive and well in our country.

But I am okay with what I have in my daughter’s family. We make our relationship work. It is always my hope that the others out are able to find something that works for them as well. I know it doesn’t always work — like any other relationship — but that doesn’t make it any less sad.

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