Sunday, April 3, 2011

Why Open Adoption?

      Like most prospective adoptive parents, we did not know what open adoption was when we began the adoption process. At first, it was a scary thought. What was open adoption? Was it shared parenting? Would we have any privacy? Would we feel like "real" parents? The more we researched, the more we understood. We learned about the benefits for all members of the adoption. We, the adoptive parents, would actually feel more secure in our roles as parents (after all, the birthparent would be choosing us as the parents for their baby). The birthparents would find peace in being able to see their baby thriving with the parents chosen. And the child would grow up more secure in his/her personal identity. These are just a few of the benefits; there are actually many more.
     We still had to decide whether open adoption was for us. We prayed, we talked with each other and others, we read the research and we prayed some more. The conclusion we came to was that open adoption wasn't something we had to settle for. OPEN ADOPTION WAS WHAT WE WANTED TO EMBRACE! Have you ever heard a child complain that there was too much love in his/her life? We really want our child to be able to celebrate his/her heritage. We want our child to know that the choice for adoption was made out of love and not rejection. We want our child (and us) to benefit from having a relationship with his/her birthfamily. With that in mind, we are committed to doing everything in our power to make that happen!
     We are extremely excited about becoming parents! It is hard to wait, but we know it will be worth it when we finally meet our baby. And we are ready to welcome baby and birthfamily into our lives!

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