Book Review: The Open Adoption Experience

by Pam Connell | More from this Blogger

31 Aug 2007 08:30 AM

The Open Adoption Experience, by Lois Ruskai Melina and Sharon Kaplan Roszia, is a comprehensive resource for birth and adoptive families. It talks about options on the spectrum of openness, from non-identifying information only, to letters and photos through an intermediary, through visits on birthdays, to frequent visits.

The book was written in 1993 and so has only a small section on international adoption, reflecting the fact that few international adoptions were open at that time. (Most still are, but openness-at least through letters and photos-is becoming more common.) Nevertheless, the authors briefly share the experiences of half a dozen couples with some openness, and address unique pitfalls, such as cultural differences in communication styles and the difficulty of seeing people with whom you share a connection living in poverty.

The authors state clearly that they believe open adoption has more pros than cons, but acknowledge that it is difficult and may be painful. They provide questions for parents to ask themselves as they consider how much openness they are comfortable with. They provide examples of how birthmothers and adoptive parents choose each other. (Many social workers report that when the birthmother sees a family's introduction it just "seems right", just as many, but not all, adoptive parents report seeing a waiting child profile and "just knowing" they were called to be that particular child's parents.)

The book talks about getting to know each other, evaluating the relationship, and making a plan. It strongly suggests "visioning" exercises to draw out the expectations of the birth and adoptive families, pointing out that they will need to negotiate who is present at the birth, who names the baby, what they will do if the baby is ill, whether the birthmother and/or the adoptive mother will breastfeed, how much time the birthmother wants alone with the baby, whose family's relatives can visit the hospital and when, and many other details.

The book also suggests choosing someone for a"facilitator" role. I believe the best situation is for the birth mother and adoptive parents to each have their own social worker, so the worker cannot communicate a bias (for example, if she feels pressure to get a child for the adoptive parents or to make things easy on the birthmother) while the decision is being made, but the idea of a neutral facilitator also makes a lot of sense to me.

The book contains a very nice section on explaining open adoption to other children in both adoptive and birth families. I thought it did a particularly nice job explaining the grief and fear birth siblings may feel at their parents' decision that they cannot parent another child, but also how they can be helped to heal. It also covers the feelings that grandparents and other members of the birth and adoptive families may have.

The book addresses the understanding of adoption that the child gains as he/she grows, the benefits the child will likely find in having the answers to his questions, dealing with the pain of having an unreliable birthparent (which may oddly enough give the child peace about why he/she was placed for adoption), and ways the child may try to play the families against each other and what each family's response should be.

There is also a discussion of opening an adoption that had been assumed to be closed-on getting more information, working through a third party to talk about roles, taking time to define expectations. This section would be useful to international adopters and many others in traditional adoptions, foster care adoptions and other situations. There are also sections addressing stepparent and relative adoptions (for example, parents adopting their teen daughter's baby).

The book also talks about entrustment ceremonies, the first year, the holidays, christening and other religious ceremonies, the child's birthday, Mother's Day and Father's Day.

The book's main message is that open adoption has many, many advantages-and should be done with careful planning.

Please see these related blogs:

Book Review: Making Sense of Adoption by Lois Ruskai Melina

Thinking About Other Parents

Learn more about Pam Connell

Pam Connell is a mother of three by both birth and adoption. She has worked in education, child care, social services, ministry and journalism.

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SallySal (6) 04 Sep 2007 02:48 PM

I loved this book! It really helped me through the whole adoption process. Do you know if this author has written any other adoption books?

Pam Connell (2658) 28 Sep 2007 09:40 PM

Sally--Lois Melina has written Raising Your Adopted Child as well as many columns for Adoptive Families magazine.

Pam Connell (2658) 28 Sep 2007 09:43 PM

Melina has also written Making Sense of Adoption, which I wrote a review of for this blog in August.