Contact with birthparents and gifts

teacherhollys · June 2012

My son is 15 months old and we have had several visit with birthparents. They are a couple who is still together. We had so much contact (monthly letters and pictures, numerous texts daily, and once a month long visits) that we had to put some limits on things. I'm not complaining. In fact, I like the contact. We have limited it to 2-3 visit per year and some update letters and photos. The reason I ask is because we are about to adopt #2 and I was wondering what others' situations were like. In the ideal world, we'd have another set of birthparents just like my son's. I know that's not realistic.

Also, since placement what sort of gifts have you given birthparents and how often? We gave them necklaces at placement. We give flowers on mother's day and a small gift for father's day. (This year we gave him cookie.) I made them each a "babybook" of son's first year that I'll give them next visit. At christmas I made an ornament with son's handprint. I think I'll keep up the tradition of flowers (mother's day), cookies/fruit basket (father's day), and homemade gift like ornaments for Christmas. Thoughts?

jillianmb · June 2012

We don't have birthparents to interact with since we're doing IA, but to me your plan sounds perfect. I love how all those gifts hold their value in the meaning and not the price tag. If I were to add anything it would be something on their birthdays- even just a card with a note and a picture would be nice. If you want to give a gift with it maybe a $10 gift card to a local coffee shop and a note that says, "Enjoy a coffee break and celebrate yourself!" or something simple like that.

Art Teacher · June 2012

We are not in the process of adopting a 2nd child yet but hope to at some point. We visit with dd's birthmom (and her family) about 4 times a year. Early on we sent pics/updates every few months - 6 weeks, 3m,6m, 9m, 12m, 18m etc - and now it's 2x a year until she's 18. I don't limit it to that, though. I send pictures/cards at other times, too, especially after our visits. We keep in touch on fb and through emails, too. We talk on the phone around holidays or before visits. If we were to adopt again, I would hope that we could have a similar relationship.

We've given our dd's birthmom a couple of necklaces. I found some pretty ones on Etsy that had a heart and her inital on it (it's dd's inital, too). Holiday-related type gifts -- ornaments or art projects that have to do with the holiday, framed hand-prints...Flowers for Mother's Day. We painted a heart shaped box at a pottery studio and gave that to her birthmom for Christmas - we put a pretty bracelet inside that said "You are always in my heart" on it.

For her birthday we are giving her a photo book full of pics of all of our visits with her and a couple other little things. We're going to get together and she and dd are going to get their pictures taken together.

I think you're right on track with your ideas. I think they sound thoughtful.

Patches08 · June 2012

Chiming in re gifts. I personally think what you have done, and plan on doing is perfect. That's about what my daughters adoptive parents do for me. The Saturday before mothers day is 'birthmothers day' and I get flowers every year on that date. Congrats on awesome BP's, and I feel the limits you've set are reasonable. BP's should consider themselves lucky. Good luck with your second adoption!

hway24 · June 2012

We have no contact with BF. We have regular contact with BM, mostly through texts, some phone calls. We'll often set up calls and then she doesn't follow through. We basically told her that we're here for her whenever she wants to call, and she's called a few times spontaniously, and we're always excited when we hear from her. We haven't had any visits and don't plan to, because we live in different states. As far as gifts: we gave her a charm bracelet at placement; a photo album, a picture frame with his footprints on it, and a couple Chicago Bears things for Christmas; and a homemade card and picture for Mother's Day. We also send her updates every 3 months and we always send a letter and a photo album.

sroecker08 · June 2012

This is a completely different perspective if you dont mind. I got pregnant young and decided on adoption for my little girl (who is now 3 and a half). I decided that seeing her was going to be to hard for me and so I requested to get pictures a couple times a year from the parents and an update on how she is doing. What any adoptive parent (or parents) has to realize in this situation is that its not like surrogacy where you start out knowing that the baby isn't yours and isn't ever really going to be yours. Adoption is one of the hardest choices a girl/woman can make and so the amount of contact they may or may not want has nothing to do with you, it has to do with how the mother (or father) can handle their feelings about someone else raising their child. The fact that you are sweet enough to remember this is amazing and I applaud you so much because I think that some parents forget this. I didn't get any gifts or anything like that from them, all I wanted from them was to know that my little one was happy and healthy. The biggest advice on this whole thing I can give you is that ask them what they are expecting out of contact before you even suggest anything, if its less then your limits then its ok, and if its more then you are comfortable with then carefully explain that to them. Its better to be 100% and clear on the whole thing so there are no hurt feelings. I hope this was an interesting perspective for anyone who reads it

. Good luck with your adoption and I wish you happiness

teacherhollys · July 2012

Thank you all you your input. These people are very special to us.

Dr.Loretta · July 2012

I'm not sure what your question is with the first paragraph. If we adopt again, we'd be looking at a similar visitation schedule as with our first.

Your gifts sound fine. It really is unique to the relationship.

Contact with birthparents and gifts

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