WWYD? Kind of long, sorry

Dr.Loretta · February 2013

As background, we have a semi-open adoption with DD's birthfamily. Per our agency's basic guidelines, even though we have face-to-face visits, we don't share identifying info like last names or addresses. From the get-go, DD's BM (J) has gone out of her way to not mention her last name when we meet. So we are respecting that.

It's a tradition in my family that my mom gets flowers on our birthdays, so we started doing it with J. With our arrangement, this consists of calling 1800flowers (as an aside, proflowers won't do this), starting an order, and having the agency call with J's delivery address. Which you can imagine is kind of a pain. When we've done this in the past, 1800flowers has then sent me an e-mail confirmation with J's mailing address. Because of our agreement I have made a point not to pay much attention to it.

We are coming up on DD's 3rd birthday (no, I can't believe it either ) and I'm starting to think about this again. Part of me wants to just use last year's information if I kept the e-receipt and send the flowers directly. Part of me wants to do the dance again so as not to violate the spirit of the agreement (I doubt J will know one way or another if we did it directly or went through the agency). Or I suppose we could just ask her in our annual letter if she's OK with us knowing that info.

So, WWYD?

maryoosa · February 2013

Not in this situation at all, but in our current match enonly information that remains unshared is our address (we know theirs because we have driven them home from dinner)

But I'd stick to the agreement for this year and then ask J if it would be ok for her to share that information with you.

Marisa

annalisel · February 2013

Since J has gone out of her way to remain semi-anonymous, you should definitely continue with the arrangement no matter how tedious. It's so hard doing the right thing sometimes, but it will feel good afterwards and you are setting a good example for DD!

IRR · February 2013

I would stick to sending it through the agency. Even if you have the info, you don't have it based on her giving it to you, so best to follow the protocol you all laid out.