Falling Into An Open Adoption ***Guest Blogger

This is my friend Crystal, her husband Matt and their adorable daughter Sammy. I met Crystal & Matt in March at the Adoptive Couples retreat here in Utah. I was talking to a friend about our family member adoption and she mentioned there was another couple there with a family member adoption. I knew immediately I had to meet them. Several minutes later we were sharing stories and they were giving advice. Such a great couple! Such a wonderful family!

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Our adoption story isn't your typical one...but really whose is? We knew before we got married that we would be building our family through adoption, it was the when to get started that we weren't quite sure about. We prayed for years if we should get started and the answer was always, "not yet", so we waited. Almost 6 years into our marriage, when we felt the least prepared, living just outside of Washington DC thousands of miles from our family with a friend as a roommate while his wife and kids were in North Carolina trying to sale their home, that the answer to our prayers changed.

With in a week, before we had the chance to schedule appointments with agencies in our area to get the ball rolling, we got a phone call from Matt's mom, you know the kind that changes your life forever. She had gotten a phone call about her niece from her sister in law. Her niece was pregnant with a little girl and they had two choices, find a home for this little one or the state would. Because our families knew that we wanted to build our family through adoption they thought of us, and it didn't hurt that Matt is her favorite cousin.

Five of the fastest weeks of our lives later we were parents, and two of the slowest days after that we met our Sammy.

Open adoptions were just starting to become something that were being chosen by birth parents and adoptive parents alike. Because we hadn't been to any agency orientations let alone spoken with any case workers we had no idea that open adoptions even existed. Before we said OK to being Sammy parents we sat down and decided what kind of relationship we wanted to have since our birth mom is family, and had older children. We knew that our relationship could take one of two paths; we could still be one big happy family with no secrets as to how Sammy came into this world, or we could become this once close family that had nothing to do with each other over fear that the secrets we were keeping would come out. In our minds it was a no brainier, we would be one big happy family with no secrets.

The extended family took a bit to warm up to the idea, it was about three years later that they finally grasped the concept. We were setting up for a celebration for one of Sammy's aunts, her birth mom's sister, the little ones were running around and like most three year old kids, Sammy's legs sometimes moved faster then she realized and she fell. The nearest person to her was her birth mom, Jennifer. As Jennifer scooped Sammy up to comfort her there was an audible gasp from our family, the moment of truth had arrived! What was going to happen? Would Crystal run and snatch Sammy out of Jennifer's arms complete with stink eye and wagging finger? Would Jennifer take Sammy and run? Because we had a solid relationship with Jennifer, both she and Crystal knew who they were in Sammy's life, and Sammy knew who they were, neither of those things happened. Crystal looked over towards Jennifer, asked if Sammy was OK, got a nod from her, then went back to the conversation she was having.

Almost two years ago, when we started the process to be approved to adopt again, and learned about open adoption we realized that we had "fallen into" an open adoption. We know that having extra branches on your family tree full of people that love you is never a bad thing. While it can be "fun" at times trying to reign in three sets of grandparents, explaining to the teacher at parent teacher conference that Sammy really does have a brother and two sisters that don't live with us, that she wasn't making it up, and lining up schedules so we can visit as many times a year as possible with Sammy's birth family, they live a few states away, we wouldn't have it any other way.

You can read about getting the phone call from our friends point of view, the pure awesomeness that is our family, and our adoption journey with an agency this time at our blog http://mattandcrystalsadoptionjournal.blogspot.com/

How does your family member adoption work?

What a difference two years makes. As I look back on the last couple of years I see how much our family has changed. Two years ago during National Adoption Month I was posting about other hopeful families. Meaning, we were a hopeful family too and we had been for several years. Now, here we are, two years later, with two beautiful daughters, the youngest of which was brought to us because of one gorgeous and amazing young woman who made such a selfless decision. I remember talking to Kristina shortly after Emily was born. She hadn't yet signed the papers because she was still in the hospital and since we have a family member adoption the law required her to sign consent forms in front of a judge at the court house. I asked her how she was feeling with everything. She simply smiled and said "good". We were alone in the room so I felt like I could really talk to her and so I asked her how she was really doing. She smiled again, and she said "no, really, I'm good. I know this is right, you guys are going to be amazing parents to her." People often ask me why Kristina needed to see our profile and consider us as a potential family for her child that she was carrying. What people don't understand is that, yes we might be a family member adoption, but we aren't the typical family member adoption (is there such a thing?) When Kristina was adopted by my dad and stepmom she was a baby, but I was 16 and not living with them. We didn't grow up together. We had actually met in person, a dozen or so times before Kristina became pregnant other than when Kristina was a baby but she doesn't remember that. So she really didn't know me that well and didn't really know Jacob at all because half the times she saw me, Jacob wasn't there. So she really needed to take time research and get to know who we were in order to make her decision. We were able to take the time we needed during the pregnancy to really get to know eachother on a different level then just family (not that family isn't a fabulous bond, but the bond between an adoptive parent and birth parent, is just different and special in it's own way, which combined with our sisterly bond, makes for one fabulous and special bond). Our family member adoption is not what most are. It works, most don't. We have our ups and downs yes, but for the most part, it is fabulous! We honestly wouldn't change it for anything.