Hi Melissa,

Nice to “meet” you. So my situation is a bit unique in that I was a foster to adopt child (as were my brothers and sisters, we were a sibling group of   foster to adopt children), as well as I am an adoptive mother to my 16 month old son, Max (domestic infant adoption). I was four years old when I was adopted by my mom and dad, so I too had some memory of my first/biological parents. First let me say, how kind of you to allow the first family to share Thanksgiving with you and your family and your children. Such a wonderful gesture of a mother and fathers love for their children. :0) In terms of the first/birth mother sharing Christmas..that is a tough one for sure. For us, we never meet at our house with our sons first/birth mother. It is just a boundary we have set. We are not comfortable with her coming to our home, though she does know where we live. Not that we told her, but I know she found out somehow (a million ways to find people these days) because our sons first/birth grandmother showed up at our house on Mother’s Day with flowers and a card for me.  So, you may want to consider if you are comfortable with her being in your home as the first hurdle. Once you make the decision, maybe try to have an age appropriate conversation with the kids (more so the older children, the younger child isn’t going to get it) and kind of start out by asking if they remember her, what they remember, etc. And even ask them how they would feel if she shared the holiday with you. You may get a reaction that they do not want her to share in that time with you. I think for us, we would probably do a separate time with the first/birth family prior to the holiday so we could make the actually holiday time for our family to share. If you make the decision to share time with them at the holidays, I would certainly establish ground rules. Just the basics, how long you will all spend together, topics of conversation that are off limits (You don’t want her to say anything that may confuse or upset your children, or make them feel threatened that their placement with you may be in jeopardy. Not suggesting that she would ever do such a thing on purpose, but children’s minds do not work like adult minds as we all know, so something that may seem harmless to us may feel very upsetting to the children), establish that if you and your husband begin to feel that the visit is not good for the children, it will be ended, etc.  And for us, we never allow the first/birth family to have time with our son unless we are also present. So just some things to think about. I think the most important thing is to trust your gut, you guys know what is best for your children. If you start to feel like it is too much on them, exercise your right to terminate the visit.  Establishing ground rules so everyone has the same expectations is also going to be vital to a successful visit. And I would make sure to follow up with the children after the visit to kind of “check in” on how they are feeling. The visit may bring up an emotional reaction or some things they are confused about or need to talk out. Good luck, lets us know how you do!

Welcome, Melissa! We have a very unusual situation- I’m not posting to scare anyone but just to be another point of view to consider. In our situation, we adopted our son at 9 mos. old with a post-adoption contact agreement, which are enforceable in 20 states. Our agreement is for unlimited emails and 1 visit per year. It’s been a full year now since placement and 7 months since we finalized. Unfortunately for us, we are now in court trying to get our contact agreement terminated and have a restraining order against the birth father. We did not receive the social worker’s report until 5 months after placement- she said she forgot to send it to us- so we had only a watered-down version of the challenges with these birth parents. The birth father, who is bipolar, has been for over 2 months sending us horrific texts and emails- I mean the type that make you want to throw up, they are so awful in how he describes how he is thinking about taking our son and mutilating my husband and me. Our restraining order says that we are still obligated to visits even though he can have no contact with us any other time!

Anyways, any contact and visits that you arrange should be carefully planned for your family’s comfort and safety. You are, obviously, being very thoughtful about this. We had our 6-month visit in a neutral, very public location with extra family and friends around. We talked with the birth parents in advance about our son possibly viewing them as strangers and that we would leave if he became overly tired or distressed. The birth father, at the last minute, chose not to come. Our son didn’t remember his birth mother and cried when she tried to pick him up.

We had, until 2 weeks ago, a very close relationship with our son’s birth aunt and grandmother. They know what the birth father has said and yet still want us to keep the relationship the way it is. So, with our getting the restraining order, they have now cut off contact with us. It’s very sad, because the aunt and her family live nearby and we visited with them frequently. It was, however, a source of contention with the birth father that they had developed a friendship with us and they saw more of his son than he did. We couldn’t allow more visits for him, as he’s been in and out of psych hospitals and we just didn’t trust him.

As I said, fortunately, ours is a very rare situation. And we did domestic adoption through an attorney, not foster care. Trust your gut instinct as well as your feelings of compassion. We still feel compassion for our son’s birth parents but we can not trust the birth father around our son nor trust that the birth mother will make wise decisions about the birth father.

Wow how wonderful of you to invite the family to your home. I am trying to work through some of the same issues,  my soon to be daughters Grandmother wants visits with her and I am having a hard time with this.  First let me say I am a Grandmother, so I do understand her fight for her granddaughter, I just don’t believe she is fighting for the right reasons. I have a post adoption agreement which I can’t wait to have in force.  This lady is rude and very disrespectful to me.During our last court hearing she slandered me and my family, lied repeatedly on me and made up horrible things about my daughter, I am furious with her. I can take the hits on me, but to bring my child into this was really below the belt ( I’m talking about one of my bio children, not the precious baby I am adopting). She is blaming all of her situation on me, and i really try to understand she is hurt, but abusing me is so not the answer. I cannot wait until the adoption agreement is in force, I agreed to 4 visits a year,it has always been my intention to let her grandmother see her more than that, but if things keep going as they are I just don’t know. She is just so very rude and manipulative, its hard. But for my baby I am going to keep on trying, I want her to know her bio family, her mom passed this summer. She has 2 older brother, who never come to see her,but I am trying very hard not to close the door on Grandma, any suggestions for me?
thanks

Thanks to all of you for replying.  Like I said I am new to this and was wanting different solutions.  You all have provided those to me.
If bio mom comes to Ky. for Christmas then we will probably have a visit with her after we talk with her and grandma and aunt first.  I won’t do it on Christmas but before and we will be present and talk with the kids about it.  I am very honest with my children as I have been in the past so they can ask any questions when ever they want.  So far we haven’t had any problems with bio mom but I won’t mind the once a year visit and contact with me through letters or e-mail.  I don’t feel threatened in anyway by her ( she actually told her own mom that her kids were better off with me before we were even deciding to adopt these children.)  So I think we will try a visit in our home first and see how it goes.  She might not come in our state so we will see.  Our adoption won’t be final until Jan.
Once again thank you and good luck with all your children and the holidays.