closed, open or semi-open

there is lingo that goes with the adoption world, and this is more of it. allow me a moment to define (at least to the best of my knowledge).

closed adoption-this is where there is no contact between the biological and adopting parents. you might know something about the story surrounding your child, but probably not a ton. this is the typical international adoption, and this is the way that most adoptions were done 30 years ago.

open adoption-there is contact between the biological and adopting parents. there are varying levels of open. there is wide open, "hey come on over to our house!" and open with some boundaries as well, but relationship is happening.

semi-open is somewhere between closed and open. that's about all i know about that.

when we first started this journey, i was all for a closed adoption. i was driven by fear. HUGE fear. i had read one too many novels and seen one too many made for tv movies about the birth mom trying to get her child back. obviously, that is a terrifying thought. i didn't see any good that could come from us having a relationship with our child's biological parents. i thought it would be confusing for the child and that they might be conflicted about who their "real" parents were. because we were adopting internationally, i didn't have to look at my reasons or motivation for wanting a closed adoption. that was just the way that it was going to be.

however, when we moved to domestic adoption, we suddenly had to make a conscious decision about what type of adoption we wanted with the understanding that the biological parents might want something different than what we wanted. so, we had to decide, and then hold that decision with open hands.

one of the things that i am most grateful for is the great training we got from covenant care and for some challenging conversations i had with a dear friend. for the first time, i started to step outside of my fears and begin to think about what it must be like for the biological parents. when we began to think of them as people who were grieving the loss of a child and needed the love of Jesus, everything shifted. i learned how loving them well could help them to heal. we began to see that if we had an open relationship with our child's biological parents, there could be the potential for us to have medical information if we needed it. there wouldn't be this wondering in our child's hearts about who their biological parents were. they could know them. we would still be the ones calling the shots. we would still be the parents. if the relationship became toxic, we could walk away, but we could at least try it.

love began to cast out fear. isn't that what He says that it does?