Protecting children's right to know their parents when adopting

[Miss_Dee]

My Mum and Uncle are both adopted. They have always known, they can't even remember the first time they were told. My Nan has always said that she was supportive of both of them finding their birth parents. My Mum has never bothered as Nan was the one who raised her so Nan is her Mum. My Uncles birth parents made contact about 10 or so years ago and they now see them pretty regularly. Being open about it was definitely the best thing.

[lil_chookie]

In Australia we now practice Open Adoption, not the Closed Adoptions of the past. This gives the birth mother and father the right to request information and photos 4 times a year and visits 4 times a year. In our case we have both of these, but only with our birthmum. Birthfather came to our visits a couple of times when DD was a baby (she'll be 2 in a couple of weeks) but I think there is a good chance we will not see him again. Birthmum has been very consistent, we meet at a park for a couple of hours. It's a wonderful thing for all of us.

When our adoption was legalised in court, the visit requests and information exchange was built into the Adoption Order. We are legally bound to attend these visits, although don't need that legal binding. We wholeheartedly embrace birthfamily contact and how important it is for DD. Our DD is also from another culture (born here in Australia) so birthfamily visits will become more important as she gets older and she becomes more aware she physically does not look like us (personality is another story, she is a combination of DH & I!!). We also actively do things in our life so she learns about her culture. We eat the food, learn about the country, spend time with other families who have adopted children from that country and in the future we plan to travel there.

We have a lifestory photo book for DD. It is all about the 7 months before she came to us. It's about her, her birth parents, her foster family and us. We read it whenever she asks. I get it out every day in the week leading up to a visit with her birthmum, so when she sees her, she feel familiar. DH and I hope our daughter grows up with a very healthy attitude to her adoption and she'll know not just the love of us her parents but the love of her birthmum too.