A lot of the things I write about on this blog are inspired from my own experiences with adopting transracially.

Lately we have been facing a difficult situation with the birth mother of two of our children, and I am sure that we are not the only family in a tough situation, so I thought I would write about it.

Many of us adoptive parents prepare for our domestic adoptions by doing lots of reading, research, etc.

If you read the blogs of birth/first mothers such as Jan, Jenna, Heather and Coley, it is easy to get a picture in your mind of all birth mothers being loving, caring and dedicated parents who truly want what is best for their children and are committed to being those children's mothers, while at the same time respecting the fact that their children have other parents as well.

It is easy to fall into the line of thinking that all birth mothers will do what is best for their children.

On the flip side, if you read enough stories like this one, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that all birth/first mothers are troubled and selfish, don't care a lick about their children and see them as little more than invaluable possessions.

The thing is, both of these lines of thinking are false. It is impossible to say that "all birth mothers are..." and then filling in the blank with any type of description. There are wonderful, loving, caring, dedicated birth mothers, and there are women who give birth to children and do not give them any of the love, care or respect that they deserve.

The challenging part for adoptive parents is that when you sign up for a domestic adoption and you are chosen by an expectant mother to adopt her child, you never know what type of person she will be, and like it or not, when you adopt a child, you are forever forming a relationship of some kind with that child's birth family.

When we adopted our two older girls at the ages of nine and six, and they were placed with us directly from their birth mother, we had high hopes that we would be able to have an open relationship that would be in the best interest of the girls. We knew that they were coming from a difficult background that involved abuse and neglect, but we also knew that their first mother loved them, and we wanted to form a relationship that would best help them get through life.

Unfortunately, although their mother does love them, she behaved (and continues to behave) in ways that are selfish, manipulating, abusive, upsetting and in many different ways, harmful to the girls. Social workers, therapists and even the advocate for the birth mother all agreed that continued contact between the girls and their birth mother was unfortunately not in their best interest at this point.

It has been a tough road since then. For me, it has been hard to try and balance wanting what is best for the girls and wanting to protect them, and trying to keep the relationship I have with their birth mother somewhat positive.

So what do you do when the relationship you hoped for with your child's first parent doesn't work out the way that you wanted? I will write some tips in my next post and share how we have handled our situation, trying to do the right thing and do what is best for all involved.