I have been writing about the challenges that we have faced in navigating a relationship with the birth mother of my two oldest daughters. I have shared a lot about our personal situation, and yet I have left out a lot of details and specifics.

In this post I am going to offer some advice in handling a difficult relationship or situation with your child's birth parents, and I hope it is helpful to some.

If you are in a challenging relationship with your child's birth parent or birth parents, here is some advice.

- Get professional help. Adoption agencies that handle domestic adoptions usually have one or more employees who specialize in handling contact between adoptive parents and birth parents. Ask for their advice and their wisdom. Social workers, counselors and therapists can also be great support. For me, their advise and support was essential to figuring out how to best handle the situation.

- Make sure that all of the decisions you are making are in the best interest of your child. It was easy to determine what would be easiest for ME, and it was easy to determine what would make the girls' birth mother happy, but determining what was best for the girls, now and later, was a lot more difficult.

- Be willing to put your expectations behind you. We expected to be able to have a healthy open relationship and it was tough for me to realize that that was not going to work out.

- Look at the big picture. The choices you make now will be long lasting, and will have to be handled/explained to your child when he is older. Make sure you are doing what is right for now and for the long term, not just what is easiest at that moment.

- Remember that situations change and relationships change. Bad relationship can get better, and good relationships can go sour.

- Do what you promised. I was sad to hear from our agency that they have a lot of adoptive parents that just disappear and cut off contact when ever relationships with birth parents get complicated. I think that is a really sad message that adoptive parents are sending. Even in situations where no direct contact is occurring, adoptive parents can and should still send updates and photos, especially if you promised to do so.


Earlier posts on this topic:
Relationships with Birth/First Parents
Relationships with Birth Parents - Difficult Decisions
Relationships with Birth Parents - Navigating Rough Waters
Relationships with Birth Parents - Our Solution