The second adoption is confidential in that we are not in communication, though we offered the option of communication to the birthparents at the time of the adoption and they declined. We do have full names and information about both birthparents. We also have some information about developments in their lives after the adoption. This adoption, too, is going well. Our daughter is well-adjusted and comfortable with the information that we are able to provide for her, which is really quite a lot.
Communication is informal, done whenever one or the other feels like it.
We don't have visits back and forth, but not because we've ruled the possibility out. Working out the format and the degree of communication is negotiated over and over as needs of the parties involved change, and this is something that I don't think that most people either birthparents or adopters really realize going in. This has certainly been true for most of the people I know who are experiencing open adoption. As for the children and what information they have, one thing many people forget is that in confidential adoptions there is not the expectation of communication from the birthparents. Though, while I hasten to say that our child is not suffering from feelings of abandonment about this, I feel that situations like these have the potential for setting children up for feelings of abandonment that are just as real and just as painful and even perhaps moreso than for children in confidential adoptions who can at least fantasize that their birthparents may want communication and can't find them to do so.