Lois Ruskai Melina has listened to the concerns of hundreds of families in open adoption as she has traveled and lectured throughout the country, and is the mother of two children by adoption. The Open Adoption Experience also reflects our interviews with adoption professionals working in open adoptions as well as our extensive surveys of adoptive and birth families involved in open adoptions all over the United States. The responses to our questionnaires reflected a wide degree of comfort with openness, and as we compared research results, observations of adoption professionals, psychological theories, interviews with adoptees and birth parents, and our own experiences, we were able to identify many of the common concerns about open adoptions, as well as the attitudes, approaches, parenting techniques, and interpersonal skills that contribute to the happiest, most successful open adoptions. The examples given in this book are drawn from those questionnaires and personal interviews with families. In all cases, names have been changed, and in many cases, identifying details have been altered.
Some examples are composites of several different families.
However, they all reflect real situations and feelings. As we wrote this book, we deliberately did not separate material dealing with birth parents from that pertaining to adoptive parents. We believe your relationship will benefit if you each have an understanding of the other's concerns. Furthermore, you have many issues in common. Consequently, when we address the reader directly, the information is pertinent to both birth and adoptive families.