Before we launch into the various facets of open adoption, let’s start by talking about what one is. Imagine that you have a continuum of adoption openness. On the far left, you have a completely closed adoption. The adoptive parents have absolutely no information about the birthfamily. It is like the child appeared at the adoption agency, bringing along no history whatsoever. On the far right of the continuum, you have a completely open adoption where the birthfamily is actively involved in the child’s life. They visit, they call, and all of the birthfamily’s history is completely disclosed. Very few adoptions will fall under one of these two extremes.

Somewhere in the middle of this continuum is semi-open adoption. In a semi-open adoption, some information is shared while other information is kept confidential. There is a middle man, such as the adoption attorney or a social worker at the adoption agency, who acts as the liaison between the two parties and keeps the identifying information confidential. The disclosure that turns a semi-open adoption into a fully open one is the sharing of identifying information. The birthfamily and the adoptive family know each other’s last names and contact information.

Open adoptions are relatively new, and they have come about in part because of problems created by closed adoptions. For decades, adoptees have not had access to their birthfamilies’ medical records. Adoptive families have had to speculate about why the child was placed for adoption. Birthmothers often had no idea who was raising their children. A birthmother would have no peace of mind about her birthchild’s life because she was completely excluded from knowing anything about the family who adopted her child. If a birthmother or adoptee wanted to search, there was not much information to go on.

Open and semi-open adoptions have come into being because closed adoptions were not working. They can seem scary at first because they are relatively new, and most people have never even heard of them. Just because something is new does not make it “bad.” In fact, all innovations are “new” at first. I, personally, would not want to go back to a life without a microwave or a dishwasher. These products have stuck around because they work. Open and semi-open adoptions continue because they WORK.