Parental respect

One thing with about knowing who your biological parents are, though, is you have a better knowledge of medical history in case something comes up

Yes, medical history is not easy. We have some medical records from the hospital when our daughter was born that pertain to the mother but very limited, and have no idea who her father is so no information there. Luckily our pediatrician deals with adopted kids a lot and they have certain precautions and extra testing that they do just to try and catch anything that may be developing. Thankfully, we've been blessed so far in that she seems to be perfectly healthy.

Congratulations to you and your new addition

Thanks! She was a new addition 2.5 years ago but every day seems like a new adventure with her. Parenthood is awesome, excruciatingly difficult at times but very rewarding.

The best graphic I ever found that describes parenthood pretty accurately

Being adopted it's hard to say. I wish I knew who my birth parents are and yea it would help knowing medical background and stuff. But from the other side I think it would be very difficult being a birth parent watching someone else raise your child, especially if they had really different ideas than you such as religion to bring them up in. In my experience with open adoptions the birth parents don't keep in touch for much past the early years, I just think it's too difficult for everyone involved making the separation that obvious to the child, like ok they gave me birth why aren't they raising me. I think it should be closed but perhaps have it be open when the child is old enough to understand why they were adopted.

That's a good perspective of it, and I agree. A good thing about the agency we went through is that we can send pictures of our daughter or write letters for birth mom to have, and they hold them and notify her that they are available if she wants them, but she is not obligated to receive them. So, if she ever becomes curious about how her daughter is doing then the information is there. As parents, we are very cautious about any interaction between our daughter and her birth mom. We have not been in a circumstance where we've had to consider it seriously, but I think given the right safeties and circumstances we'd be open to the two of them meeting each other. I think you are right in that it is most likely very hard for the birth parents to process.

I have never met my dad and wish there was a way to find him and meet him but I can understand that some people just want their privacy:)

Oh no that's awful! I'm sorry to hear that darlin'...do you know anything about him? I'm sure that could not have been easy, but you seem to have done well for yourself and are a delightful person! I'm sure he would be proud of you.

I don’t know a lot-just that it was better that he wasn’t around-but I would still like to at least meet him. My mom was a really good mom to us and we have all done well- college educations, never been in trouble, etc. I am blessed to have her:)

Our adoption is somewhat open, in that we do not hide anything from our daughter about the fact she is adopted and that she has birth parents out there, but we do not currently have any contact with her birth parents and would be very cautious about any interaction between our daughter and them. Really it would just be the birth mother, we don't know who the father is.

it's a very personal decision. I have a Semi-open adoption with my son's BM, Closed with BF. My two girls have a open, but not really due to distance adoption with their Birth Mom.
My son's BM actually chose a different family but they changed their mind about open adoption so she changed her mind about them. We get together for dinner a couple of times a year with her, her mom, and her brother. Z knows she's his BM and adores her but she knows that my wife is his real mom. she's more like a special aunt.
I think it's important to realize that to a lot of people outside our world, when you say Open adoption people think Co-parenting which is NOT what is happening LOL. No relationship with my daughters' BF b/c there were candidates, most of whom were in prison and no longer in her BM's life. No relationship with BF because he met us at the hospital and threatened to hire the best lawyer money could buy and take Z back from us. (Didn't happen but I'll have to meme about it later)
Bottom line you decide what's best for you but go into it with eyes open and be ready to call an audible if necessary to keep your family safe.

Couldn't have said it better myself! I'm glad you have some contact with the BM, she is a very special person and your kids deserve to know who she is. Sometimes I wish we could meet up with ours, but she is very difficult to track and changes her contact info constantly. My wife made an anonymous facebook account a few months ago and tried to reach out to her, she messaged a couple of times and then went dark. It sort of breaks my heart to know what her life is like.

Sounds like my girls' birth mom. She knows who we are and how to reach out to us, and sometimes she gets clean long enough to reach out and say Hi. She has 8 other kids who now have all been placed for adoption. when my two girls' sister was born she wanted us to adopt again, but we just couldn't so we gave her our friends' info. so they have 1 sister in the same state as us, 1 sister in alaska, and 2 sisters and a brother in Texas. there's also 1 brother who was living with his BF, but he's an adult now. but we're friends on FB with all of the siblings' families now and it's kind of fun.

That is really cool! And although the siblings are all broken up in different families it's really neat that you're in contact with all of them and they can stay in touch with one another. That will be really important as they all grow older.

My girls are already looking forward to a vacation to Texas when they are teens.