Open Adoption

[7rin]

Help bring Peri home @ http://www.bringperihome.com

My name is Carla Moquin. I am raising two daughters, Alpha (7 years) and Echo (4 years). My and my now-ex-husband's middle daughter, Peri, was placed at birth into what was planned to be an extensively open adoption. Unfortunately, that is far from what the situation turned out to be. This is our family's story.

The Wall of Open Adoption @ http://www.mercianeclectics.dsl.pipex.com/adoption/adopted_pages/TheWall_OpenAdoption.htm

Imagine there is a wall.

Enormously high and dangerously slick, it is impossible to scale. Its foundation is barbed deep into the ground beneath it, so attempting to tunnel under the wall is potentially lethal. Seen from a distance the wall appears benign to most, while to some it has become sacred in its external perfection. This wall divides the entire world, and it stands in between you and your child.

On random occasions, an opening appears in the wall. You never know when it will come, so you spend your days walking back and forth scanning the bricks and mortar endlessly, just in case. You never know how large or small the opening might be or how low to the ground, and so you learn crawl and to contort your self to any size or shape, in case you are asked to enter. And you never know how long it will remain open or what conditions might close it, so you learn to be on guard -- careful, so careful of what you say.

Whatever time you may spend on the other side of The Wall remains at another's discretion, so your bags remain packed, carried on your back, waiting for the moment you are forced back through the opening -- back to your side of the wall where your vigil begins once more, wondering when or if The Wall will ever open again.

Imagine years of enduring The Wall: The random openings and closings, the unpacked weight on your shoulders, the contortion of body and soul -- all to stroke your child's hair for a single moment, gaze upon her face for an hour, play a supervised game of monopoly with her every few years, or simply snap a photo of her.

Now stop imagining, because this is the world of countless mothers who have lost children to the system called Open Adoption.