Each adoption is incredibly unique. The level of openness and ways to communicate with your child’s birthmother after the placement depend highly on your individual arrangements, preferences, and feelings. You’ll often hear advice on how to maintain healthy communication before the placement, but in an open and semi-open adoption, communication doesn’t end after placement. Here are some ways to be thoughtful and considerate when communicating with your birthmother after placement.

Calling & Texting

Depending on your arrangement, call and/or text your birthmother as often as you both are comfortable with, especially within the first year. Let her know when you’ve arrived home safely with the baby and that he or she is doing well. If she ever calls you, always call her back promptly if you miss it. Remember that this is still a very emotional time for her, and when you maintain healthy communication, you are assuring her that her baby is safe and loved.

Email

Emails are a good idea if you feel like calling or texting her is invading her privacy in any way or if you don’t have frequent phone calls. It’s still important to let her know you are thinking about her, and it only takes a few minutes to send a quick photo with a short update.

Give a Gift

Communicating with your birthmother might seem hard or awkward at first, but a thoughtful gift, such as an adoption journal, is a wonderful gift to nurture your relationship. Consider creating a scrapbook or album with photos and short stories about the time you’ve known one another thus far, including when the baby was born. You can leave pages blank for her to fill in with updates and photos you send as the baby grows.

Family Website & Social Media

Another great way to communicate with your birthmother and keep her updated is to create a website, blog, or private social media group where you can post family photos and updates about your baby and share it with her. If you create a website or blog, it can also serve as something you can share with the rest of your family as well.

Other Updates

Send cards, letters, and photos to share your baby’s milestones, like crawling, walking, or talking. You can also share with her important times in your baby’s life, like birthdays, outings, and sports and activity events, and school events. Also consider taking videos of certain special moments and occasions and sending them to her. Not all communication has to be serious. Don’t forget to share funny stories from day-to-day life, habits your child is developing, or new favorites he or she has.

Special Projects

Child art projects and drawings are adorable and she will likely enjoy seeing some of those. Consider setting aside a couple of these a year and sending them to your birthmother. Handprint and footprint art is always a fun project for example. Once your child grows old enough, perhaps he or she can even create something special just for your birthmother.