Ann Wrixon

I spent ten years working as the Executive Director of an adoption agency, which specialized in open adoption. In open adoption, the birthparents choose the adoptive parents and maintain contact with the adoptive family and child after placement.

As an adoption social worker as well as an adoptive mother, I saw how frightened many potential adoptive parents were of open adoption. I also noticed that explaining that the long-term research shows that open adoption has the best outcomes for adoptees, birthparents, and even adoptive parents did not assuage these fears.

Then I remembered that showing is always better than telling. Who better to "show" the story of open adoption than the families who live it? My co-editor, Guylaine Hubbard-Brosmer and I both wrote our own adoption stories, and then we solicited other adoptive parents, birthmothers, and birthfathers to tell their stories of open adoption in "True Stories of Open Adoption: Vol. I." The adoptive families are diverse, including single parent families, heterosexual couples, same sex couples, and families of many different races and ethnicities. The birthparents are equally as diverse. What they all have in common is their belief that open adoption is best for their child and their family (whether they are birth or adoptive families) and their willingness to share that experience.

Recently, I completed another book with a co-author, Jennifer Bliss, called, "Another Choice: a Compassionate Guide to Placing a Child for Adoption." This book focuses on the emotional journey of placing a child in an open adoption. It is intended to help birthparents, primarily birthmothers, to navigate the adoption process by providing them the information they need to make the best choices for themselves and their child.