Half Open - Half Closed Adoption....Anyone else?

swanck

Hey y'all.

It's been a while.

But I am charting new waters these days - and wanting to see if anyone else could share their experience.

We have a very successful adoption story.

The birth-mom and family have a very open relationship with us.  We're FB friends, text regularly, and visit about 4 times a year.  They have a really healthy understanding of adoption and the relationship is good.

But birth-dad doesn't want contact.  (They are not together.)

He was 17 at the time of birth.  Didn't tell his family.  He said he wanted updates from us via email from time to time, but has never responded to any of our attempts to contact him.  

He told his family around our son's first birthday - and we got an email from birth great-grandma.  The family would like contact and updates, but the BD doesn't seem to want them.

We initially told the family that we wouldn't be in touch without BD's consent.  Meaning, if it was too hard for him to hear from us, we didn't want to update the family only for them to wave it in his face.

So all this to ask....does anyone have something similar?

Part of why we did open adoption was for the health of having an established relationship with birth family.  But right now - any positive steps with BM seem to be negated by lack of contact with BD.

I'm probably not making sense now.

Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.

TIA.