Quick Links ----- Select One ------ Adoption Statistics Adoptive Family Groups Forum Adoptive Parent Profiles Birthfathers Birthmother Brochure Donate Faces of Open Adoption How to Adopt Mission Statement Open Page Newsletter Options Counseling Spanish Brochure

Open Adoption in the News

Birth Father Enriches Young Life of Adopted Son

By Inara Verezemnieks
The Oregonian, July 2003

Troy Meza keeps the photograph near his computer, so that when he looks up from his work, he can lock eyes with the baby boy with the long, thick eyelashes and a riot of dark hair.

His son.

David.

David is two years old now, talkative and inquisitive. Sometimes, Try visits David at the rambling white house in Forest Grove that David shares with two gentle dogs, a bird-stalking cat and the couple David calls Mamma and Papa: Lisa and Phil Ruder.

The Ruders adopted David when he was an infant. But Troy, David’s birth father, and Kara Hall, David’s mother, remains part of his life visiting him several times a year, celebrating his birthday with Phil and Lisa, meeting for outings at the zoo, exchanging photographs and phone calls.

During the past decade, open adoption – in which birth mothers and adoptive parents remain in contact as the child grows up – have become increasingly common. But it is uncommon, adoption experts say, for birth fathers, such as Troy, to be involved, too.

That is changing, however.

Although there are no statistics to document the phenomenon, anecdotal evidence suggests that the number of birth fathers remaining in contacts with their children is rising – “and rising fairly dramatically,” says Adam Pertman, executive director of the New York-based Even B. Donaldson Adoptive Institute. He is the author of “Adoption Nation: How Adoption Revolution Is Transforming America.”

Changing attitudes about adoption and out-of-wedlock births have supported the increase. In previous decades, “there was all this shame and secrecy,” says Paula Lang, program manager of pregnancy support and adoption program of Catholic Charities, which handled David’s adoption. “The father was not invited to participate.”

The trend also comes against the backdrop of a subtle but serious recasting of a fathers role in American society. “Fathers are just becoming more involved with families. Period,” Pertman says. “For too long, we cut them out of the picture, culturally and institutionally.”

For Troy, 28, of Clackamas, personal experience guided his decision to remain in contact with his son. Troy was born in California and adopted, but his birth records were closed.

“I never knew my birthmother and father,” he says.

He often wondered whether his birthparents thought of him the way he thought of them. He had many unanswered questions about his background.

He didn’t want David to feel that absence. He wanted to be available to answer questions David might have growing up.

And this is one of the benefits supporters of open adoption cite: Children in open adoptions can have a good sense of where they came from, their genetic makeup and their medical history.

“It’s a huge piece of information for this child to have regarding their identity,” Lang says.

All to often, families involved in open adoptions know “only half the equation,” she says. “The parents that get a birth father involved,” she says, “ are very fortunate – and rare.”

At catholic charities, for example, about half the birth fathers sign the adoption paperwork, Lang says. Yet only about half that number becomes involved in the adoption itself.

A positive experience

When Troy learned that Kara was pregnant, although they were no longer a couple, he was determined to support her in whatever decision she made, he says. They both knew they weren’t ready to be parents.

“Abortion was out of the question,” Kara says. “But I didn’t make enough money, and neither did Troy.”

When Kara, 26, of Northwest Portland, decided on adoption, “Troy was part of the whole process,” she says. He went with her to meetings and orientations at Catholic Charities.

“I was determined to make this a positive situation for everyone involved,” Troy says.

Together, Troy and Kara looked through books of prospective parents and selected the family who would raise their child. Troy was with Kara when she gave birth. Because she has an emergency Caesarean section, Troy, a mobile disc jockey, took a week off work to help her recover.

She was grateful for his presence then, she says. And she is grateful for his presence now.

“It’s so nice to have someone who is supportive of you,” she says. Someone who understands what you are going through and who is equally invested in the child. “Someone you can talk to when you’re missing them.”

Two gentle souls

The couple they chose to raise David – “the dream baby,” the boy who slept through the night from 2 months on, Lisa Ruder says – are two gentle souls who have been married nine years. They love the outdoors, music and cooking.

Phil, 41, is an economics professor at Pacific University. Lisa, 36, was a social worker with the mentally ill before staying home to care for David.

Lisa says she feels good about David knowing Troy as his birth father.

And she and Phil like the idea that David, whose middle name is Armando, after Troy’s grandfather, will have another caring adult in his life – someone to talk to down the road if he has struggles or questions.

“Knowing his story in great detail helps that child process his place in the world,” Phil says. “Having the birth father as well as the birth mother makes that story more complete.”

Troy, for his part, says he couldn’t have asked for better parents to raise David.

“I feel so blessed to see how they have taken such good care of him. He is so happy, so content.”

Troy knows that he will always be, as he puts it, “on the outside looking in,” and that is the way it has to be. But it’s hard sometimes. Like the day he and Lisa and Kara and David went to the zoo, and he followed David to the play area. David wanted to climb up on something and Troy wondered, should I pick him up?

“I don’t want to overstep my boundaries,” Troy says.

But he also knows that David is “always going to be a part of my life.” There is great comfort in that, he says.

Birthday memories

Each year, on his own birthday, Troy used to wake up and lie there a moment and think about his mother. Was she thinking about him, too, somewhere, remembering this day, wondering where he was, what kind of person he had become?

There were no answers in the silence.

But he knows, from David, he says, that the birth of a child is “something you never forget.”

“There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of him.”

Despite the passage of years, despite the distance, there’s no way, he tells himself, knowing what he knows now, after locking with those long-lashed eyes, that a parent could ever forget.