Open Adoption in the News
Open Minds, Open Hearts: A father keeps up a relationship with the son he placed in adoption
By Linda Baker
Special to the Oregonian
10/10/2002
When Cody Davis visits the DeBoer family in Southeast Portland, 10-year-old Mitchell DeBoer knows he'll have a chance to roughhouse and wrestle, the kind of play a boy might engage in with an uncle or older brother.
But Davis isn't an uncle or brother. He is Mitchell's birth father. He is also something of a rarity: a 30-year-old man who maintains a relationship with the child he placed in open adoption 10 years ago.
"Very few birth fathers stay involved," said Shari Levine, executive director of Open Adoption & Family Services, a Portland agency that placed Mitchell with the DeBoers. Negative societal expectations are partially to blame, she said. "The resounding message we send birth fathers is: Feel shame and failure."
On Saturday, the agency is holding its second annual symposium on open adoption. One of the sessions will feature a panel of birth fathers who will speak about their experiences.
Davis, one of three birth fathers on panel, says the challenge of open adoption comes when the birth parents have to make a decision about the pregnancy together. "The reward is you get to watch your child grow up in an environment you know you wouldn't have been able to provide," he says.
Mitchell's birth mother, Jenipher Davis, whom Cody eventually married, was a teen-ager when she became pregnant. They first started thinking about open adoption after Jenipher saw it featured on "The Oprah Winfrey Show."
The DeBoers decided on open adoption after experiencing six years of infertility. "I remember being freaked out by the idea," said Mike DeBoer, a school counselor and former therapist. "Then I though, 'I spend all this time helping people bring secrets to light.' It started to make a lot of sense."
After attending a workshop for prospective adoptive parents, the couple was ready. One month after the DeBoers completed the paperwork, Cody and Jenipher picked them as parents for their unborn child.
In an unexpected twist, Mary-Alice DeBoer gave birth to a daughter, Madeline, two years after the adoption.
"I have the best of both worlds," she said.
Then years later, the DeBoers and the Davies have settled into a comfortable routine. "I don't even know what out adoption contract says about visitation," Cody said. "We're more like one big family now than two separate families."
Cody and Jenipher, who now have two children of their own, visit the DeBoers six or seven times a year, usually for family celebrations. "He and Mitchell have a unique relationship," Mary-Alice said. "Mitchell's really proud of Cody."
A survey conducted by Open Adoption & Family Services in 2001 found that adoptive families who had regular contact with the birth parents reported the highest level of satisfaction with the adoption experience. To encourage involvement on the part of birth fathers, Levine said, "adoption counselors emphasize that even if they can't be great parents, they can be great birth parents."
Whether they're interacting on the phone or in person, Cody and Mitchell freely exchange "I love yous." But Cody knows he's unusual.
"At the young age when girls are giving up babies for adoption, if they say they're pregnant, a lot of guys will just run," he said. "So in an adoption, birth fathers are not really the focus. But I just felt I was doing the right thing at the right time."
The premier northwest adoption agency completing the most domestic, infant adoptions in Oregon and Washington.
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Portland, Oregon 97239
315 West 10th Ave.
Eugene, OR 97401
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