Adoption Diaries

The Miracle of Open Adoption


We are Glenn and Jolie Buberl from San Diego, California. Jolie is a 44-year-old administrator at a non-profit childcare agency, and Glenn is a 41-year-old healthcare attorney. More importantly, we are Emma’s mom and dad. Emma joined our family through the miracle of open adoption. After not having any luck with conceiving, including two attempts at in vitro fertilization, we found that open adoption was the best way for us to start a family. We first learned about open adoption at a presentation given by the Independent Adoption Center. In an open adoption, the adoptive parents, child, and the birth family remain in contact. This ongoing interaction has been proven to help all parties feel good about the adoption decision, and, most importantly, make sure the child never has any doubt that she was loved by her birth family. Initially, the idea of an open adoption was a little scary for us because it was full of unknowns, such as: Would we be chosen by a birthmother? Would we connect with her? What would it mean to have the birth family in our lives? How long would it take to for a birthmother to choose us? The staff at the Independent Adoption Center was great at answering our questions and helping us to see how beneficial an open adoption would be for our child and for the birth family. Although we embarked on the open adoption process without being able to know exactly how it would unfold for us, we knew that it would just be a matter of time before we would have a child join our family. It took us about six months before we had all of the necessary paperwork completed to be listed as a waiting family. The waiting was definitely the hardest part. In the eight months we were waiting, we had only two contacts. The second was from Emma’s birth mother, Sara. Things happened fast after we were contacted by Sara. In less than two months from first hearing from Sara, Jolie was in the operating room watching Emma’s birth. Three things were obvious from the moment we first saw Emma: she was beautiful, we loved her completely, and we knew she was meant to be a part of our family. We remained at the hospital for three days, so Emma and Sara could be discharged at the same time. The time we spent at the hospital was a wonderful opportunity to get to know Sara better, as well as her mom, Jennifer, and son, Thomas. We have been fortunate to remain in contact with Sara and her family and expect that to continue. At the hospital, we also received some quick instruction from Sara and the nurses on some of the basics of taking care of Emma, such as feeding her and changing her diapers. Without this instruction, we would have been even more overwhelmed when we took her home. Like any new parents, bringing a baby home was a major adjustment for us. What made it a little tougher was we had only two months, instead of the customary nine, to prepare for Emma’s arrival. Nevertheless, with the help of our family, we were able to quickly get our house in order and enjoy watching Emma learn new things every day. From the moment she wakes up each day, she is generous with her loving smiles. We hope that Adoption Diaries will help give people a better understanding of how open adoption works and what a blessing it can be in helping create families.