Our daughter came to us when she was six. She wasn't a blank slate, this was a child who knew the people in her past. She had family, friends, foster parents and all sorts of people who loved her. Many of these people did not contribute to the bad things that happened in her life, some of which did their best to pitch in help.

As a first time adoptive parent, I had this idea, this fear that I needed to hide in a cave and protect her from everyone in her past. There is no question that certain things need to be kept private but is cutting our daughter off from her entire past in the name of privacy a positive thing?

It took me some time to realize that the only way to help her grow up whole is to make her live as full of the people who love her as possible. Through DSS, we exchange letters and photos with many of our daughter's first family. Soon we are going to try a phone call with one of her family members with the help of her therapist.

Yes, we've examined the pros and cons of opening up this adoption. There simply is no blueprint, no right or wrongs to do this. You have to let your child guide you in how much they are ready for but you can't let them be the only one to open up the doors. I firmly believe that if I deny my child contact with her first family, she will hit those rebellious years and struggle even more. The idea of the unknown will intensify natural feelings of insecurity about her identity.

Of course, there is a category of people in my child's past life that I'm keeping her closed off and protected from. These aren't the kind of family members I'm talking about interacting with and I am always vigilante about dealing with their status.

Certain people in my child's first family are fading away and limiting their contact. I'm not forcing the issue but I am still keeping up my end of the communications. This isn't personal, it isn't about me. I'm committed to keeping this adoption semi-open and I'm staying the course.

Another thing I'm doing is making notes about people she mentions. She knows a lot of names and relationships but can't always put it all together. I ask her social worker or positive family members to help me connect the dots. This way I can help augment her memory and keep it intact.

Children who are adopted will always question 'who they are' at some point. Our job as parents who raise them is not to push those feelings away but to help them work through them in a healthy way.