A question for adult adoptees who have finally met their birth parents....?

Question

how did it go? Have you kept up post-reunion contact? Are you glad you pursued a reunion?

Answer 1

it has been great! i found her about 7 years ago. i have 2 younger brothers that i adore. i was raised the baby of the family so being a big sister was a switch

i am a personality carbon copy of her. it was quite the hoot to listen to her talk and describe things. its identical to me.

we speak as often as possible. sometimes 3 times a week, sometimes once a month. she only lives 4 hours away, but with kids our time is limited, so i only get to see her maybe once a year. i hate that. i wish she was closer.

for me, it was worth it, she will never be 'mom' but she is very dear to me and i love her as i do my family.

Answer 2

My birth parents FORCED them selves on my adoptive family and I. No I was not ready for that and it turned me inside out and upside down. We had to get a restraining order against them.

I did contact them a few years ago and went to Kentucky to meet them, they married each other and had two more kids, a boy and a girl, so I went to meet them.

It was NOT a good experience with the adults, but good with he kids. There was no LOVE in that home.

I was raised with unconditional love and would NOT change the fact that I was adopted by whom I was.

I wold NOT have pursued this and I resent that fact that they did.

They gave up their parental rights when they gave me up and my MOM and DAD took them on.

Answer 3

i met my birth parents 8 years ago.it was hard as they live in a different country,and we have big culture differences. i am  glad i got to know my roots,and to see the full picture.but i think my father is selfish,as he keeps saying he wants a relationship,but he doesnt make any effort!. my mother is nice to me,but she is not very maternal!. she doenst like to hug,say she loves you,etc. i am glad she gave me up,even though it did hurt that she had a baby soon after me!. i would not have really survived where she lives,and i would not have had the chances i had with my adoptive family.to go into a reunion is HUGE emotional upheaval.you need to be really prepared.i had mood swings and got depressed and very confused. i now talk to my birth mother once a week,but i wouldn't say we were extremely close.i am just glad i have my adoptive family.

Answer 4

I would not want to meet the person who did not love me... WAIT! she might have loved me so much she wanted more than what she could have given me.....

RENFESTGIRL.....how was that an answer?!?!?!?

I confuzded myself...

Answer 5

I'm glad I have located by birth mother.  We have not continued with our contact.  I do feel like I have closure in my life now.

Answer 6

NOT A NEGATIVE OUTCOME, GOTTA READ IT

I am now 39, but met my b-Mother (by phone 1st and then in person) when I was 31. I was finally getting married and really wanted medical information. She was very, very nervous and seemed to think 'why would any adpotee want to talk to their birth mom?' I was very reassuring, and she gave me the name of my b-father and etc., I tracked him down and had a very negative experience with his relatives, and he wasn't really that interested in a relationship. I have stoped pursuing that side of my genetic heritage. My b-mom seemed so unnerved and frankly a bit nutty (calling herself my mom, writing odd letters) that finally I just extracted myself for about a year. Then, after a sit down with a friend, I realized that all the fantasy birth Mothers I had imagined over the years were so unlike this woman, it had made ME judgmental. After all, I wasn't expecting someone who left school at 14 to have a child (not me) and another (also not me) and get married to the abusive father of both with parental consent at 14 (today he wuld have gone to jail!!) and then while divorcing and working as a go-go dancer at 23 a baby out of wedlock (me). Not the b-mom I had pictured. So, I called her back and asked if we could try again, slowly, and she agreed she wasn't MOM and now we have a healthy loving relationship. She even helped me get the information I needed medically out of my rather elusive paternal side. I discovered all the cool things we have n common, like the same laugh? which you wouldn't think was hereditary! And the same hands, and where my high high forehead came from, all those things that as an adoptee you long to know. You do need to be prepared. I think now that if I could go back in time I would have seen a therapist durinng the time I was meeting all these people with this huge emotional impact on me, an impact I didn't really expect. I thin you can be ready to seek much more easily than you can be ready to find, and it's not a bad idea to have a pro to help you.

Answer 7

I not only met my birth mother and father, but got reacquainted with two sisters who had been adopted out before my two brothers and me.  I would say it was overall an "ok" experience.  My mistake was trying to live up to THEIR expectations of ME rather than the other way around....They both had differing accounts of "what happened" when we were just LEFT with out grandmother and never heard from them again...(water under bridge).  It is true that you have to understand your own motivations for wanting to meet them.  Is it curiousity? Is it a need for medical background?  Is it for necessary closure?  Wondering what you looked like when you were born? (I was four when they left and was in an orphanage and foster homes until I was almost 10  - so there were no pictures of a "little me" to laugh at with my own children.) I did try to keep up post reunion contact - particularly with my sisters - but it's difficult when you've been raised separately - in different homes - you grow up with different sets of values and experiences and each of us handled things differently.  My older sister committed suicide; my younger sister is an alcoholic (like our bio-father) and my two brothers and I have various forms of emotional trauma from it all.  Did they understand any of that? No - did they really seem to care? - No. Do I really care now? after all is said and done - No.