Adoptees/first parents, how long has it been....?

Question

For adoptees & first parents who have been reunited...

How long have you been reunited? Do you have a relationship with your lost family member(s)? Are you still in contact?

How long did your search take - from the first inquiry to first contact?

How did you search? On your own? With a support group? With the help of a search angel? Or with a service or search professional?

Did your a.parents know you were searching? If so, did they encourage or discourage you? Did they feel threatened? Were they supportive? And...if you've been reunited for some time, have they accepted it? Has it changed your relationship with your adopted parents/family?

If you have siblings, how did they respond to your search & reunion?

Did finding change your view of your self, your family, adoption in general? If so, how?

Thanks all for your responses... ~ : D

Answer 1

I have been reunited with my bdaughter since 2001.

I started looking in April of 2001, she was 29. I found out her name from a search angel on May 2 2001. I then sent a letter of consent to the adoption agency in case she was looking for us too, also a dear birthdaughter letter for her file. On may 13 I received a letter from the agency saying she had not contacted them. On june 13th I had her address and I wrote a "I'm looking for " letter. I received a letter dated june 18 from her, from there we corresponded. On July 28th we met.

It was a short process.

My husband of 35 years is my daughters father and we have a son. We were not married when she was born but married 1 1/2 years later.

My husband told me his parents would not be happy I was looking, in fact I didn't tell my husband  until I had found her. He was right they were not happy, they thought we should have left it alone. Our son is our bdaughters bio brother.

They don't really have a relationship, my son writes occasionally and invites her to things but she doesn't feel comfortable with family gatherings. She is not close to anyone except her amom and agrandmom. We try to include her in everything. I email, write and call , I'm glad I found her but right now things are strained, as her husband is a bum and has total control over her. She has issues and so do I.

When I first found her I as thrilled and happy that she wanted us to be part of her life. We talked a lot, I'm still glad I found her, but coming face to face with her, brought all the old guilt back up. I'm sorry I gave her up, but the guilt will always be there. Coming here is what opened my eyes to the fact that adoption is not perfect. She had a pretty good life (not perfect) and got pregnant too, her stepdad wanted her to give the baby up or have an abortion but she refused because she knew what it like to feel abandoned and kept her son and married the guy. That was 16 years ago. I admire her for that. She has made it clear that I am not her mom and not her kids grandmother, and I can live with that but she is very jelous of my 2 yr old grand daughter, I think she wants more of a relationship but doesn't want to hurt her amom. Her amom was not happy that we had looked for her. We have a friendship, not a mother/daughter relationship.

Sorry I rambled.

Answer 2

(1) I found my family in March 2008.   We are in the early stages of reunion and send pictures, letters, emails and phone calls.  We are planning to meet soon - we live in different countries.  I have one  younger sister who has always known about me.

(2) My search took 20 years from contacting first inquiry to first contact.

(3) I searched on my own for 18 years with quite a long break in the middle due to all the negativity and doors slammed in my face.  The last two years I had help and support from like-minded people, which really helped counter all the stigma and prejudiced attitudes out there.

(4) I didn't tell my adoptive parents until about a year ago.  I was afraid.  As it turned out they couldn't have been more supportive and loving and helpful.  My father is deceased but my mother is absolutely thrilled and wants to know every detail of my search and reunion.  She is just the best!  When she heard I'd spoken with  my real mother she came knocking on the door with a huge bunch of flowers and was jumping up and down with excitement.  Now she is going round telling everyone all about it.  It has brought us much much closer and I love her so much.

(5) My adoptive brothers are fascinated and supportive.  My real sister has known about me and missed me all her life but admits to be being a little jealous - she's had our Mom all to herself all these years!

(6) I feel more comfortable in my own skin.  I know who I am and where I came from.  I know that I didn't come out of the filing cabinet at the adoption agency and I was really born!  I am connected to humanity. I can look in the mirror and know who is looking back at me and I no longer cringe at the thought of family reunions and talk of who looks like who and where so-and-so got their eyes/nose/curly hair.

I no longer feel that there was something wrong with me to have made my mother give me away.  I know I was loved and wanted - that's such a good feeling after having spent so many years feeling unwanted (despite my loving parents)

My view of adoption, particulary during the baby-scoop era has changed.  I no longer accept that things happened for a good reason.   The more I stories and experiences I hear, the more mad I get at the injustice of what went on and indeed, continues to go on, in the world of adoption.   I particularly hate secrets and lies in adoption, it's just not healthy nor in the best interests of the adoptee.

My empathy for mothers of adoption loss has increased tenfold since I read the book 'The Girls Who Went Away'

Answer 3

my mother and i have been reunited for 3 months.

we don't have a relationship yet we are still playing phone tag. i call her i had the wrong number, she called me my phone got cut off, i text her she can't get on the computer, now i have her number but the times are really funky because of the time zones so i'm going to try to call her again on the weekend lol. cross your fingers for me. lol

my search lasted 11 years and i found her 2 weeks before my 30th birthday. i found her on my son's birthday. how awsome is that?

i first started with the internet and a form letter that i sent to all of the hoskins in the united states. apperantly my mother has another last name so she never got it. my a mother got the stuff for me but then i guess for one reason or the other she turned on me.

never been in a support group.

i had a search angel i guess. a lady that just has a good heart tries to reunite people from the area where i was born and she e-mailed me one day. i thought it was a joke ( a cruel one but none the less...) then she told me she found my mother on classmates.com. i took the name on classmates that had the name on my certificate and her real last name and found her on myspace and that's all she wrote. I had so many emotions that day. I look just like my mother and my sister.

my amother thought i had given up.

she'll encourage me for a little while then she turns on me.

she may feel threatened but if she wouldn't have been abusive i don't think it would matter as much to her.

Nothing can change my relationship with my amother. we don't have one and may never. everytime i try it works for about a month and then she goes back to her old ways. I have been alone my whole life. the only difference is now i don't have to feel like i have to hold on to my amom because she made herself the only family i had. i have a family a very big one and they want to talk to me. and i don't think they could ever treat me as bad as my amom so i can finally let her go.

I do have siblings 1 sister and 3 brothers. I haven't contacted them yet because i don't know if my mother ever told them about me. I don't want to destroy her family just because i found her. I want to let her tell them in her own time or I will wait until she dies to let them know. so i am only talking to her. I want to build her trust in me so that we can have a stronger relationship if it's possible. going behind her back isn't the way to do it.

it did change a little. i have always had a problem with the fact that i was given away by my family (moreso ngrandparents) that didn't want me and given to a family and they didn't want me either. I have felt alone my whole life and it filled a big whole but i still have a whole in my heart and i am still afraid to hear my mothers voice. It's been really heard but i'm happy at the same time. i still don't think adoption is fair for all and you have some people that do their job and some that don't. they were grossly neglegent in my case. my mother didn't even have custody of her own two kids for her to be trying to adopt me. i have letter sthat prove they rushed me through and this is what i was left with.  I guess i just have mixed feelings and nothing can really make me completely happy with the process.

Answer 4

I am an adoptee.  I searched for my bparents about two years ago.  The state I was born in has a Confidential Intermediary Program.  My search from absolute beginning (file with the courts) to first phone call took about 6 weeks.  Bdad agreed to contact, but bmom refused.  It took me a while to realize, but bdad only agreed to contact as an attempt to keep me from searching for other family members.  He angrily quit our contact when he discovered that I had contacted my full-blood sibling.  That sibling was shocked, overwhelmed, and confused by my existence...never heard any hints or suggestions about a missing baby.

No one in my afamily knows that I searched.  My adad died many years ago.  And I think if he were still alive, we would have a different family dynamic, and I might have wanted to share this with my family.  Actually, I have said all my life that I wanted to search.  

The change in me is hard to define.  It was the curiosity that just drove me nuts, being told that I didn't have a right to search...all that just frustrated me.  I have always known that my adoption was a success story.  I was adopted by a fantastic family.  I have lived a charmed life.  Discovering the dismal facts of the life I missed, the abuse that I would have most certainly suffered....makes me realize what a chance-in-a-million success story my adoption was.  There were so many quirky things that I knew about my family without ever knowing that I knew them...by searching and having some contact has revealed to me that I have an uncanny and unexplainable connection.  Even I can't explain most of the things that I have discovered that I knew.  I am glad to know now some medical history.  That is important not only for me, but also for my children.

Answer 5

I have been reunited since 2001

Yes, we speak a lot. We have a good relationship with eachother.

I searched on my own, online on an online version of my states birth index. I found my birthname after searching over 3000+ girls born the same year, and same state as me.

first inquiry was when I was 16, denied

18 denied

gave up for a few years

started searching when I was 21, found both parents 2 weeks later and had contact that day.

no, my aparents didn't know I was searching. Yes they've accepted it. My amother became very jealous for the first year, or so.

My siblings are all blood related, they were thrilled to meet me and we're the closest of all.

Yes, my sense and view of self changed. In too many ways to really list, thats a book. I found myself. I know who I am and where I come from. Thats a sense of security I can't explain, but i'm more proud of myself now than i ever have been.

Answer 6

wow that's a lot of questions.

Lets see ..my mother, found me, she heard I'd run away from home(aged 15) and via different people, she passed a letter on. I received the letter, when 18, but could not bring myself to respond, straight away. It was such a shock. Her letter was about 5 pages long, offering support, a home and details of my birth family.

I found my father this April. Via 'Genes-reunited' I posted on their community board. A kind lady, sent me the electrol for 2007, with all the people, with my dad's last name. Around about 30 names. I sent a letter, to each one, and had many wonderful replies...then one, said, they maybe the person I was searching for. It was my father.

From beginning to end that search only took a month.

My father told his only child about me and we have emailed. He had no idea about me (we are both in our 40's) but he says he is pleased.

My mother does not know, I have found my father, and I will not be telling her. She would probably be ok with it, but her cousin is my adoptive (abusive) mother, and she is dangerous and unpredictable...so I will be keeping quiet.

My mother had no other children. Half her family don't know, she has ever had a child and she does not want to tell them. (dirty secret)

It did not change my relationship with my adoptive parents, as I had already gone with 'no contact'. I do realize my situation is not the norm and I am sure it's a tricky situation for those with loving adoptive parents...ie not wanting to hurt them.

um "did finding change your view of your self..." I am not sure, maybe, amother had taught me that my birth mother (the cousin she grew up with-same house) didn't want me etc, so it was nice to find she did love me to the best of her abilities. It did effect my views on the 'rights' for adoptees..after all in the USA the sealed files are so unfair. The fact that open adoptions can be closed.

It's been comforting to learn about my ancestors...ie they are Russian, German, Portuguiese, English Jews on one side and Welsh, English on the other.

Perhaps as I get to know my father, it will have an effect on me. Already it's been amazing how, forth coming, open, honest and kind he's been...so unlike my secretive, dominating, perpetual lying, controlling, VERY matriarchal birth/adoptive mothers and their family.

If you are searching, good luck with your search.

Answer 7

I found my first mother about five years ago, but we didn't form a lasting relationshop and never met face to face.  I probably never owuld have found her without the help of a wonderful search angel.  

My a'parents knew I was searching, and the encouraged it.  

As the relationship never quite happened, I don't think much was changed, but knowing more about my origins made me feel empowered, made me feel more like a real person.

Answer 8

Hi Robin,

(1) I have been reunited for nearly a year now.  I do have a relationship with my first mom.  I don't talk to my brothers often, but I've met them all, and we seem to get along.  (They're just so far away!)  I am still in contact with all of them.  I have yet to hear from my first father, though I've sent him a couple of letters.

(2) My search took about three months from contacting the agency to getting a letter from my first mom.

(3) I searched through the agency that handled my adoption.  That carried some problems, but it worked for me.  I did attend a search support group (and still do).  Without that group, I might have gone crazy.  I recommend support groups for anyone going through this.

(4) I didn't tell my adoptive parents for the longest time.  I didn't want them to be hurt or upset.  I did, though, finally tell them.  It turned out it was about a week before I got the first letter from my first mom.  My adoptive mom was thrilled for me.  She might have been more excited than I was.  My adoptive dad said he was okay about it, but he hasn't really talked about it since.  They seem to have accepted it.  Since I live so far away, my relationships with them are basically visits once or twice a year and regular phone calls, so it's hard to tell if it's had any affect on our relationships.  So far, I'd say, not really.

(5) My bio-brothers seem to have accepted my return.  One of them seems to have a little bit of a hang-up with the fact that our mom had s*x, but still is friendly with me.  They seemed to have accepted me as one of the family.  My adoptive siblings have said little about my search and reunion.  They seem as uninterested as our dad.  Upon hearing about my search from our mom (my a-mom), one of my a-brothers wanted to make sure she was okay with it and the other one asked "why would he want to do that?"  I'd say that was pretty typical of their personalities.  My a-sis hasn't said much of anything.

(6) My views of myself have changed.  I think I have a better sense of who I am, where I came from, and the like.  I don't feel as much like I "popped" into existence out of nothingness.  I feel more connected to humanity.  I feel like I have an explanation of how I got to be who I am.  My views of my family haven't really changed, though.  My views of adoption haven't changed either (I've always had a pretty negative view of adoption - and search and reunion simply confirmed that view).

I hope this is useful.  Thanks for the question!