Has searching in the newspaper archives brought you to an obituary? Has the funeral home in the obituary provided you with additional information that helps to confirm for you that you have found your natural mother? Have you contacted a natural family member and confirmed that your natural mother is deceased?

Finding a grave…this can be one of the most difficult things that you have to deal with in our life. You will learn, grow, and heal from the experience.

It seems like I have been reading a lot of stories lately that searches have ended... more

Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live.

Dorothy Thompson

Even the title of this article might cause some adoptees to get their feathers ruffled. They might believe that it insinuates that everyone should search. As much as I am in favor of searches, I do not believe in forcing someone who does not want to search.

Although I support search and reunion wholeheartedly, I generally resist... more

If you are an adoptee and have decided that you don’t want contact with your natural family I want to give you a few things to ponder.

Under what circumstances would you want to be contacted? Would you want your natural family to contact you if there is important medical information you should know about? Would you want to be contacted if you have been named as a beneficiary in a natural relative will? Would you want to be contacted if there is a particular person you would like to hear from or have news from?

If you chose to not... more

Ever spoken to an adoptee who is searching? You might be surprised at how some people treat them. Although some social workers or clerks are very sympathetic and helpful, many people who have access to adoption records are are not known for being particularly kind.

Some of the remarks that I have heard that adoptees receive are extremely sad. Several adoptees have told me that when they went to the adoption agency that handled their adoption they were told to come back later - when they were older. A few adoptees have told me that they went back... more

It is funny how defensive some adoptive parents can be. I have a cousin whose daughter is adopted. This young adult (mid-late 20’s) is struggling in life. She has a lot of pain which is obvious. I have tried to talk to her adoptive parents about it several years ago and attempted to steer the discussion on the adoption side of things. I thought that I would try and explain the “primal wound” and that immediately turned the conversation off. She was adamant that her daughter didn’t have a problem with adoption and she was just having a difficult... more

If your child is very young and expresses a need for their birth family, how to handle the situation is more complicated. However, to summarily ignore their desires even at a young age is showing them that their feelings are wrong and do not matter.

When extremely young children talk about wanting to meet birth family, you may not necessarily need to search or attempt a reunion. (Opening a closed adoption is a distinct possibility and a blog post about that subject is coming up in my first parent blog.)However, before proceeding, you need... more

The adoptive father had died a few years prior to the natural mother making contact and the adoptee had an estranged relationship with his adoptive mother. The adoptee and his natural mother talked frequently in the beginning. The adoptee told the natural mother that he didn’t want his adoptive mother to find out he was talking to her because he didn’t think she would support any contact between the two of them.

This natural mother decided to respect that the adoptee knows that his natural mother loves him and wants nothing more than to meet him, hold... more

This natural mother feels that although her baby was not conceived in love the baby was carried in love and it was in love that she hid her pregnancy so that she could give him life. She loved this baby and she knew that her baby was going to a couple who loved him as much as she did, a couple who could provide form her baby what she could not.

This natural mother cried daily and wanted so badly to change her mind and take her baby back but she knew in her heart of hearts that being that young she could not provide for him. She didn’t have a job or... more

Another story is of a 13 years old female who was raped. This is how she lost her virginity and she got pregnant and had never even had her first period. She was raped, stabbed more times than she could count and was found unconscious by a friend. The 13 year old made her friend swear not to tell her parents. The 13 year old was scared that her dad wouldn’t love her anymore because she wasn’t a virgin. The reason she thought this was that her 17 year old sister had lost her virginity resulting in a strained relationship between her and her dad. She was... more

This photo doesn't look anything like what I figured Pandora's Box might look like, but that's what it was entitled, so I will trust the photographer. "Pandora's Box" - even as educated as many have become about adoption reunions, we still have a long far to go in educating people about adoption search and reunions.

Adoptees still receive the "Pandora's Box" reference when they mention that they are considering a search. "Why would you want to open all that up?" people ask them. I know that I was as guilty as anyone taking alot for granted. To know... more