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

For some, when there adoption search is completed, they find rejection. Rejection can feel like a knife in the heart. It can feel like the end of a dream or that the rug has been pulled out from under you or that it was all for nothing. It is important to remember that much good has come from the experience and that you have found the truth.

When someone is faced with rejection, I think it is human nature to react. The person being rejected may give away their own power, or buy into the perceptions of other people and their ability... more

Continuing on from Part 1 which listed what some birth moms at reunion may fear:

 Contact with her child might seem a betrayal to the adoptive parents;

 Being in touch with her child is unfair to the parents that raised her child;

 What the neighbors may think if they find out. Yes, even now, some birth mothers worry about how others will judge her.

By the way, I am not saying that I agree with or believe that these are logical reasons, I definitely do not. There are other possibilities as to why a birth mother... more

What do you say to an adoptee whose birth mother has refused any contact after having been found? I do not believe that you should dismiss the hurt that this may cause them. Nor should you tell them it is not important; they are entitled to feel as they do.

For many adoptees, connecting with their birth mother means a lot to them. Therefore, it is hurtful when contact is refused. Do not try to talk them out of their feelings, but help them understand.

How do you explain what factors motivate a birth mom to refuse contact? There are no easy answers. Unless... more

Some advocates of search and reunion tend to the minimize the possibility of rejection by the found party. Initially, when I entered the search and reunion world, the mantra was that rejection is rare.

I understand that to support those searching, some may want to downplay the possibility of rejection. Acceptance is more common. However, I have encountered more rejections than I expected given how rare I was told that rejections actually occur.

While I do not want to scare anyone with the possibility of rejection; I do believe that it is best to be forwarned that it might... more