For many adopted people, no matter how old they are, telling their adoptive parents that they are considering a search or searching is often a risky proposition. Many adoptees are fiercely protective of and loyal to the parents who raised them. They fear hurting their adoptive parents and/or worry about being rejected by them. The fear of hurting adoptive parents is so overwhelming for some adoptees that they refuse to search until their adoptive parents have passed away.

Other adoptees trust their parents’ ability to be able to understand their need to reconnect with birth family, and include them in the search process. Some adoptive parents even help their children with their searches and are able to encourage and support them. This is of course, the ideal situation.

Search and reunion would be so much easier if all triad members were better educated about both processes. To that end, I suggest that if you are an adoptee considering a search, that you do all that you can to prepare and educate yourself before you tell your adoptive parents that you plan to search.

Consider the following questions that your adoptive parents might ask and be prepared to intelligently respond to them:

1. Why do you need to search, aren’t “we” your family?
2. Why is it so important to you?
3. Don’t you love us?
4. We raised you, doesn’t that count for anything?
5. They gave you up, why would you want to find them now?
6. What if they are horrible people?
7. What if they reject you and/or refuse contact?

There is an excellent article written by Colleen Buckner that I highly recommend. The article is entitled, “An Article of Interest...A Letter From One Adoptive Parent to Other Adoptive Parents’. Colleen is an adoptive mom who searched for and found her daughter's birth mom. She then went on to start her own adoption search business.

Here is the first paragraph of Colleen’s article:

“Once upon a time a birthmother crossed an imaginary bridge with her child in her arms and placed the child in our waiting arms. She entrusted us to be loving parents and to honor and cherish this child that she could not keep. When our children became adults, it was our turn to walk back across that imaginary bridge with our son or daughter to the other side, where their life began. It was our turn to trust the birthmother and birth family to be there for our adult son or daughter when they reach out to connect both of their families, adoptive and biological, through them…….
Click on the link below to read the rest of this story.

http://e-magazine.adoption.com/articles/58/an-article-of-interest-a-letter-from-one-adoptive-parent-to-other-adoptive-parents.php