There were days during my search that I hoped to find a loving, enormously competent and supremely happy woman whose life was missing only one thing: ME! There were days that I was terrified of the woman I would find. I feared the possibility that she wouldn’t care or even really remember me.

Some adoptee who search have a fear that may have held them back. The fear is that the adoptee would keep trying to find his or her natural mother, all the time getting more and more opened to the need to see her and talk to her, but never manage to find her. The reality may be the natural mother may be deceased, like in my case. For some reason though, during my search that wasn’t as frightening to me as just never finding her. I guess because part of me knew that if she was deceased I would be able to find a photograph or others who knew her.

Some adoptees fantasy is that the natural mother understands that of course you had to find her and she would assure you that she cares a lot about you. Your fantasy may include finding yourselves very like minded and that this will help you to better understand yourself and thus be able to live your life in a more comfortable and productive way.

Another fantasy that an adoptee may have is to find someone that looks very much like you. You may even picture finding a sibling who looks a lot like you except that he is taller or thinner.

No one knows how long a search is going to take. My search took almost two years to complete. Somehow I thought that I would have found my natural mother the first time I made contact with the court that finalized the adoption. For me one of my fantasies was that my natural mother would have contacted the county in which the adoption was finalized all through out my life, maybe calling them on my birthday to let them know that she was waiting and looking for me. I had hoped that the intermediary would contact me and tell me that she had a file full of letters, photos and birthday cards just waiting for me to claim them. This was not the way that it was and I actually completed my search on my own and had to phone the intermediary to advise her that my natural mother had passed away 15 months earlier.

Another fantasy that I had was that my natural mother knew who I was, where I was, how I was all along as if she had been watching me from a distance. Although when my search ended at a cemetery in a small town where my natural mother is buried I felt as if it was a big mistake. I will never have the chance to meet or talk with her. Honestly, in my present life there are still times that I have fantasies about how our relationship would be if she were alive.

Some adoptees may make an effort to not think about where the search will lead, and to just accept what is found on a day to day basis. The adoptee may expect more resistance from their adoptive parents than is actually received. They may hope that the search is short and easy. Many don’t know what to expect as there are a wide variety of experiences that have been shared and can seem that almost anything can happen. Therefore, I suggest to expect everything and nothing.

An adoptee recently shared with me that she expected to find her natural mother but she did. She had hoped to reunite but didn’t. She fears that her natural mother will never want to know her and fantasizes that her natural mother will need me.

Some expectations may be too high. You may think that you will find out that your natural mother was a teenager and still in high school and that your natural father was a captain of some sports team. This could be completely wrong. The reality is never what we fantasize about.