The feelings I had experienced during the next month are hard to describe. I felt sad thinking about how my natural mother suffered the loss of a child in her life. I was devastated that through others she was the kind of person she was and not as I had imagined her. I grieved about the kind of life she and I could have but did not have. I was frustrated and upset knowing I would never find the answers to the questions still unanswered. I grieved for my adoptive parents and the pain that I may have caused her by searching and reuniting with my natural family. I was sad for the little girl inside me that once felt rejected by my natural mother. The difference now is that I allowed myself to identify these feelings and recognize them as a real and valid response to my situation. This is when I realized I was on my way to accepting the tremendous change that had occurred in my life. A change that was irreversible.

I think it was about two years that had passed before I felt I knew a lot more about myself and about my natural family. Through other family members sharing I was now aware of my natural mothers weaknesses and problems as well as her strengths and achievements. I Had accepted the consequences of the choices she had made in her life and could now live with them. It took me some time to figure out her place in my life and accept that I will never know my place in her life but I can live with that. I have accepted that my natural mother cannot fulfill the image of the woman I wanted or wished her to be. I am at peace with the unanswered questions. I am accept and am secure about what my adoptive parents offered and gave me. They have given to me not because I am their adoptive child but because I am me.

It will be 13 years this year that I completed the search and reunion process the self discovery and honest acceptance of myself and my natural family have enabled me to become a better person. The painful process was immensely worthwhile and I believe if I hadn’t gone through it, I would be where I am today.

Whether the adoptee meet the natural mother face to face or not, they are still challenged with the task of working through these stages of recovery. Whether you meet face to face or the natural mother has no interest the adoptee has to come to terms with the limited information he has about his natural family. The adoptee has to come to termswith the place his natural mother would have in their life and the adoptees in the natural mothers life. I guess what I am trying to say is that when the adoptee works through the grief the adoptee can begin to integrate the feelings and thoughts stirred up by the upheaval of search and reunion. Part of this includes giving the old feelings of rejection less power over the present life and diffusing the anger that was once buried and now exposed. Eventually the adoptee can learn to understand and accept what gifts natural parents and adoptive parents have given him.