Ever wonder where you got those beautiful eyes of yours? Most people know and they take it for granted that they would. Adoptees in closed adoptions rarely know and they do wonder.

Ask five adoptees why they are searching and you may receive five different responses. The need to search is sometimes difficult to put into words. Not all adopted persons really know exactly why they are searching. For many, it feels like an almost instinctual need. Some adoptees go for many years certain that they will never want to search, and then something changes, and suddenly they have a strong urge to search. I have heard that certain significant life events often trigger a search. They events include:

 A significant birthday such as the 18th, 30th, 40th;
 The death of an adoptive parent;
 The birth of a child; or
 A serious illness.

Adoptees are cut off from things that non-adopted people take for granted such as:

 extended family;
 ethnic or racial origins;
 medical background information; and
 birth parents.

The popular belief used to be that if an adoptee searched it meant that they were unhappy and that perhaps their adoptive parents had not done a good job of raising them. Hopefully, most people now know that is not always the case. Many “happy” adoptees who have loving, nurturing adoptive families still sometimes have a strong urge to search.

Adoptees search because they want to know their whole and complete life stories. They know that they had a life before adoption and many adoptees are very curious about that “other” life. They want answers to their questions.

Adoptees want to see who they look like and know where certain features or traits of theirs came from. For some adoptees, the first person they ever see who looks like them is their own child.

Most of all I believe that adoptees want to feel complete and “whole”. Though some adoptees have no sense of being incomplete, many do. Healing, resolution and the desire to feel more “whole” are compelling reasons to search.

Adoptees reading - would love to hear your reasons for searching! I believe that more birth moms need to know how important it may be for reunions to occur. Most birth moms I know do understand, but, I know that there are some who do not and I wish that we could educate them.