I am an adult adoptee and an adoptive parent- ask me anything

[Anonymous]

-Why do you want to meet your biological mother? Is it to form a relationship?
-Do you think it's fair that you are allowed to contact your biological mother? Do you think your biological parents have a right to privacy?
-If you had not been interested in seeking out your adoptive parents, how would you feel if they sought you out instead?

[Anonymous]

How would you feel if you knew your BM was impregnated by a rapist? My parents refused to allow me an abortion after I survived a brutal rape at knifepoint. The child was given up for adoption and placed with Barker. Thank god, I was over 18 at the time of birth because my idiot parents wanted to keep and raise her, but as I was of age, I said no. Even after years of therapy, I am still angry and bitter that I had to bear this child; it ruined my life. She was able to find and contact me and in a weak moment, I agreed to see her. She kept saying, "You could have been a millionairess," and hinted about my ""owing her something for giving her up." All she wanted was money. If you met your biological parents, what would you want?

[Anonymous]

Not op but another adult adoptee. I want to meet BM to say thank you, see what she looks like and see what if any random thing I inherited from her. From my file I know we have two very abnormal things in common already

[Anonymous]

17:33 I am the most recent pp I just want to say thank you. I am sorry you were put through this. in my case there was no rape. If I knew there was I would never proceed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did you have any difficulty bonding with your adopted DC? I have had some problems bonding with my DD. She's mine biologically, but I am an adult adoptee who had (undiagnosed) RAD issues as a child. TIA

OP here. I had an initial bump in bonding with my adopted child due to the circumstances around our meeting. She was 7 months old at the time of referral and we were sent a lot of pics and videos taken when she was 6 months old. We didn't get to pick her up until she was almost 11 months old and she'd been with her foster family since 2 months. She hated us immediately and screamed non-stop the entire 15 hour flight home. It was a really bumpy beginning for sure. I had fallen in love with her the way she looked at 6 months old and she looked really different at 11 months- the hair! The teeth! It took me a couple of days to get over disliking her, and my husband had to remind me that she hadn't asked to be adopted, etc. I think it took about 3 days to bond. But, it took me awhile to bond with my bio child too...I'm just not a kids person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:-Why do you want to meet your biological mother? Is it to form a relationship?
-Do you think it's fair that you are allowed to contact your biological mother? Do you think your biological parents have a right to privacy?
-If you had not been interested in seeking out your adoptive parents, how would you feel if they sought you out instead?

OP here. If my birth family wanted to form a relationship, I would be open to it, depending on what that relationship looked like. It's hard to articulate why I want to meet them- I think it's mostly to say thank you for making a difficult choice and to let them know that my sister and I have a wonderful life now.

Well, I wouldn't quite characterize it as being "allowed" to contact my bmom. As I mentioned earlier, I don't even know where she is, so it's not a possibility at this time. I do think they have the right to privacy and if I did find them and they weren't interested, I would accept it and move in. It's not something that I'm concentrating on and the agency is not actively searching for them.

When I was younger, I had no interest in trying to find them. If they had found me then, I probably would've been guardedly interested in meeting them. Honestly, I didn't think about them that often, and it was only during the process of adopting my own child that I became more interested in learning more about my background.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How would you feel if you knew your BM was impregnated by a rapist? My parents refused to allow me an abortion after I survived a brutal rape at knifepoint. The child was given up for adoption and placed with Barker. Thank god, I was over 18 at the time of birth because my idiot parents wanted to keep and raise her, but as I was of age, I said no. Even after years of therapy, I am still angry and bitter that I had to bear this child; it ruined my life. She was able to find and contact me and in a weak moment, I agreed to see her. She kept saying, "You could have been a millionairess," and hinted about my ""owing her something for giving her up." All she wanted was money. If you met your biological parents, what would you want?

OP here. I'm very sorry to hear this story and hope that you are finding some peace.

I don't know how I would feel if we had been conceived through rape. I imagine I would be angry yet grateful that she didn't have an abortion. I don't want to go into specifics, because some of my friends and co-workers read DCUM, but my daughter was conceived through similar circumstances as you were. I know one day we'll have to have a very difficult discussion with her and I'm sure I will seek counseling to help me get through that.

I don't want to meet my birth family for money. They actually were really poor (remember, post-Korean War, the South was the desperately poor country, not at all like today's Koreas) and my bio mom was in bad health. I just would want to say thank you and that she is in my thoughts and prayers. I know if I had placed a child for adoption, I would want to hear that they were given a wonderful life, and I have had that wonderful life and would want her to know. I think sometimes when Korean adoptees find their birth families, the birth families are the ones who can want money from the adoptees.