Finding the birth mother in a closed adoption from Eastern Europe

[Anonymous]

22 years is a long time. Just because an 18 year old gave up a baby for adoption, doesn’t mean that a 40+ year old is not wondering sometimes about that baby and how her life turned out and if she’s alive or not.

The fact that adoptions are still closed makes it much more difficult for the birth mother to look, and she would have the same hesitations of ruining her birth dd’s life if the adoptive parents didn’t tell her that she’s adopted. Just like the PPs are catastrophizing that birth mom’s life would be ruined, the birth mom may have exact thinking and would be hesitant to make the first step.

If dd wants to find her it’s for dd to make the steps.

[Anonymous]

Consider a DNA service the modern equivalent of an adoption finding registry. If she wants to be found, she would be on one. You can do Ancestry and upload results to MyHeritage. She may be waiting to be found. But please do not search through distant cousin matches to our her. As other have said, the landscape is different in EE. That’s said, mothers are mothers. My mother’s first baby was conceived through rape but my mother still was overjoyed and relieved for her to find us. Some will want to be found, some not. But your daughter is allowed to need to know more.

[Anonymous]

OP again. First off, my daughter is not a privledged kid who has no idea about other cultures. She is a very sensitive, hard working girl who will be graduating college next year. And like any child, she has had her share of ups and down.

Did she grow up in the pure chaos of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s? No, and we're not pretending that. But she has also tried to learn as much as she can about conditions through a student's group dedicated to people with roots in that area and has frequent contact with local families that travel back and forth to that area.

Of course, in her mind is some kind of reunion where everyone is crying, takes pictures, and says how similiar they look. And we know that can be the complete opposite of what happens, if anything does occur. I did contact the American embassy in that country to learn about detectives and will also do DNA testing. What I would also like to do is thank everyone who responded, no matter their tone. All of this has provided valuable food for thought.

[Anonymous]

It isn’t up to the OP to just leave it. OP’s daughter didn’t accept any terms of the adoption. It’s completely natural to want to know about your birth parents. Hopefully the OP’s daughter will get something positive from it, hopefully she’s prepared for a rejection if that occurs (adoptive mom here, and I would try to encourage my children to seek counseling prior to searching to help them figure out why they want to search and deal with any negative outcomes), but it’s as much her right to know about *herself* as it is her birth mom’s right to remain secret. Moreover; we don’t even know what the birth mother wants. I’ve heard about these stories ending both in positive and negative ways, so you never know.

OP, I am also an adoptive mom of children from EE, and I feel for you. I think the biggest issue is having your daughter work through all the likely scenarios, all of which carry some component of pain. And listening hard to the perspectives of all of the people from EE who have weighed in. Were it me---I would try to find the most reputable and trustworthy in-country contact I could to reach out to birth mom with extreme discretion and with the total understanding that birth mom might respond with a desire for no further contact whatsoever, which I would counsel my child to respect, painful though it would be. It is entirely possible for a birth mom to be thrilled that the child she placed has been cared for, but to not want any further disruption to her life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP: the agency had no part in locating our daughter. They only facilitated the background checks so that we could adopt. we found my daughter through a contact we made in her birth country. He died a few years ago.

My daughter's birth mother would be in her early 40s today. Of course, we are going on the assumption she is living in the same country when she could have moved on. And no idea of a married name. Sometimes I feel like we are chasing air.

Not an easy situation.

Private adoptions are notoriously shady: in terms of corruption/bribes, pressuring birth moms, lying on paperwork. Just so you know.

[Anonymous]

Not to scare you off as I highly doubt this is a common reaction. The reunion stories are not always happy endings. My birth mother ended up taking her own life a few weeks before we were to meet. I saw her for the first time at her funeral. I also got to meet many of my biological relatives at that time. It was pretty overwhelming.

[Anonymous]

In china, people post "finding ads." They describe when and where the baby was found, and who to contact if the ad is seen by the birth mother.

Not sure if that can be done in this case. It is always possible someone who is lying will respond, but usually you can with hold some of what you know, and see if the person claiming to be the birthmom knows it. If she looks credible, then you can go the DNA route.

What I like about this approach, is that the birth mom gets a vote. The child is not sprung on her/her life.

[Anonymous]

Get a great therapist instead. The scenario your daughter probably envisions doesn't encompass the range of awful ones she could encounter. Closure comes from within and not from another human being.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP again. First off, my daughter is not a privledged kid who has no idea about other cultures. She is a very sensitive, hard working girl who will be graduating college next year. And like any child, she has had her share of ups and down.

Did she grow up in the pure chaos of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s? No, and we're not pretending that. But she has also tried to learn as much as she can about conditions through a student's group dedicated to people with roots in that area and has frequent contact with local families that travel back and forth to that area.

Of course, in her mind is some kind of reunion where everyone is crying, takes pictures, and says how similiar they look. And we know that can be the complete opposite of what happens, if anything does occur. I did contact the American embassy in that country to learn about detectives and will also do DNA testing. What I would also like to do is thank everyone who responded, no matter their tone. All of this has provided valuable food for thought.

Lol. She has no idea. None. I guarantee her little group is not giving her anything like an understanding of conditions there. What do they do, share traditional dishes and show photos of tourist hotspots and their own homes there? You realize the kind of person who is "travels back and forth to the area" is very wealthy there and not living anything like the life of the normal person, or even interacting with the lifestyle most people lead there? No. No, you don't realize this, I am afraid."

And yes, she is VERYr privileged compared to the world her birth mom grew up in and even lives now.

But it sounds like you think you know best and are going to plow ahead with this.

I wish good luck and peace to the birth mom.

[Anonymous]

To the poster at 12:41 do you know anyone who has found his or her birth mother? If you had, I doubt that you would post such platitudes. It can be extremely helpful, even when the ending isn’t a fairytale.

[Anonymous]

Everyone, OP’s daughter is an ADULT and OP can’t stop her from looking (or force her to, on the other end of the spectrum).

I have found my birth family and can write more about it later. Long story, short- I have no more answers to my medical history than I did before my reunion; the language barrier and cultural differences are really, really hard; I didn’t seek them looking for closure, but if I was, what I found raises more questions than not knowing anything; and finally, my reunion was happy. Birth family shocked and ecstatic to meet me.

OP, I suggest your daughter join any groups of adoptees from the former Yugoslavia who are searching or are in reunion, if possible. Those people will be honest about what it’s like for adoptees in these situations.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

OP says it's not Russia, but I'll tell you my Russian family member's story from the 90's:

She was young and married to an older man who physically and sexually abused her, and she had suspicions that he was sexually abusing children he knew. She got pregnant and didn't want to bring a child home with her to subject the child to the hell that was her life.

She saved as much money as she could during her pregnancy, then bribed the doctor at the birth to tell her husband that the baby had died. The doctor took the baby to an orphanage and the husband never had any idea.

Had that baby come back 20 years later, the husband would know that my family member was lying. He could cut her off from access to their money, physically harm her even more, or just make her life even worse.

There is no way that my family member ever wants to meet her child or acknowledge that the child exists. She is just so happy she got the child out of that environment, and the only way to make her happy would be for the child to have a successful life.

[Anonymous]

So much BS here. Go seeking information, not a relationship. Just knowing how her grandparents died is valuable medical history.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not to scare you off as I highly doubt this is a common reaction. The reunion stories are not always happy endings. My birth mother ended up taking her own life a few weeks before we were to meet. I saw her for the first time at her funeral. I also got to meet many of my biological relatives at that time. It was pretty overwhelming.

Did you ever think if you had left well enough that she would not have committed suicide. You had no right to look for her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP again. First off, my daughter is not a privledged kid who has no idea about other cultures. She is a very sensitive, hard working girl who will be graduating college next year. And like any child, she has had her share of ups and down.

Did she grow up in the pure chaos of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s? No, and we're not pretending that. But she has also tried to learn as much as she can about conditions through a student's group dedicated to people with roots in that area and has frequent contact with local families that travel back and forth to that area.

Of course, in her mind is some kind of reunion where everyone is crying, takes pictures, and says how similiar they look. And we know that can be the complete opposite of what happens, if anything does occur. I did contact the American embassy in that country to learn about detectives and will also do DNA testing. What I would also like to do is thank everyone who responded, no matter their tone. All of this has provided valuable food for thought.

There was a lot of sexual assault and prostitution going on in the Balkans in the 1990s. She could be a product of rape/prostitution.