I'm an adult adoptee and an adoptive mother so I feel like I can answer at least a good portion of this question. I did find my birth family when the opportunity to basically dropped in my lap (VERY lucky). The decision to search had nothing to do with my adoptive parents being less important and if anything, it was because I felt so loved and secure that I knew I could do this search without worrying my adoptive parents would feel badly. They were nothing but supportive. In fact, they flew halfway around the world with me to meet them.

My adopted child has always known I'll support her if she wants to search. As adoptees, we will always be of two mothers and two fathers.

Just know that in the beginning, it can be overly happy and exciting for the child. Their birth mom is perfect! and so wonderful! and maybe would have been a better parent! All of which can be really hard for an adoptive parent to process, even when they're supportive and loving. The birth mom now is a completely different person than she was 20-30 years ago. Then things settle down and they realize that no one is perfect and everyone is human.

In our case, the adopted child had a whole story about how her adoptive mom was forced to give her up due to society, but if not, she would have been a cool teen mom like in the movies. I think her enthusiasm was even hard for the birth mom to process. Birth mom had to talk her down and let her know that no, she wanted to give her up for adoption because she was 16 and knew she wouldn't have been the kind of mom a different family could provide. It was a closed adoption and the birth mom hadn't wanted contacted when the girl turned 18.

The whole thing landed all 3 women back in therapy- birth mom, adoptive mom and child. Just a really hard time and a lot of emotions.

Anonymous wrote:
How did you feel if your child found their birth mom and decided to meet? Going through this now with my adopted late 20's DD and have a variety of emotions going on, including feeling insulted as this other woman gave her up for adoption while I raised her.


Your emotions are totally normal. However, it is important to put them aside a present a supportive, positive, but realistic demeanor to your daughter.

She deserves to know the story of where she came from and about other biological relatives. She did not choose for any of this to happen to her, and she did not ask to have you adopt her.

However, many people who make the decision to place their child for adoption do have challenging circumstances which make it hard on both sides for them to connect in the way your daughter may be hoping.

Best case scenario she has an ongoing positive relationship with another set of people who love her. Worst case scenario she regrets pursuing this relationship or they don’t want to meet her. Either way she needs you in her life as a support who continues to love her.

This. I have always been very supportive of our DC about whatever they wanted to know/do about meeting bios. It's so important to be a safe supportive space for them. Understand that it is a rare circumstance where reunion with birth family doesn't generate a lot of painful emotions. In our case, where DC was effectively abandoned by birthbios after being removed from household due to neglect, DC discovered that bioparent had gone on to new relationship and to have new child while DC and DC's sib were languishing abandoned in foster care with bio family showing no interest in contact. Witnessing that grief and pain without the ability to change it, only to offer comfort, was gut-wrenching. Just be supportive and tell them that (a) they should sit with a competent adoption therapist and work through a list of questions beforehand they want to know---not just the "why's" of adoption but medical history, etc. and (b) they should recognize that it is possible and normal to hold many emotions at once: grief, anger, love. But just be fully supportive, and protective as well. This is the moment when your child needs to know the most that you have their back forever.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How did you feel if your child found their birth mom and decided to meet? Going through this now with my adopted late 20's DD and have a variety of emotions going on, including feeling insulted as this other woman gave her up for adoption while I raised her.

Your emotions are totally normal. However, it is important to put them aside a present a supportive, positive, but realistic demeanor to your daughter.

She deserves to know the story of where she came from and about other biological relatives. She did not choose for any of this to happen to her, and she did not ask to have you adopt her.

However, many people who make the decision to place their child for adoption do have challenging circumstances which make it hard on both sides for them to connect in the way your daughter may be hoping.

Best case scenario she has an ongoing positive relationship with another set of people who love her. Worst case scenario she regrets pursuing this relationship or they don’t want to meet her. Either way she needs you in her life as a support who continues to love her.

I'm an adoptive mom, and I agree with PP. You are the mom this young adult has known and will hopefully continue to have a good, helpful, stable relationship with. And practically, there may even be benefits like actually getting some important health history. (I always feel badly for my teen at the doctor when I just write "unknown" next to all the family health history.) But yeah, there could be some hard junk for your child or they could end up with a great new set of friendships - it's like life, you don't always know and we can't control it all.

We have a good friend with a solid and loving relationship with an adopted daughter who nonetheless decided to seek out her biological parents at around that age. Our friend wasn't thrilled but kept her mouth shut and did not for a second voice any disapproval or concern to her daughter.

They met, it was weird but fine, and she never had any contact with them again. She had satisfied her curiosity and moved on. Now it's like it never happened.

I thought our friend handled it perfectly.

Anonymous wrote:Are you grateful the other woman gave birth and then enabled you to adopt the child?

Apparently not. OP acts as if the birth mother just tossed her baby aside without a thought and how fortunate OP was to pick up the pieces.

Someone needs a few visits with a competent therapist.

Don’t be insulted, be honored.
Read about the subject, I recommend’The girls who went away’.
For the birth mom it will always be her baby. The child is yours, but the baby will always be hers

I am both an adoptee and an adopted mom.

Don’t do what my mom did when I met mine - she went on a diatribe when I finally met mine after 40 years. She called it a slap in the face and wrote me pages of emails telling me what a disappointment I was as a daughter and human. We are no longer in contact.

If she had bothered to listen to the rest of my story, she would’ve known I considered her my only mother and was actually heartbroken about the meeting, where my birth mother said she’d never be able to contact me again, due to needing secrecy about the situation.

Anonymous wrote:How did you feel if your child found their birth mom and decided to meet? Going through this now with my adopted late 20's DD and have a variety of emotions going on, including feeling insulted as this other woman gave her up for adoption while I raised her.

Your emotions are totally normal. However, it is important to put them aside a present a supportive, positive, but realistic demeanor to your daughter.

She deserves to know the story of where she came from and about other biological relatives. She did not choose for any of this to happen to her, and she did not ask to have you adopt her.

However, many people who make the decision to place their child for adoption do have challenging circumstances which make it hard on both sides for them to connect in the way your daughter may be hoping.

Best case scenario she has an ongoing positive relationship with another set of people who love her. Worst case scenario she regrets pursuing this relationship or they don’t want to meet her. Either way she needs you in her life as a support who continues to love her.

That's totally normal. You didn't know that you were signing up for this when you adopted?

Are you grateful the other woman gave birth and then enabled you to adopt the child?

I've read a lot of info on reddit from adopted children about doing this. It might help you to read some of it.

The acceptance from bio parents is a real mixed bag. So it's fraught with emotional peril.

From the outside it's clear that people long to know why they were given up for adoption and they want to know where their biological traits came from. As an adoptive parent, you aren't a primary source for those answers even if you have details.

Also from the outside, we're getting further and further from the time when stable, middle class girls gave up their kids and remained anonymous. A lot of bio parents turn out to be dysfunctional. Including my good friend's oldest daughter's mom (open adoption). So kids may need even more love from their adoptive parents to deal with handling that.

Don’t make your child feel bad for seeking out her bio parents. Saw this play out with a friend of mine and the end result was a lot of sneaking around behind her adoptive mom’s back and a lot of closed doors between them (relationship wise) as a result.

Are you in therapy with someone who specializes in adoption? It’s extremely normal for a child to want to meet their biological parent and has nothing to do you with you, even if it still stings.

How did you feel if your child found their birth mom and decided to meet? Going through this now with my adopted late 20's DD and have a variety of emotions going on, including feeling insulted as this other woman gave her up for adoption while I raised her.