Your reasons for wanting to start an adoption search may vary.
If you’re an adoptee: You may have grown up in a very loving adoptive family. That doesn’t stop you from:
• Wondering about your medical history
• Wondering if anyone else in the world looks like you
• Wondering why you were given up for adoption
• Wondering if your birth mother or birth father ever think about you
• Wondering if you have any brothers or sisters related to you by blood
The urge to search can be triggered by life events. Giving birth can make an adoptee wonder, “Who gave birth to me?” For many adopted people, holding their own newborn in their arms is the first they have ever seen someone related by blood. It can be a moving experience that prompts questions about other blood relatives. For others, a funeral of a loved one can prompt the urge to search, underscoring the realization that time passes all too quickly. Like all of us, the person you’re seeking won’t live forever.
For birth parents, the pull to find the missing party (in this case, the birth child) due to life events may be all the more intense. After all, the birth parent is the older of the two. Quite often, the searching party is the birth mother, who gave birth and has had to come to terms with the events surrounding the relinquishment ever since. Maybe the birth mother has since had other children, whom she feels have the right to know of the existence of their sibling. And don’t forget, some birth fathers are indeed happy to be found, to acknowledge the piece that’s been missing from their own lives...if they do not actively perform the search for the adoptee themselves.
Many birthmothers do not search, fearing that they will disrupt their child’s life. In contrast, there are adoptive parents who perform a search for their child’s birthparents (quite often, the birth mother.) This may be to answer questions they have had about the adoptee, an effort to help the adoptee establish a sense of identity, or even to thank the birthmother for the child they have raised.
Sometimes, an adoptee, adoptive parent, or birth parent can feel compelled to search without fully knowing or understanding why.
What are your personal reasons for considering a search?
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