[Gwendolyna]

I am looking for some input on how to handle our son's conception/birth information.

We have a 13 year old adopted son. His birth mom is my cousin and we also adopted his older half-sister (there are 5 sibs all together who are with their fathers/adoptive family). My cousin is not involved and my son has not seen her since he was two (when we got him) and has no memory of her other than what he has been told or what he imagines he remembers. We have chosen not to allow contact because she is an extremely heavy drug user to this day and has threatened to kidnap her children back. She did not relinquish rights to us, they were terminated 10 years ago when we adopted.

Legally, his birth father is the man she was married to, although they both state that he is not the birth father. My cousin says that she was violently raped, however she was working as a prostitute at the time, so I'm not sure there is any way to know. Either reality is not easy.

Our son knows that he is adopted. He knows that his mom is my cousin and he's seen pictures of her. He has some information about her and we've been gently open about why there is no contact. He wants very much to see her and is now asking a lot about his birth father. Because its a family situation, I know at some point, some relative will tell him the rape story, but so far we have protected him from that.

Under normal circumstances, I would not be as concerned with the information, but our son is pretty emotionally fragile. He has clearly had special needs since we got him. He's been diagnosed with all kinds of things: ADHD, ODD, mood disorder, learning disabilities, etc. The most likely diagnosis will be bipolar disorder or something along those lines. There is some of that in my family, and I suspect there may be some on the paternal side (although I doubt there is a way to know). My cousin most likely used a variety of drugs/alcohol while pregnant. My son has issues with rage, memory dysfunction and huge mood swings. We have had several instances of violent behavior (or close calls) and he sometimes does not have a really firm grip on reality (not sure how else to say that.) Tiny things are very big deals in our house and we work really hard to maintain a consistent, stable environment to help him (and us) cope. He has a really tender heart and is deeply affected by things.

I am sorry for the long post, but this is the first time I've ever found somewhere that I might find some answers or input. I have two main questions:
1. From those of you who have been in similar situations (on any side), what information do you recommend we tell him. At this point, we have been honest in saying that we don't know who his father is and that is something he will have to ask his birthmom someday.
2. Because of his psychological and physical concerns, it would be very helpful to have some medical history. Is there any way to collect DNA from an adopted child and have it compared to criminal records? I read that I could take the samples and compare them to ancestry.com or other sites, and maybe I would find relatives that way, but I'm thinking it may be more likely to find paternity through the criminal system.

Thanks for any advice. We love our son and thank God every day for him. I know I've listed out some of the challenges here, but he has some amazing strengths as well. We just want to help him as much as possible.