[Jen123]

Hello. I am the a-mom of a son, adopted internationally. His adoption is "closed" as this is the law of the country from which we adopted. Before I met my son, I thought this might be for the best, after all, he was in an orphanage for a while and his bio mom never had any contact with him after his birth.
But, once I met my son, and learned some details about his bio mom, I found myself really wishing the adoption could be more open. I wanted the officials in the country to notify the birthmom that he was being adopted, and that he'd be living in the US. They flatly refused, and looked horrified (cultural) that I would want any info given to the birthmom.
I did make an effort to get all the info I could about the birthmom, and have enough legal identifying info (including her passport # and address, and names of immediate family), so that she wouldn't be too hard to trace some day.
My problem is this, aside from the language barrier there is a huge cultural barrier here. Adoption in this country is treated like adoptions were here in the 60's: a shameful thing. Women who terminate their parental rights are discriminated against, and therefore they keep the fact that they have children who were adopted a great secret. There are actual derogatory terms in this language to describe birth mothers who place their children for adoption... Women in this country who adopt children will only adopt newborns, and change their birthdates to pretend they gave birth to them. Children who are adopted are never told of their adoptions, and people in the country are surprised that American parents plan on telling the children their adoption stories....
I am worried that this may be a problem later in life, should my son want to search for his bio mom. In a way, I really hope he does want to search. This is why I gathered all this info. But I am afraid of the cultural implications of getting in touch with the birth mother. I don't want to "out her" as it were, and cause difficulty in her life.
On the other hand, I really want her to be at peace and know that her baby has a safe and happy home, and we are grateful to her for giving our son life.
Any birthmoms have any ideas on this? What to tell my son? How the birthmom may feel?
Any adoptees have any ideas?
Not a day goes by that I don't think of my son's birthmother, and wish there were a way for her to see how well he's doing....