[Rylee45]

One of the things I wish more than anything I can think of, is that I had been emotionally prepared to meet my daughter.

I knew that there might be weird expectations and there might be things that wouldn't be perfect but I was never prepared for the emotional part of the reunion. My daughter wasn't either.

I wanted to find my daughter for a long time. I tried but never had enough money for the stuff that I needed to get past particular parts. The best I could do was to put an ad in the papers on her birthday when she was 18, then 19, then 20. We met on her 21st birthday.

We had talked on the phone when we first found each other through her adoptive dad. He, as I've already posted was the one that contacted me.

Both my daughter and I had been looking for each other but neither of us had the money to do much more than write letters to the agency or courts or something else, put ads in papers and neither of us put ads in papers that were in the areas the other lived. We didn't know where the other lived.

The hard part for my daughter at our reunion was not wanting to hurt her adad by hugging me first when we all met her at the airport.

I told her to hug her dad first. I didn't care I just wanted to be able to hug her too if she wanted to hug me.

She told me that she couldn't wait. That it was her life long dream to meet me. Her adoptive mom was not happy about my daughter's feelings about me.

The weird thing was, the a-mom was jealous of me and the a-dad was jealous of my daughter's birth father. The a-dad didn't want him to be anywhere near "his (the a-dad's) daughter". And same went for me being around the "a-mom's daughter". It was really weird.

When my daughter met us at the airport, she was overwhelmed by all the family who were there waiting to meet her as well. There were over 25 of us. I didn't know that would upset my daughter. I figured she would be excited to know my family who was also her birth family.

Never in a million years did I think that would be an issue. So, that was something uncomfortable in the reuinion.

We just weren't prepared for all that but when she saw me and went to hug me after she'd hugged her adad, we cried and held on to each other for a long time.

She was overwhelmed though by everything and I was overwhelmed by her lack of modesty (she stripped and dressed in plain sight of my husband without batting an eye), her drug and alcohol use and doing things to get my youngest son in trouble and giving him alcohol and drugs. She was litterally out to destroy the family when she met us.

That was something I wasn't prepared for.

She told me that she had known about her brother's and sister and was angry that I hadn't kept her too. That she didn't understand why she was given up and they weren't.

I don't know how she knew about them. I was told the agency wasn't to contact them again once the adoption was final and no more dealings with them in other adoptions.

My daughter knew of everything throughout her entire life but only stuff that upset her like my keeping the other children I had.

Reunion is a good thing for some. Good things happen and they have great relationships but not all of us have that great reunion story or find a "perfectly raised adult" when we find them.

Lots of kids are angry with their bmom's for giving them up. Not understanding their whole lives why they didn't get to stay with their bmom. It hurts them because they feel abandoned and let down when the bmom has other children.

I was not prepared for that emotion. I thought if my daughter ever met me and the other kids she'd be happy that they were there and she had bsiblings.

That's the part that I wish I'd even had an inkling of an idea would be an issue with her.

Ours was a closed adoption. I didn't know where she was. I believe the adoptive family did without my permission through the agency who placed my daughter.

I believe the woman who handled the adoption kept the adoptive family informed of every move I was making. I wrote to the woman for all the years until my daughter's adad wanted to contact me for my daughter and then she (the agency woman) didn't have anything more to do with me. She refused to return my letters with questions, she was rude when I called her and it was a "write off" after the reunion. She eventually found a way that I couldn't contact her at all.

I tried for years to get information about my daughter but she wouldn't tell me anything but because my daughter knew so much about me and my family before we met, I know the woman was telling the family about us.

Anyway...

I just think anyone wanting to be reunited with their bfamily or bchild should be prepared for it and not assume too much so they can be prepared for the hurt or lack of caring or whatever happens when they reunite. Don't go into it blind. Get as much information as you can about what you might encounter. I wish I had been more prepared. I regret that so much not having more understanding of what she might feel or be like. We might have had a better relationship if we'd both been prepared for what we were going to be dealing with.

Regardless, I will always love her and wish her the best in her life.

Rylee