[lemonchutney]

If you are an adoptive parent in a closed adoption, and your grown child has reunited with bio-parents, I have two questions for you in regards to your grown child's reunion:

1. Considering the emotional difficulty you might be having with your child's reunion, would you rather not know about it? Would have preferred your child to keep it a secret from you? Or would you rather know?

2. I know from my own experience that reunion didn't make me love my amom any less. On the contrary, in the long-run it made me love her more. What I wonder is whether any perceived "ingratitude" or "disloyalty" on my part made her love me less. So my question is did you love your child less after the reunion?

PS: While I'll listen to and respect all responses, I'm not so much interested in hearing from a-parents in open adoptions, or from a-parents who think they know how they would feel IF a reunion were to happen. I'm more interested in hearing from people who have the actual experience I outlined above.

Thanks,
lemonchutney

[Carol Bird]

VERY INTERESTING TOPIC, LEMONC ...

I think Aparents my daughter's Mom and Dad are rare in the Closed Adoption era.
They WELCOMED my daughter's search because they wanted to know me and thank me face-to-face, among other reasons.

Our daughter told me early in our 17 year reunion that meeting me and understanding the era and having all the answers served to make her understand her Mom much better, and rather than take away love, gave her all the more reason to love THEM. In turn, I love them.

I suppose the fact that they were older and that they already had a natural child, and her Dad was a pediatrician and Mom a former R.N., and therefore both understood the process of pregnancy and giving birth, they had a better awareness. We never knew one another throughout the 32 years of separation from our daughter, but instinctively, we understood one another.

I am forever grateful to my daughter's Parents for loving her so unconditionally that the though of reunion didn't faze them in the least and meeting me brought the circle to a close. We've been a "BLENDED FAMILY" these past 17 years, and are richer for it.

Hugs, Carol Bird