[mariarippy]

November 12, 2007, 6:05 PM Katie Couric reported on research news.

"Katie Couric's Notebook: An Adoption Option

Should children given up for adoption later be able to contact their birth parents? (there is a video)

A comprehensive study says: yes."

I am an a adult adoptee. I don't know that I would agree and or go so far as to announce "yes."

Ever since i can remember i've been told my adoptive parents couldn't have children so i was adopted. Felt a bit second rate, when I was almost 18 I asked my doctor about my natural(birth) mother. My natural mother agreed to come across the united states to meet me(1992). When I saw her, I knew her. I remember a prior fleeting moment with her. I held this fleeting moment to myself for years ...she was sixteen the day my eyes met hers...My gram jumped up and helped mom's arm to a pen. Which I feel surprised my mother a bit after all her mom(my gram) had 10 children. But I may be wrong. My mom's left arm hit that doctor's desk to sign the relinquishment papers. Thump! I was cradled in her right arm. For me its as if it were yesterday. Well, Years after my mother and I reunited I had my first child... I asked her if she ever held me. My mother answered she had not ever held me. Does the moment in my mind not really exsist? Did i make it up because of emotional disorder? Did I make it up!? Can I believe her?

I need to forget ever being told I was adopted! Can't....I feel I need to go back to before I met her in 1992... erase the episode of her holding me... Can't... I want to erase emotional distance created with my adoptive family for seeking out mom...Can't... I need to erase the constant threat of arguement with friends and my husband over loyalty/love/respect...Can't...

Who needs that in their heart/head everyday of their life? ...I don't...
I've been blessed having four children...not me... and maybe not other adoptees...
Thanks,
Mother of Four/Adult Adoptee

[ocracoke]

As an adult adoptee (and an adoptive mom) who had a bad reunion who eventually cut off contact my answer is.... YES. It should be the right of the adult adoptee to make that choice if they want contact with the biological family. If they chose not to exercise that right ... their choice.

Samantha

[akcskye]

I agree, it should be an allowable choice, but not a requirement.

However, there are some birth families that do not want to ever reunify with the child, and that can cause even more emotional trauma to the child whether they're an adult or not...

So, how do you draw the line?

Should there be a huge database of birth mothers that are checked up on annually to see if their "yes or no" to reunify still is the same answer?

Do you have adoptees never search for fear of the trauma?

It's all such a hard decision because no 2 situations are identical...and thoughts one day or one year may not be the same many days or years later.

[loveajax]

My husband has sent a letter to his birth mom (2.5 mos ago) and no response yet....even if it is hard or it hurts, I still think it is his "right" to do so (and her "right" not to respond). He's 41 yo!!

[dpen6]

n adoptee...IMO..should have the right, without restriction to obtain their knowledge about themselves. Name, medical ect. In terms of contact and relationships I think that is something that has to be negotiated between the 2 because based on what I have read and what I have been through the situations are so differnent that you can't just say accross the board that yes any one can contact the other without regard to their particular situations. bmom may be to demanding of adoptee and vice versa.

I also don't think the goverment has any place to make tose decsions.

[bprice215]

if they want to make contact then I feel it is up to them.
For they should have that right presented to them if all agree in the triad.

bprice215

[mariarippy]

Originally Posted by loveajax

My husband has sent a letter to his birth mom (2.5 mos ago) and no response yet....even if it is hard or it hurts, I still think it is his "right" to do so (and her "right" not to respond). He's 41 yo!!

I hope all goes well. I went on an emotional rollercoaster and memories came up i didn't know I had. God Bless you for being here to gather intel.

[mariarippy]

Originally Posted by akcskye

I agree, it should be an allowable choice, but not a requirement.

However, there are some birth families that do not want to ever reunify with the child, and that can cause even more emotional trauma to the child whether they're an adult or not...

So, how do you draw the line?

Should there be a huge database of birth mothers that are checked up on annually to see if their "yes or no" to reunify still is the same answer?

Do you have adoptees never search for fear of the trauma?

It's all such a hard decision because no 2 situations are identical...and thoughts one day or one year may not be the same many days or years later.

I don't draw lines. I(we) share stories. Huge databases...maybe...Foresight on medical truth is a postive that comes of a reunion. People change so yeah , our "thoughts one day or one year may not be the same many days or years later." I have hope, Thanks.

[loveajax]

Thank you, Maria. I am also an a mom, so I gather intelligence all over the place on a.com!! haha.

I know reunions can be such a rollercoaster...I am sorry it has been so hard for you. Hang in there!!

[mariarippy]

Originally Posted by dpen6

n adoptee...IMO..should have the right, without restriction to obtain their knowledge about themselves. Name, medical ect. In terms of contact and relationships I think that is something that has to be negotiated between the 2 because based on what I have read and what I have been through the situations are so differnent that you can't just say accross the board that yes any one can contact the other without regard to their particular situations. bmom may be to demanding of adoptee and vice versa.

I also don't think the goverment has any place to make tose decsions.

Perfect...thanks...you get it. Do the researchers provide free mental council... along with their resounding YES conclusion....? Doubt it

[nowimfound]

Every creature has the right to know where they came from. Just because an individual gives up a child for adoption doesn't mean they have relinquished all emotional responsibility. I have found both of my biological parents. I found my birth mother when I was 22 and my birth father at age 33 and had two vary different experiences with each. Even though my birth mother was not the good person I hoped she would be I still would not trade my knowledge. Although it was painful at first it has helped me heal wounds I didn't know I had.

[mariarippy]

I found my father too. I had similar responses with mom and dad. My wounds are open and raw...no healing yet but I have hope...

[chickwithvision]

I am 42 years old, and at 3 weeks of age I was adopted. I’ve always known that I was adopted; as a young child, my adoptee parents would tell me stories about a little princess who was so loved that she was taken in by a King and Queen where she would live happily every after.

As I got older, the details of my adoption became more elaborate such as the hospital where I was born and the reasons I was given up, but was only offered in snippets. As a preteen I became obsessed with knowing who my real mother was, who I was and where I fit in with it all. I had begun to feel out of place in the world, misunderstood, and different to others; others who had ‘real’ mums and dads and brothers and sisters. My feelings ran deep, but any exploration of these feelings was met with a casual brush-off by my emotionally distant mother and father.

Then at fifteen I discovered the real reason for years of avoidance around the subject of my origins. The reason behind unspoken words and pushed down feelings. My adoptive mother disclosed a family secret, a secret that if it had been exposed earlier could have prevented years of anguish and depression as I had felt increasingly dispossessed during my early teens. This feeling was to continue well into my adult years. The truth was so simple. My natural mother had given birth to me in New Zealand when she was fourteen years old and alone. Her sister, thirteen years her senior and unable to bare children, was living in Australia with her new husband. As a tiny baby, just 21 days old, I made my maiden journey across the Tasman to Australia in the arms of an air stewardess, to be met by my new parents at the airport. I was taken home, loved and provided for and subsequently my adoption was completed in the Family Court of Australia.

30 years later I attended the wedding of my 81 year old grandmother to the second love of her life. It was here that I was able to share a face to face moment with the women who had given me life. On that special day, I stood beside my natural mother and her 6 sons – my half brothers, to pose for a photograph that would be etched in my memory for the rest of my life. At that moment I belonged. There were others who looked like me, shared traits good and bad just like me, at last I felt that I fitted somewhere. I no longer felt different. Instead I felt special. I belonged.

[RavenSong]

From a birthmother's point of view, I firmly believe that all adoptees have the absolute right to their original birth records, family medical histories, family social histories, family photographs, and names and addresses of both birthparents. Just because I voluntarily relinquished my legal parental rights does not mean that I relinquished my moral responsibility to my son to provide him with his birth family's heritage and background. I also believe that adoptees have the right to meet their birthparents, if that is what they desire.

I don't think that a huge database of bmoms is the answer, though. I've heard that Oregon (at least, I think it's Oregon), which opened its adoption records, requires birthparents to sign a legal form if they do not want to be contacted in the future. I think that's a reasonable way to approach open records.

[belleinblue1978]

I do believe that we as adopted people have a right to our information. My first mom denied contact, I'm ok with that now, although it has taken about four years to get to that point. I wish I had more information for my son, but I don't.

Adoption weaves a web that most people don't and just can't understand.