[ncsu07]

I am going through an intermediary process of contacting my birth mother. In other words, the adoption agency is doing all of the contact "work" for me. The next step for me is to provide a "personal statement" and non-identifying information about myself to pass along to my birth mother. I don't have a huge problem with providing non-identifying information because I have hers, but I have a problem providing a personal statement.

One of my goals of seeking her out and reuniting with her is to know more about her. Am I being selfish by not wanting to provide information about myself without knowing that I'll receive anything from her? I feel like I'll be giving out information about myself and have no guarantee that she'll reciprocate. If she wants to know information about me, she has it at her fingertips and I'm possibly left with nothing.

I plan on talking with the lady dealing with my case, but I wanted some feedback from others. Am I being selfish?

[bakerjw]

Sometimes you have to give to receive. It doesn't have to be much. A personal statement can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be.

Sometimes we have to look into ourselves and find out why reuniting with a birth parent is important. I still don't have that figured out other than it is something that I feel that I need to do.

You may get rejected or get nothing back but the best rewards do come from taking the biggest risks.

You're lucky that you have an agency that is so willing to help. I will have to have counseling and a bunch of other crap once my agency makes contact. It is such a crock.

Best wishes.

[imprttuner2]

I know exactly how you feel. I usually like to keep the details of my life private, and when I found out that my birth mother was looking for me my first reponse was to put up the "shields" and wait for information from her first. I think that my doing that made her nervous though, because even though she was notified they found me in Jan, I still haven't heard from her. I bit the bullet and swallowed my pride last week and wrote her a very brief positive letter for mothers day (which happens to fall the day after my birthday) to let her know that I was looking forward to hearing from her. My adoption counselor thought that she would be very touched and thought it was a wonderful gesture, which kinda surprised me since she knew how hesitant I was. If you'd like I'd be happy to PM you the letter I sent her so you could have an example.

Best wishes

[MzJulz]

I'm a bmother who was just found. When contacted I felt blindsided because he had a lot of personal info about me but I had none about him and he is reluctantly to tell me much. My questions are answered in the most general of terms. I have offered to answer any questions he has but I haven't heard back from him yet. Contact was made by his fiancee. Now I'm wondering if he really wanted to contact me...