[Archive]

Originally Posted By eileen sellaro

My son joey is now 18, and virginia my daughter is 16, I really want to reunite with them, the adoptive mother is not allowing me to get in touch with them, they were adopted when they where 3yrs and 5yrs, yes it was a state thing, my kids were bought, I fought for years and years, but I was a single parent, with no money, and not alot of legal resources. the adoptive family has money, and great legal resources. I can't keep crying over that, I just want to see my children, I am not going to put the blame on the state or the adoptive family. Its been a long time and I want to just see them and maybe become a friend thank you for listening.

[Archive]

Originally Posted By Carol, Birthfamily Issues Forum, Experts group

Dear Eileen:
Your son and daughter should have a fairly easy time finding you, should they want to search. We have many on line resources for them to use.
You can run a search for them on the many free on-line Reunion Registries ... all you need to run a search is date of birth and State in which the birth took place.
Following are some suggestions to follow:

Here at http://www.adopting.org those of us on
this end of the “Triad” are working hard to help
bring Adoptees and Birthfamilies together. When I
gave up my daughter in 1954 we had no
support system to rely on; we didn’t even get
counseling. We and our babies were a SECRET;
we are using our experiences to help you have an
easier time reuniting than we had.

Today people are much more accepting and
understanding about reuniting and that helps a
great deal. It is surprising, after all those years of
keeping our “secret,” to discover that people
don’t reject us when they learn about our giving up our
child to adoption.

Actually the search is much easier today than it
ever has been. When my daughter turned 21 in
1975 there was one major Reunion Directory in the
works. The International Soundex Reunion
Registry was being developed in Carson City Nevada
by Emma May Vilardi an adoptee who
never knew her biological parents. Today the ISRR
is the oldest and largest Reunion Registry in
the World. It has received a lot of recognition.
Unfortunately, it isn’t on-line.

I strongly urge you to print out a Registration
form from http://www.ISRR.net/ and mail the
complete form back to them as soon as possible.
They will run a search, first, and if they do not
come up with a match, they will register you on
the soundex. There’s no charge for the service,
although they can always use a donation.

ISRR is the largest, but there are many, many
Search/ReunionRegistries on-line today, most of
them are free.

There’s one right here at
http://www.adopting.org/supporta.html. All you
have to do to run a search is type in the date of birth and the State
or Province. The Registry will do the rest. If
there is no match, you can register your information
(gender, date of birth, City/state and whatever
other information you wish to include), along with
an e-mail address or other contact they can
write to for detailed information.

(NOTE: the underlined addresses here are in
hypertext. By clicking your mouse on them you can
launch right to the site. I suggest that you also
print this page out for future reference. Be sure
to “bookmark” or put the Registry addresses in your
“favorites” so that you can find them again
without any trouble in the future...also, please
be sure to keep your e-mail address or other
contact source up-to-date at all times.)

There are many other on-line registries; some are
for particular States and others are general.
The Sunflower Birthmother site has a Registry for
each DECADE at http://www.bmom.net/
Sunflower also has a large Directory of
Registries, most are also free, at:
http://www.freehosting2.at.webjump.c...t/registry.htm

An Adoptee organization called Bastard Nation also
has a huge Directory of Registries (along
with one of their own) at
http://www.bastards.org/library/search.html
Some of the State Dept of Human Services have
their own Registries... you can check our Search
Resources: http://www.adopting.org/bfsearch.html
and http://www.adopting.org/serch.html (yes,
they spell it “serch”).

A WARNING: Many searchers begin the search and
reunion without proper preparation and
wind up with problems. The road through the
search, reunion and recovery is riddled with
potholes. We call the experience an “emotional
roller coaster,” and believe me...it is properly
named.

We urge you all to prepare yourselves for the
reunion by reading as much as you can about
Adoptees, Birthparents, Adoptive Parents, Search
and Reunion. Remember that once you enter
into it, you open the door to a lot of memories
you’ve been afraid to confront till now.

It is very, very important for your --and all of
your loved ones’-- emotional health to go into
this with at least a basic understanding of what you
are going to face. Like a marriage, the first
couple of years are the hardest, as you get to
know your loved one.

I suggest that you read Nancy Verrier’s A PRIMAL
WOUND ...and ADOPTION WISDOM by
Marlou Russell, Ph.D. , a reunited adoptee who is
a psychologist/family therapist. You can order
them through our Book Shop at
http://www.adoptshop.com

Our Library Reading Room has many articles that
will help you with issues that will come up.
>>Print out a copy of the TOP TEN STEPS TO A
SUCCESSFUL REUNION from
http://www.adopting.org/ReunionAdvice.html
To understand the adoptee and his/her issues,
print out or read:
>>IDENTITY CRISIS YEARS .. The younger adoptee:
http://www.adopting.org/identity.html
>>ISSUES FACING ADULT ADOPTEES,
http://www.adopting.org/adltcope.html
>>COMMON CLINICAL ISSUES – Adoptees in therapy:
http://www.adopting.org/comonis.html
>>REUNION ISSUES is an excellent piece written by
Dr. Marlou Russell (she also hosts our
Expert Adoptee Issues Forum at
http://www.adopting.org/supports.html
her article is at
http://www.adopting.org/MRReunionIssues.html
>>ONCE UPON A TIME is a piece written by an
Adoptive Mom who helped her daughter
search for her birthfamily; Colleen Buckner is
also host of our Expert Search Forum at
http://www.adopting.org/supports.html
>>DEAR MOM AND DAD was written by an adoptee
explaining to her Adoptive Parents her
need to know her biological roots:
http://www.adopting.org/AdoptiveFami...MomAndDat.html

>>A TALE OF TWO MOTHERS is a beautiful piece
written by an adult adoptee:
http://www.cheta.net/uuweb/2mothers.html
>>Brenda Romanchik’s A BIRTHMOTHER’S GRIEF,
http://www.adopting.org/birthmother_grief.html
(That’s an underline between birthmother and
grief)
There are many other articles worth reading in our
Library reading room, these are just a few.
The story of my reunion appears at the top of my
Birthfamily Forum for the older “closed”
adoptions in the Experts group at
http://www.adopting.org/supports.html.

I also monitor a BIRTHMOM CHAT every Monday night
here at
http://www.adopting.org/chat.html
You will find us in the Birthfamily Chatroom from
around 8:00 PM EST till around 11 EST.
There’s a REUNION CHAT every Wednesday night at
the same address in the Reunion
Chatroom (sometimes we get stuck in the “lobby”).
Officially it starts at 10:00 PM EST when
Sabra connects from California, but we opened it
at 8:00 PM EST for the benefit of those who
live on the East Coast of the US.
There are other chats worth checking out. REJECTED
REUNION is on Friday nights and begins
around 9 PM EST or earlier. It’s in the Rejected
Chatroom.

Between the Chats, Expert Forums, Boards and the
support material in our Library reading room,
we do our best to offer you the encouragement and
support many of us wish WE had when we
began opening doors to our own identity in hope of
a Reunion with our child. After 32 years of
separation from my daughter, she found me in 1986
(thanks to her A-Mom) on the ISRR. We’ve
been in reunion now almost 15 years and I have two
delightful granddaughters, one 13 and one
going on 15. We’ve had our rough times, but in
all, this is the most wonderful time of my life.

I hope you will find the same.
Good Luck, God Guide You, and lots of LOVE AND
HUGS from your sister birthmoms.
Carol Bird, Birthfamily Issues Forum and Birthmom
Chat, http://www.adopting.org

PS, be sure to “subscribe” to our weekly
e-newsletter, you can sign up (free, of course) at
http://www.adopting.org/ar.html