I can’t speak for every person who has been adopted, but I have the desire now to find out about my birth parents. I didn’t do anything to discover this information when my adoptive parents were still alive, because I was afraid it would hurt them. After all, they were the only parents I ever knew, the ones who raised me from the age of two, the only two people whose faces I will always picture whenever the word “parents” is used.
Still, I believe all of us have the right to find out our heritage. I could pretend, as some do, that my sole reason is for the purpose of learning the health history of my biological family. While this may be important, that’s not why I am embarking on a search for my “natural” parents. I have a burning curiosity to know who I look like, whose talents I inherited, whose strengths and weaknesses I have. Since I was raised as an only child by my adoptive parents, I’ve always wanted to know if I have brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews somewhere out there.
If you are adopted, perhaps you, too, are considering a search for your birth parents. The important thing is to know where to look. With the advent of the internet, finding them is no longer the impossible task it once seemed to be.
Here are some resources and suggestions that may assist you, if you plan on doing a search:
HELPFUL WEBSITES
Adoption Reunion Registries
Website: http://reunion-registries.adoption.com/
This site offers a list of adoption reunion registries, adoption-related classifieds and message boards where you can post information about yourself or the birth parent you are looking for. In some instances, adoptees and birth parents have posted to these registries and located each other.
Adoptions.com
Website: http://www.adoptions.com
There is a wealth of information here to get you started on your journey to finding your birth family, including articles, directories, newsletters, forums, support groups, legal issues and more.
Bastard Nation
http://www.bastards.org/
The name of this site makes me cringe, because “bastard” is the term they used to call adopted kids.
Still, this website provides advocacy for adoptees’ rights. Most states still have closed adoption records. meaning that adoptees are pretty much kept from obtaining information, such as court records and original birth certificates. Only five states are the exception.
You can at least get some moral support here and learn from others what steps they have taken in their quest to find their birth parents.
WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR
There are numerous “investigators” online who promise to locate your natural family if you mail them your amended birth certificate and generally a large fee.
With the risk of yielding your info and money to scam artists out for identity theft, you need to be extremely wary who you contact. Find out all the information on any “investigators” that you can before deciding to use their services. Get their names and the name of their agency or business and call the Better Business Bureau in their area to see if they’re legit.
In my case, somebody told me they could easily find my birth parent for “only $700 dollars down”. I declined.
If you pay for investigative software yourself, which is not that expensive, and use the information from the resource websites I mentioned, you can basically do the same research these people are offering to do for you.
BEING PREPARED
Understand that there is always a chance for rejection, if you are able to locate a birth parent.
You may have pictured a warm, fuzzy reunion scene with your long lost mother or father crying and apologizing profusely for their abandonment, like you’ve seen in all those made-for-television movies on Lifetime.
In real life, it may not be as simple as that. Some birth parents, having moved on in life, marrying and having other children, have not shared the fact that they gave up a baby in their past. They may think of your attempt to contact them as intrusive and not respond to you in the manner you’d prefer.
Take all of this into consideration before taking the steps to locate your birth parents and proceed, only if you are strong enough to deal with a negative reaction or downright rejection.
On the other hand, you could very well have the most positive of reunions, but even that takes some adjustment, because you will still be strangers to one another and most adoptees still consider their adoptive parents, living or dead, as their “real” Mom and Dad.
Just remember to take things slowly, build your relationship gradually and go in with no preconceived expectations.
DON’T FEEL GUILTY
Don’t get sidelined by guilt for wanting to find out where you came from. It doesn’t mean that you don’t love and respect your adopted family. It doesn’t mean that you are looking to spoil somebody else’s life.
It only means that you want to know your identity, which every human being has a right to know.
