Post Adoption Reunion

Secondary Adoptee Rejection in Adoption Reunions

No one is trying to find their birthmothers to throw stones or cast blame, yet on that emotional level we have to acknowledge that the adoptee can feel rejected by the act of adoption placement whether voluntary or forced. It doesn’t matter how they can now, as adult, intellectualize the circumstances of their relinquishment, the child inside still knows the pain and that child wants it’s mother. There is an innocence there in this need to reconnect. It is pure feeling.


When a Birthmother Closes an Open Adoption

Often, the adoptive parents who are writing these stories are genuinely upset and confused. They actually believe in the benefits of open adoption for their children. They want the mothers of their children to have contact with the children they relinquished and to know that the kids are doing well. They don’t understand why the mothers, and sometimes fathers, of their adopted children just disappear.


The Risk of Genetic Sexual Attraction for Adoptees and Birth Parents in Reunions

“Parent and child go through a very complex bonding process from the beginning of life to the first six years,” she said. “They go through phases and in the teen years, they separate. That whole process goes dormant until they reunite as adults. It’s almost like it awakens back the recognition in that the other person is a mirror of yourself.” DeNeen said she felt like she was regressing back to childhood, falling in love and looking to her dad as a hero. “I felt a lot of need for intimacy,” she said. “The lines were so blurry.” But she makes it clear that she never had sexual intercourse with her father, even though the relationship was “very inappropriate.” And like others who experience GSA, she crossed physical boundaries that were “embarrassing, confusing, amazing and overwhelming,”


Ongoing Adoption Reunions

This article describes the expectations, responses to unmet expectations, and factors that influence adoption reunion outcomes. Themes derived for interviews with 10 adult adoptees and 10 birth mothers who had each experienced an adoption reunion beyond an initial face-to-face meeting are reported.


An Adoptee Asks Reunion Question

I can tell you that many moms are just so worried about saying the wrong things that we are still afraid to open up and be real… the internal censor is on big time because we do not know what to do and are SO afraid of being sent away emotionally. Maybe this isn’t the case with her since you say she really reacts intensely, but that openness and honestly is a hard place to get to. I think it hard to trust the new relationship as permanent and get to that place.


All is Right in My Adoptionland

After living years without knowing if your child lives or dies, much less what their name is who they look like and anything else, reunion is so often seen as the great holy grail that removes all the former yucky stuff and makes it into a thing of the past. Live it long enough, however, and we learn that adoption can never really be in the past and it’s so the “gift” that keeps on giving. More new situations arise. New emotions develop. Still no road map and I doubt anyone is immune.


Fine Art Post Adoption Reunion

Scarlett drew this for me. I adore how she just has fully embraced that Max is her brother. He just gets included..automatically. It does’t matter that she never met him, I mean it does, but not in her love and inclusion of him.


More Pictures from an Adoption Reunion

Ann Fessler and Me:   Me, Celeste, Heather and Bernadette at the ACC 2007 Conference:   Oh, you weren’t interested in seeing pictures form the American Adoption Congress Conference  You were looking for reunion pictures?


Ready or Not..It’s Time to Met my Adopted Son!

I should be more excited, but part of me is like..yeah, I am going to go met my son for the first time in 19 years like I do this every day..but part of me HAS done this everyday. I have thought about this and rehearsed this, I have fantasied and imagined and wondered and tried to feel it so much, that this time, even if it is real, feels like pretend again. Just another day dream, this time with a better more well written script.


More on Max; Letters from my Adopted Son

If I had not searched for my adopted child, then it would have been not an issue. But I am not a saint. I am not a completely unselfish person. I do have my weak moments..or strong..depending on your viewpoint and perspective. And no matter what..I am a mother.

And I just ask you all this..to try to imagine for a second what it is like to know your child is out there somewhere..and you have longed for so long..and you find out that there is a way to reach out and touch team again. All I can say was there was NO WAY I could have not done it.

For myself, I believe for him, for my other children…one click. I am not that saintly of a human.




The Adoptee Reunion Rejection Classic: Why Won’t My Mother Meet Me?”

Carol Anderson’s 1982 adoption reunion classic: “Why did your birth mother refuse to meet you? Your natural mother lost a great deal when she surrendered you to adoption.” Fabulous insight for any adoptee about to contact or having been refused contact by their birthmother. It won’t make the pain go away, but hopefully can shed a bit of understanding.