Adopted!!!

[lozzawoo]

My partner was adopted and has just recently found his real family but is glad to have been adopted. So if you want to adopt go on!!!!!!

my SIL was adopted at the age of 6 after being in foster care w/my ILs from the age of 4. She was removed from her parents b/c of their drug abuse/neglect/abuse.

someone told her her birth mother is still alive, but she doesn't want to contact her.

she's very glad she was adopted.

good for her!!!!!!

He was given away at ten days old but has done quite good for himself. His birth family are drug etc.....

she's SUCH a wonderful, sweet woman. she's a fantastic mum to her two boys and we just love her to bits.

Must be awful for her though. My partner just wanted to know what his family history was and he wished he hadn't of bothered lol... we have a little boy and he dotes on him loves him to bits.

lozza, Ive got a few questions for you (or expat!). Im adopted and have know about it for ever really!
Im in the process of searching for my biological parents, and think ive found her on genes reunited. Thing is, Ive got all these feelings going on, not sure wheather to carry on with the search.
I know the history of it, she was only 19 at the time, pregnant with a married mans baby etc. So ive got no "bad" feelings about it. I think of any other family, brothers, sisters etc.
Sorry, bit of a waffle.
How did you dp decide to find the family? And, how did he tell his family?

hi jofeb04,

Sorry I haven't replied as I have just come back from holiday and hope you do get this message
My partner tried to find his mother many years ago but was very scared in what he might find. When we had my son he needed to know his family history so I went digging and found a message on Friends reunited from his real brother but he was looking for someone else but the clues were obvious when we saw the message. It is always what are you going to find but If u don't do it u will never know and we got in touch so my partner could lay this to rest. Unfortunately his mother had passed away and he was too late so its best to do as soon as possible. My partner is glad to have been adopted as it looked like they had an awful life all 7 brothers and sisters but u never know with yours might be good in the end. Message back and let me know how you get on good luck.

I suppose if you didn't try to find your biological family, you'd alway be wondering.

I was adopted and have never been interested in tracing my biological parents.

I think this is because I couldn't have had a better set of parents, who I see as my real parents as they looked after me, and loved me very much for 38 years.

Sadly they have both passed away - mum only recently, and I am even more unlikely to want to find b.parents now.

I don't have any ill feeling about bio parents, opposite in fact as if bio mother hadn't given me up to adoption then I wouldn't have had the life I have had....

One thing for adoptive parents to think about... I always knew I was adopted but was told I was chosen... I know that my parents looked at 3 other babies before they chose me, so the feeling of being chosen far outweighted the feeling of being negleted etc...

Go for it, you can give a child a wonder life that they may not have had......

I was adopted, and alway new about it...I was born in 1967, and there were an awful lot of babies up for adoption then.

I traced my birth family after the birth of my dd2, I really needed to know about them.

Neither of them are interested in meeting me, and I accept that. They are not my real parents - a real parent is the person who nurtures you, giving birth does not make you a parent imo.

I agree the parent who give you support and love are always the people you love as parents. But, I also was adopted in the 50s and I searched for a few years in the 90s, Searching for bio. parents is hard work, stressful and emotional. However, I did trace brothers and sisters, and we are getting to know one another, Anyone who is searching, my advice is this, Be aware that you may be causing anxiety not only for other people but for your family and the people you contact, In my case the search was very interesting, and definately worthwhile, I can now answer the questions on health matters etc. I have been through all the excitement of meeting my sisters and brothers and comparing looks, lifestyles and likes and dislikes, actually the similarities are amazing! and the happy results are that we are getting to know one another and keeping in touch. There are many agencies out there that offer support and couselling and even search agencies that will do alot of the legwork for you. I have to admit I did use one at one stage for a few months, well I was working full time with children to see to and a busy life. But actually I think part of the preparation for the life change is actually the searching. Anyhow, I am happy to discuss how to search and where to search and the effects I felt etc. :-)

jofeb04, take great care. I'm adopted & traced my biological parents. It didn't bring me any great joy or happiness.
If I were you, I would try and go through NORCAP or an intermediary of some description.
Good luck.

i was adopted as a baby and always knew and of course it never bothered me. i had a brilliant childhood with wonderful parents. when i had my first baby i began wondering about the whys and wherefores, and after my 3rd baby i felt the time was right to find out more and bagan tracing birth family. i was actually mainly interested in finding siblings as i had grown up an only child. to my delight i found i had 2 brothers, one of whom was also searching for me! turned out we lived in same city, we went to schools opposite each other and had mutual friends! (bit too close for comfort tho if you know what i mean!). eventually we searched for our birth mother. i had accepted that she might not want to know but hadnt really prepared myself. she wrote to me saying she hadnt thought about me since the day she had me, i meant nothing to her and never would and lots of other quite hurtful things. unti lthat pint in my life i had been very secure and felt very loved and wanted and never once felt bad towards the woman who gave birth to me. in that single letter i felt neglected and abandoned for the first time in my life, i was really angry that yet again she had had the final word. i also felt that she wasnt being honest with me or with herself. how could anyone give birth and never again think of that child? and its not as if it was only me, there were 3 of us she gave away. i will never know i guess how she really feels. i am getting over it, i am so so thankful to have met my brother and we ahve a good relationship together but i wish i had never tried to trace my birth mother.

sorry for such a long post!

Hello,

I am an adoptive mother to a beautiful 2 year old and it is very interesting to read your posts. We have written contact with her birth parents and siblings so I am glad she is not going to have to undergo the turmoil that the decision to search obviously causes.

One thing I found interesting was somebody saying that being told they were chosen made them feel special: as adopters we were told very specifically not to say this as it was too much of a burden for a child. But I must say this strikes me intuitively as wrong

The choosen thing works both ways. On the one hand you think you are special, but then as you get older, you understand that your parents were desperate for a baby & not specifically you. You also realise that you were rejected for whatever reason by the other parent/parents, so it ends up being a bit of an anomoly. One to be careful with I think.

Apols for spellings!

I have spoke to dh about adopting, I don't know anyone personnally who has been adopted. I have one child at the moment and would love another and I feel that there are some many children out there who so desperately need good homes, its a wonderful thing to do

ia was always told i was 'chosen'- i think its lovely

Jo I found my birth mother on genes reunited and my birth father on friends reunited. I am now in email contact with them. Be careful how you approach the woman you believe to be your birth mother as anyone could have access to her computer and she may not have told anyone. I sent a message saying 'I notice before yuor marriage you were a insert maiden name and I was wondering if we could be related. I then put my birth name and date of birth... something only she would know and mean nothing to anyone else who was reading and didn't know. That way I wasn't causing any trouble if someone else read it.

Both myself and my brother are adopted... I have always been curious about my birth parents and have been in contact with them over the last 2 years. I doubt we will ever meet but they were able to fill in a lot of blanks that my own parents couldn't.

My brother on the other hand refuses to aknowledge he is adopted even though we have both known from a very early age. It all depends on the person as to whether they want to find their birth families.

We were always told we were chosen and I agree this always made me feel wanted by our parents and family rather than neglegted by my birth family.

Ivelostmyboobs - sorry you were so hurt by your birthmother's letter. I wonder if she was just projecting on to you all the hurt and anger she felt towards others at that terrible time in her life. Sounds like she didn't want to revisit it.

When my babies were born, I don't think I thought of them as independent personalities. They were my joy, my responsibility, a part of me and dh, the future ... a lot of things but not really individual personalities till later.

Denying what she felt was probably her way of coping at the time

FORMERLY IVELOSTMYBOOBSBOOHOO (too long a nickname!)-mmm, i dont know really, i guess i will never now know the circumstances surrounding my conception and birth. i know that she kept her pregnancy (of me) secret and noone even new she had had a baby til her mother visited her in hospital and discovered her with a baby (my birth mum had told her she was going in for op- seems a bit strange though as thinki was a normal birth). must have been a bit of a shock for her! from what i can gather, her elder sister had done very well for herself securing a well paid job in london and my mother had always felt a bit of a failure/disapointment by comparison. she also had a much younger brother- who is only 4 yrs older than me! neither her brother or sister knew of my existence and to the best of my knowedge still dont.
i feel angry that still, at my age, i am her dirty secret, and i feel angry that i have not been able to change things. i cant believe she can go on decieving people as she has been doing for all these years surely she is denying a very big part of herself?
as a final thing, i sent her a photo (cant remember if i mentioned that in my last post and times getting on now and i cant be bothered to reread it!) of myself and the kids. you cant not look at a photo can you? and now i know that even if she then burnt it or threw it away hopefully that image will stay with her. maybe one day she maight recognise me in the street and who knows what might happen?

I wish you peace, mamatres.

Must go to bed now.

How are you feeling, mamatres?

hi,
fine thanks! sorry about long winded rant the other day. it was a year ag i actually contaacted her so it was a while back so not so raw now. but obviously its not something i drag around with me wallowing in it everyday so when a thread like this comes up i guess its a good outlet.
did i mention she is now married and has another daughter (my half bio sister). bet you anything they dont know about us!
thanks for your concern. if you dont mind me asking, do you have any special interest in adoption?

Are you sitting comfortably?

Dh's cousin gave birth as a teenager in the 60s. It was hushed up and the daughter was given up for adoption. Dh didn't know about this until the cousin told us both and showed photos, after the daughter had made contact with her in the early 80s. To my noises of concern the cousin laughed it off and said, oh I've never been maternal, as if giving away her baby had been no trouble at all.

Last month we saw same cousin again at a family do. She's over 60 now. She still has some contact with the daughter who has 3 children of her own. She had rather a lot to drink and mentioned to me that a certain older member of the family had said to her soon after the adoption: "Never mind, these things are for the best." She had clearly never forgotten or forgiven this comment. It made it clear to me that she did mind, she minded very much, even though she wouldn't admit it. She had never married, btw, or had further children.

It just made me feel Mamatres, when I read your story, that the whole business of having a baby in a socially unacceptable context and then giving it away for adoption is deeply scarring, and the emotions of such mothers can be complex. I am sure no two cases are the same, either.

thank you for sharing that with me.