To search for long lost adoptee or not?

[SunshineLollipops9]

I don’t want to go in to too much detail as it would be very outing, but as a family we are conflicted.

My Auntie had a baby in the late 1970’s that we believe was a forced adoption, or one she felt pressured in to. The younger generation didn’t find out about this until many years later. I have a strong suspicion it was my grandmother that pressured her in to having her baby adopted. I also believe my Auntie planned to tell her children once our grandmother died, but she died before her.

We are now not sure what to do. We would so much like to find her and hope she is healthy, well and had a good adoption. To also honour our aunties memory. She never got over the adoption and was in deep pain. However, we’re not sure if it’s best to not try and find her. Perhaps if she wanted to be found, she would have found us by now and this may be a sign that she had a good adoption and has loving parents.

if you are an adult adoptee of the 50’s/60’s/70’s did you want to be found? Do you have any advice?

Thank you

@SunshineLollipops9

Im not an adoptee and it's not for me to speak on adoptees behalf but I imagine adoptees reasons for looking for birth family or not are very individual and often complex.
Your birth relative may have had a good adoption and dont want to upset their parents. They may also not want go throw a bomb into the lives of their birth mum.
There are intermediaries who can contact your relative for you which gives them the opportunity to decide in their own time if they want contact.
That could be the way forward for you

Hiya, I don’t know how far you have gone down this route yet, but just wanted to jump on this and say, yes! I absolutely wanted to be found! I needed to meet my tribe. I did the finding, but oh my goodness my life has been enriched so very much by our reunion and I have a whole new loving family.

wishing you all well,
Adoptee, 1959

Hi
I am an adoptee from the 1970s. I have had contact with my birth father (now deceased) who was also adopted. So, I have had the experience of being both someone seeking a family and the 'found' person.

These are just a few thoughts.

It is possible that your cousin doesn't know they are adopted. I know that sounds crazy, but you cannot rule this out completely. It's easy to forget how different things were when closed adoptions were the norm and I wouldn't assume anything about a person born in this era.

I would also urge you to be cautious about what you think you may or may not know about contact.

You do not know they didn't try to contact your Auntie, and she didn't reply at the time, for whatever reason, or the message wasn't communicated to her in the right way if it was passed to her via an intermediary, or didn't reach her, and it might have presented as a rejection to the adoptee.

You don't know if they actually have had some contact that you are not aware of. It is not uncommon for birth mothers to say, "I will tell my family eventually." But the birth child then gives up hope.

There are a host of reasons why your Auntie may not have been able to be transparent about this.

None of this is a criticism, it's just something to consider. If you have more questions, I'd be happy to discuss in a PM about my experience with BM.

In terms of honouring your auntie, the cousin may not be interested or may want to know but might just be curious and not looking for a long-term relationship. This could sting.

All of this said, because you are a cousin and not one of the birth parents you could be at a real advantage. If the adoptive parents are still alive, they are likely to be sensitive - even now - about all of this. They went through this experience very different to the adopters on this board today. However, they are unlikely to find a cousin very threatening and it could all go very smoothly.

You may be heartened to hear I am in touch with my birth cousins. It just isn't intense and fraught in the way it was with my BF and it's really nice to be connected.

I hope it goes well for you.

I know it might present as negative - it's meant to be more to help you avoid a 'I wish I'd considered that' scenario.

I hadn't realised what an old post this was!