Twenty Things

I saw this recommended in my all things adoption group – “For adoptive parents: my adopted daughter asked me to read this recently. It has been really helpful to me, but also to our relationship. It gives us a framework for talking about how she feels and what she needs from me. I’ve learned so much, but there’s still so much to learn.”

Found this review in an interesting place – LINK>”nightlight Christian Adoptions.” Not a place I would normally think to look for any adoption insights. The review says that the author is an adoptee herself as well as a speaker and adoption trainer. She has written a book specifically about what adopted kids wished their parents knew. This list will give you amazing insights – whether you are an adoptive parent, an adoptee, or are considering adoption … and these insights can also apply to kids in the foster care system and foster parents.

Here’s the list of the 20 things –

1. I suffered a profound loss before I was adopted. You are not responsible.
2. I need to be taught that I have special needs arising from adoption loss, of which I need not be ashamed.
3. If I don’t grieve my loss, my ability to receive love from you and others will be hindered.
4. My unresolved grief may surface in anger toward you.
5. I need your help in grieving my loss. Teach me how to get in touch with my feelings about my adoption and then validate them.
6. Just because I don’t talk about my birth family doesn’t mean I don’t think about them.
7. I want you to take the initiative in opening conversations about my birth family.
8. I need to know the truth about my conception, birth, and family history, no matter how painful the details may be.
9. I’m afraid I was “given away” by my birth mother because I was a bad baby. I need you to help me dump my toxic shame.
10. I am afraid you will abandon me.
11. I may appear more “whole” than I actually am. I need your help to uncover the parts of myself that I keep hidden so I can integrate all the elements of my identity.
12. I need to gain a sense of personal power.
13. Please don’t say that I look or act just like you. I need you to acknowledge and celebrate our differences.
14. Let me be my own person, but don’t let me cut myself off from you.
15. Please respect my privacy regarding my adoption. Don’t tell other people without my consent.
16. Birthdays may be difficult for me.
17. Not knowing my full medical history can be distressing for me.
18. I am afraid I will be too much for you to handle.
19. When I act out my fears in obnoxious ways, please hang in there with me and respond wisely.
20. Even if I decide to search for my birth family, I will always want you to be my parents.

Not everyone (especially adoptees) are fans – “Eldridge is not an ally of adopted people! On one of her disturbing Facebook pages, she regularly deletes comments by adoptees, and blocks them if they dare to point out the nonsense she’s been sharing. I can see why adoptive parents would like her content.

I Love Reunion Stories

From the LINK>BBC – Adoption: Son finally meets birth mum after 58 years.

Timothy Welch was only six weeks old when he was separated from his birth mother, June Mary Phelps, who was 18 at the time. He describes his adoptive parents reasons – “They couldn’t have their own children so they started the adoption process and when they were 36 they adopted me.” Timothy described his life with his adoptive parents as “really happy”, and never considered trying to find his birth mother until his adoptive parents died: Bill in 2018 and Eunicé in 2020.

As an adoptive child you always think about researching your birth family. A lot of it goes back to identity as a person over the years. He admits, “I wondered who I was, certain personality traits that were different from my adoptive family.”

Yately Haven in Hampshire was a mother and baby home run by the Baptist Church. It is where Timothy was born. The Haven was open from 1945 until 1970. Almost 1,800 babies were born there. Timothy was able to get a copy of his original birth certificate. It contained his birth mother’s full name, date and place of birth. A search angel was able to use voter registration rolls and with that information, Timothy was able to find his mother’s current husband, Michael Mortimer. Timothy gave Mr Mortimer his email, which he passed on to Timothy’s brothers and they arranged a day to meet up in London. Timothy says of his brothers, “They are both wonderful men – kind, thoughtful and reflective. I feel very fortunate to have met them at this stage of our lives and am going to enjoy getting to know them and their respective families very much.”

He says of then meeting his birth mother – “It was emotional but at the same time it felt natural. We spoke about a variety of things but the part I enjoyed the most was just looking at her and taking in the person that she is.” He was also able to learn about his birth father – Hedayat Mamagan Zardy, an Iranian Muslim. The couple had a fleeting romance and loved dancing in Oxford.

Some adoptees, like my dad, are afraid to know where they came from. My mom yearned to. Reading stories like this make me wonder how they would have felt, if they had the option to experience a reunion. Since they have both passed away, I can only choose to believe that reunion took place in heaven.

Grieving Many Times Over

Today, I share a piece by LINK>David B Bohl, who is an author, speaker and addiction & relinquishment consultant. It is titled On Grieving Many Times, And Many Times Over. I was attracted to this because yesterday was my deceased, adoptee mother’s birthday. I don’t suppose we ever get over the grief. I don’t think she ever got over the grief of never being able to communicate with her birth mother, who Tennessee told her in the early 1990s was already dead.

David writes his adoptive mother’s death was the fifth death of a parent he’d had to go through. He explains that he – hadn’t learned of the first two until much later after they’d occurred. The first one to go was my birth father, who died 32 years before I learned about it, the second one my birth mother whose death I did not learn of until 8 years after it happened (very similar to my own mom). Then there was my adoptive father 12 years ago, and now, Joan Audrey Bohl who died twice —first when the dementia robbed her of her mind and memory, subsequently rendering me a stranger when she would fail at times to remember who I was and why I was visiting. There she was another mom who had no idea I was her son. In those moments, in a most sinister coincidence, she was like my biological parents who relinquished me and existed in this world without any specific knowledge of me.

He wants us to understand “What all of this means to someone like me—a relinquishee and adoptee who now has two sets of deceased parents–is that I must face twice(?), five times(?) a yet-to-be determined amount(?) of grief and confusion. Add to that losing my adoptive mom to dementia, and there is plenty to process, a great deal of loss, and certainly much to grieve. I am, of course, not blaming any of my parents for dying or getting sick, and I’ve made peace with my biological parents for giving me up a 62 years ago. But it would be disingenuous to say that I am no longer affected by these losses and that my mother’s recent death doesn’t trigger some new layer of grief where all of those people who contributed to my existence must be acknowledged in how they shaped my life. And so, I think about mothers. The mother I knew and the mother I’ve never met. And then the mother I knew who no longer knew me. I think of fathers, the one who had never even met me, and the one who raised me and provided me with a life filled with opportunities. And I of course, as a father, I think about my children.”

When I try to talk about my own family, my youngest son says to me – you have a very complicated family. It is true. And it is true for adoptees as well. As I have learned who my original grandparents were and have made contact with that novel new experience of genetic relatives that never knew each other existed – it has actually given me a new sense of wholeness – while at the same time totally messing me up with the adoptive relatives and the feelings I have (and still have) and each of them. Very complicated indeed.

There is much more in his very worthwhile article – see the LINK.

A Uterus With Legs ?

The issue of referring to an adopted child’s first mother as the tummy mummy came up somewhat coincidentally today but it did cause me to reflect on this again. Somehow, I always feel a bit of cringe at that phrase and the title of this blog reflects how some other people feel about it. I found that Lori Holden aka Lavender Luz did a poll. She is an Author & Speaker, Diarist & Open Adoption Advocate. She also has a podcast – LINK>Adoption: The Long View.

First what got me here. The commenter is blocked from posting/ responding for a month in a Foster/Adopt group. The reason she notes is that it isn’t ‘kind’ to mention to someone with ‘guardianship’ whose 4 year old child sees her biological parents – that agreeing/ pretending, letting child pretend that the child grew in HER belly vs reinforcing to child that she grew in ‘mama name’s ‘ tummy…. That mama ‘name’ is more respectful than tummy mummy.

Of course, there is also this – that they “saved” the child …. and have done xyz for that child – still does not change the fact that child did not grow inside her. The issue started when a photo was posted that showed a non reading age child in a shirt with letters only stating she loved her as ‘mom’… allegedly the child picked that shirt out and insisted she wear it in front of the tree….again listing all the things ‘she’ saved child from…

The commenter was blocked after mentioning that seemed passive aggressive since the sees her actual parents.

In the LINK>Poll about the term “tummy mummy”, the 300 respondents broke down this way –

66% were adopting or adoptive parents
11% were adoptees
13% had a professional or nonprofessional interest in adoption
10% had placed a child or lost a child to adoption

You might expect that with such an Adoptive-Parent-heavy sample, the results would lean positive toward use of the term “Tummy Mummy” but you would be incorrect.

61% either didn’t like the term (26%) or detested it (35%)
25% were either neutral (12%) or found it acceptable (13%)
Only 5% loved it
The remaining 9% chose “Other,” which allowed for commentary.

Some of their comments included – Feels like a white-wash term trying to sanitize truth. It diminishes the woman’s motherhood. Original family isn’t reflected in this phrase, which seems intent on removing all important connections and substituting them with a biological detail that isn’t even accurate.

This one was interesting – I hate “tummy mommy.” When people told me babies grew in their moms’ tummies, I pictured babies swimming their stomachs with all the food. And babies popping out of tummies, Aliens-style.

Another one noted – My husband is a reunited adult adoptee. I actually shared this with him and he made a vomiting noise.

Another adoptee noted – young children are not given enough credit for understanding that we can have two mothers that love us, regardless if one can’t be there at the moment. I know for me personally it would have helped me tremendously to have been able to see and talk freely about my mother as this real person.

And this – “Tummy mummy” makes her sound like [my long-gone birth mother] was a surrogate rather than a human being making a difficult decision. It reduces her down to a particular “role”.

Romanticized Christmas Adoption

It’s everywhere, not only at this time of year but throughout the year. One adoptee wrote – be aware of your Christmas movie viewing. The orphan/adoption plot line is strong this time of year! you may be looking for Christmas movies to view with your children. I have personally decided to use this as an opportunity to teach my kids about my adoption status, and help empower them to be educated non-adopted members of society, and hopefully avoid their desensitization/romanticized experience of others’ adoptive storylines. Join me in my campaign to keep the trauma-aware population growing! (Yes, I am part of such a campaign !!)

Regarding Christmas Princess on Amazon Prime: a former foster care youth adoptee whose adoptee status is her vehicle to position herself as a Rose Bowl Parade princess. There are flashback scenes to her addicted first mother’s neglect, their home removal, and some overt/horrifically blatant guilt tripping from her adoptive parents. (The adoptee says – I’m not being sensitive…when she is wrestling with her attachment issues and then *surprise* is approached by her birth mother, she tells her adoptive parents about it. Her adoptive dad says “it’s like you don’t appreciate everything we’ve done for you! When will you learn we’re you’re family!” Pretty tough to watch for me and they just gloss over it like that was excellent parenting and she’s the one with the problem. Needless to say, I was triggered – which doesn’t happen all that often for me.)

The adoptee adds this side note – as a kid I had an obsession with orphan stories. (Blogger’s note – it is interesting that I was too but I thought my adoptee parents were orphans when in reality they were not – there were families out there living lives we were unaware of.) I read every tragic book I could find, and was not triggered—only intrigued—by the plethora of stories I found (in my desire to romanticize my situation.) So, I’m not saying don’t let them watch potentially triggering material. I mean, by all means, if you know they have a trigger, for the love of everything, please respect that. Not all kids are able to articulate their reactions, so I’m just saying, as in all good parenting: be alert, be aware, be available to talk it out. Literally pause the movie and say “that was completely out of bounds for him to be guilting her like that. It really rubbed me the wrong way. What do you think?” and follow it up with intentional discussion “why do movie makers seem to gravitate toward adoption stories? What do you think that’s about? How do you feel about that?” or “do you like movies that involve adoption? Do you ever relate to the characters? I find myself sympathetic to the adoptive mom, I don’t want her to feel rejected, but even more so, I find myself feeling protective of the kid. The top priority should be their well-being, right?” Engage engage engage! If they happen to open up to you, please please be encouraging and sympathetic in your response!!! If I had felt free to express all of my curiosity, emotion, feelings of rejection without dismissive “How could you not feel lovable?! We love you SO much!” I would have processed much of my adoption better along the way.

Other themed Christmas movies – Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer – the island of misfits, Santa Paws (note – my wife watched it and was surprised it has a foster care theme, with it showing the foster mom as mean and evil.), Elf (Buddy is a late discovery adoptee who learns he is not in fact an elf like he had always believed, despite it being very obvious because of his physical size. The whole movie is about reunion with his father and there are some hard rejection moments in there.), Annabelle’s Christmas Wish (is about a boy who is orphaned and lives with his grandfather. There is holiday magic but also an entire plot about how his wealthy aunt is weaponizing Child Protective Services to take the boy away). There are probably others, this is just a short list offered so far.

From an adoptive parent who adopted from foster care – I’m pretty sensitive when adoption is part of a story line, and always concerned about how my adopted child will feel upon watching movies centered around adoption. But yes, my daughter is very intrigued by adoption stories and it gives us a chance to discuss healthy vs. non-healthy relationships and how no two families are the same. She doesn’t yet know everything that happened to put her into foster care. I appreciate hearing adoptees’ perspectives to know how to better navigate parenting her.

Greg Louganis Adoptee

Greg Louganis and his biological father, Fouvale Lutu, in 2017

I learned about this adoptee from a favorite adoptee blogger, Tony Corsentino, in a recent blog LINK>Beautiful Man. I personally LOVE reunion stories.

I’ll admit I really didn’t know anything about Louganis’ Olympic career. In 2017, People magazine wrote about his reunion with his paternal family – LINK>How He Found His Birth Father by Patrick Gomez. Louganis told People – “I needed to know I wasn’t a throw-away child.” Like many adoptees (my mom included) being adopted filled him with questions about his birth parents. Being told his biological parents had been young when he was born and had no choice in giving him up for adoption, he says “helped ease the question of whether I was loved.”

Louganis’s birth parents met in Hawaii, but his biological mother moved to San Diego while pregnant and Louganis entered the foster care system at birth. At 9 months, he was adopted by Southern California-based Frances and Peter Louganis, who were unable to have biological children. The couple had also adopted a daughter two years before and were always open with their kids about their family history.

Among his biggest fans was Fouvale Lutu, who for years had quietly followed his son’s life from afar. When an endorsement event for Speedo brought Louganis to Honolulu in 1984, Lutu decided it was time to meet his first-born son. “One of the hosts came up to me and said, ‘Your father’s here.’ And I said, ‘My father’s in San Diego,’ ” recalls Louganis. Then he said, ‘No. Your biological father.’ “

“It was interesting because as the years progressed,” Louganis says, “I saw a lot of similar traits in him that I saw in myself.” He adds, “when I did the DNA testing and found out how we were connected, it validated everything that I knew in my heart.” Through the DNA test, he also discovered the identity of his birth mother.

Back to Tony Corsentino, his adoptive parents extolled Louganis as a role model for him. This caused him to realize he had resented Greg Louganis as a child. In maturity, he realized that his parents’ tokenizing of Louganis as what adoptees can achieve was mixed in with his resentment. Then, he realized that he would have needed to be able to theorize his adoption in terms that separated his own self and his questions and needs as an adoptee, from his adoptive parents, their motives and their needs as adopters. The idea of adoptee-in-reunion erasing everything that does not support the dominant conception of adoption as child welfare through family creation. The very idea of finding and reclaiming one’s roots.

A bit more about erasure from Tony – the term is a cultural project requiring many interconnecting parts: laws, institutions, ideas. Denial of citizenship to intercountry adoptees is one manifestation of it. Also, adopting children out of their communities; punitive, draconian terminations of parental rights through our systems of family policing; sealing of birth records. More broadly still: ideas of adoption as child rescue, and the presumption of adoptee gratitude, function to enmesh everyone in the project of erasure. Against such a polymorphous force, resistance takes correspondingly many forms. Greg Louganis’s willingness to talk about his reunion and his reassertion of his ancestral identity through inscribing and adorning his body with native tattoos are potent acts of anti-erasure, no matter how personal their meaning for him.

I love reunion stories because I had to make a determined effort to reclaim my original roots for my own self.

Fathers And Custody

One of the cultural changes that has come to pass is fathers asserting their rights when faced with the loss of custody for their child. I am happy today because one battle has finally been hard won. It had been a 6 month battle that cost over $35,000 in legal fees. The judge awarded sole custody of the baby girl to her dad. Everyone is over the moon happy for him.

Today, I read about another father who was lied to about his child. I wonder how often this might happen, more often than I once thought. The way his father found out his daughter was alive was when an adoption agency lawyer called him to ask if he knew about his daughter’s birth. His ex had told him the babies (she had been expecting twins) were stillborn. DNA test results were that 99.9999% she is his daughter. The judge sided with the hopeful adoptive parents who have a 5 bedroom house with a pool, backyard and front yard plus grandma and grandpa living there too. His parental rights are due to be stripped and he will never get to meet his daughter. He mourned the death of twins he thought were stillborn for a year. Now he will lose his daughter again, after never even meeting her.

In more conventional custody situations, as of 2018, nearly 4 in 5 custodial parents were mothers (79.9%). But the statistics go deeper than that: Not only does the mother get custody of the children more often, the parents agree in more than half the cases (51%) that the mother should have custody. However, the number of children living with their father has more than quadrupled from 1% in 1968 to 4.5% in 2020. Many divorced fathers would prefer to have custody of their children but are not actually awarded custody. 65% of the time the female parent is awarded custody.

Personal confession – I was awarded custody of my daughter in my divorce case. However, due to financial hardship (with no child support asked for nor rendered), my daughter was raised by her dad and a step-mother. It was simply an agreement that to the best of my knowledge was never court ordered. It was not an easy role in the 1970s to be an absentee mother. Thankfully, I continue to have a good relationship with my daughter and her assistance to me when my parents were dying can never be adequately repaid but continues a source of deep gratitude for me.

Within the legal family court system, women are viewed as generous, trustworthy and friendly and there is a belief that they will have more time to spend with their children but this is not the reality in either single mother families or in families where both parents work. As of 2015, joint-custody arrangements were more common than sole paternal custody but less common than sole maternal custody. With regard to joint-custody arrangements: occurrences of domestic violence on the part of husbands was reduced.

It is surprisingly easy to find stories of fathers having to fight for custody against adoptive or foster parents. In a case I had looked at before, which was ruled just this 2022 year, the father had sought custody in a divorce petition filed in Iowa before his then-estranged wife gave birth. A judge ordered DNA testing and prohibited the child’s permanent placement or adoption. She gave birth in Michigan and a judge terminated parental rights of the birth mother and father, who was considered a non-surrendering party because he failed to respond to a generic legal notice published in a newspaper. The Michigan Supreme Court justices said the case presented challenging legal issues, with some concerned about the father’s due-process rights. Even so, the state’s Supreme Court sided with the adoptive parents of the nearly 4-year-old boy whose birth father had sought custody. That court reversed a decision by a state Court of Appeals panel that said the birth father’s parental rights were wrongly terminated, which provided the birth father with a chance at gaining custody.

If the topic interests you, you may wish to read this analysis – LINK>The Strange Life of Stanley v. Illinois: A Case Study in Parent Representation and Law Reform provided by the NYU Review of Law & Social Change – Legal Scholarship for Systemic Change. Thankfully, there has been dramatic and important growth of parent representation in child protection cases. In Stanley, the Supreme Court addressed Peter Stanley’s efforts to regain custody of his children from the Illinois foster care system after the death of his partner, Joan Stanley, to whom he was not married. Stanley became a canonical case regarding the rights of unwed fathers, and, crucially for the child protection field, it included a broader holding that only parental fitness can justify state action to remove children from their parents’ custody.

The Words Are Wrong

Often it would be better not to say it at all. Today’s story –

I wish my parents wouldn’t say shit like my son is going to take after them when it comes to genetics, even something as silly as toe nails. It makes my story feel insignificant to them. NO, I have my own story and entire genealogy behind me that I don’t have the privilege of understanding. I don’t know what my son takes after when it comes to me, then saying things like that is a reminder that my story was wiped clean and brushed under the rug. My mom constantly reminding me that she nursed me when she was pushing 50 and wasn’t lactating does not feel good, another reminder how out of touch she was with my reality. Why would latching a baby when they are hungry with no food to offer ever feel like a good idea? And if they mention my weight and how worried they were that I was going to not lose any pregnancy weight I might just scream. They spent 3 hours here with my son (5 weeks old) and I am emotionally exhausted. So many small comments that felt so heavy for me. I’ll tell ya, having a baby sure slapped me in the face with adoption bs. I kind of thought I was out of the fog for the last 2 years, NOPE! Thrown right back in full force. From seeing someone related to me for the first time in person, to not understanding how in the world someone gives a baby away for money alone. Crazy time lately!

It’s bad enough when total strangers say stupid things but people who ought to know better . . . sadly too many don’t – know better.

It’s The Insecurity

Two people talk about seeing their daughter but the adoptive parents won’t let them now, even though they agreed to an open adoption. If you are an expectant mom being given promises of an open adoption, I would caution you not to believe them. It is so common for an adoption that starts out “open” to quickly become closed. Some adoptive parents are so insecure. It seems like they are afraid that when the real parents are in the picture, the kid will love them too much and that it’ll just remind the child that the adoptive parents aren’t the real parents.

From an adoptee and former foster care youth who is in love with someone who is a First Dad. His ex gave the baby up out of spite and religious differences. It was an open adoption and they involve his ex but not him. He has to beg for updates and has never seen his daughter. He doesn’t know what to do and feels helpless because they are lawyers with lots of money.

This happens a lot with foster care adoptions. Sometimes it’s offered as a deal – if the parents sign away their rights, they get a say in who adopts their child, or they get to keep the older child and are promised an open adoption with the baby. Some parents don’t even bother trying to get their kids back, they just sign away their rights. Willing relinquishment is rewarded, while parents who put up a fight get punished for being uncooperative, even selfish.

One adoptee shares – I wasn’t supposed to mention being adopted to teachers, doctors, therapists etc. We lived hard in the fantasy… except for when my adoptive mom got pissed… then that fantasy was shattered and my adoption was thrown in my face. So this is how I now picture every adoptive parent who closes an open adoption. That they are being like my adoptive mom firmly trying to shame the genetics outta me and brainwash me to view her and only her as someone who cares.

A birth father who was also a former foster care youth shares his experience – my daughter’s mother is in active addiction and had been told Child Protective Services would not let her keep our baby. She had adopted out her first child, and we decided it would be best to at least have two siblings together, and the adoptive parents have been great with keeping in contact with her… but she is very low contact. She feels tremendous guilt, so she does not make contact and does not reply most of the time. I was promised throughout the entire pregnancy that it would be an open adoption and my daughter would live with them but she would have a relationship with me and with the children that I have full custody of myself, that I’d get pictures and video calls, and she would learn about my family and carry on the traditions we follow. But after they left Texas, they sent me a letter saying they would be severing communication with me because they wanted my daughter to grow up with “less confusion.” They did not go into any further reasons but did tell me they knew it wasn’t fair to me. They thanked me for all that I did to care for her during the pregnancy. I was told quite bluntly by the doctor that our baby only made it because of my involvement in caring for her and her mom. I got to hold my baby once – for an hour supervised at the adoption agency – two days before they flew out. The adoptive parents send photos to her mom, and she forwards them to me once and a while. One of the workers at the adoption said they know it’s unfair but they are powerless after the adoption is finalized. She told me that adoptive parents and prospective adoptive parents cause “as much damage, if not more” than birth moms and that they are very selfish. My daughter’s mother lives in poverty and has little contact and no means to ever visit Virginia in person. They don’t see her as a threat. I’ve been sober for ten years and I work hard. They see me as a threat, even though I am not, therefore they cut me out.

An adoptee suggests – Please keep tabs on them, I wouldn’t stop reaching out either. I see dads who stop all action due to where they stand legally. But who you are biologically matters to your children, not legalities. Journal and document everything you can now, keep them included in your journey and future plans. One day you can present them with the truth vs the fairytale.

Here’s a little story for you about dads’ impact through biologies: My daughter is almost 4, her father is an addict and has not been in her life since before she was one. She knows dad is unwell and does not think like we do right now. Tonight before bed she said she wanted to see her dad. I told her I wasn’t sure where he was right now but one day she’ll see him. She asked if she would see his house. I said “maybe, but don’t you want to talk on the phone to get to know him first”. She gave a little giggle. “I do know him, it’s my dad. He’s our family.” I snuggled her tighter and told her “yes he is”. That small conversation spoke volumes to me. I could understand and relate. This was why I personally felt the way I did when I was little as I had the same longing and family feeling about relatives I’d only ever heard of. They were in fact my family. Those adoptive parents that have your baby may try to mask those feelings and reality but they are tucked inside. I hope one day you get to see you’ve never been forgotten.

I know what an enormous impact it had on me personally when I learned that my mother’s original father’s family knew about her and often longed to have contact with her. It turned my perceptions of that branch of my family totally around.

One about male domination – my children’s father signed away his rights, after intentionally getting the kids put back in foster care. He’d told me if I ever left him, he’d manipulate Child Protective Services to make sure I lost the kids forever. That they’d be brainwashed to hate me. His sister adopted the kids and has allowed him to see them. She throws a fit if I post anything about them on Facebook. I’m just hoping they’ll see through the toxic fog eventually.

“My child is confused” is the favorite justification by adoptive parents when they’re about to close the adoption.

Closing An Open Is Common

Don’t believe the promises. Today’s story.

At 16 years old, I found out that my father and stepmother had given a child up for adoption. I believe that happened about 8-10 years prior to my finding out. I’m 39 and so, I think, she’s 31 now, according to a people search but it may not even be her.

It was supposed to be an open adoption but the adoptive parents quickly stopped that. They made it impossible to see and or contact her (I only recently learned this part). So I know who adopted her and a general idea of where they live(d). I don’t know anything more than that except that they’re deeply religious, like very hypocritically so.

Around the time that she was 16, and it still wasn’t legal for me to try and initiate contact, I found her on Facebook. I made a public post expressing my desire to meet and get to know my sister. I also PMd her, saying “I can’t tell you who I am directly but I hope you read my public post”.

Well, her adoptive father saw it and wrote back. I cannot remember exactly what he said but after that, contact was abruptly cut. (Not sure if it was me or him who did it – it was so long ago.)

Not sure how much later but I found out my current (and new) stepmom had found her and even friended her on Facebook. I seized my moment and sent her a friend request and a message explaining who I was. I do not remember the exact details but we did text a few times and the last time we spoke I was telling her she might be an aunt (I never did go through with that pregnancy unfortunately – I was 24ish at the time). If memory serves me accurately, she mentioned me to either her adoptive mom or dad. Then, I suddenly lost contact again (my guess is they made her cut contact with me). I never was able to contact her again and she didn’t contact me.

Fast forward to the present day, I am truly heartbroken. I want to know what happened so long ago. Does she even want to know me or know that she’s an aunt to two crazy kids ? I don’t know what crap her adoptive parents have put in her head about me. I want so much to approach her adoptive “father” and demand to know the truth.

What’s fucked up is that her entire childhood she grew up one street behind our father (out in the country, so actually a good 5 miles apart). Her adoptive father owns a local HVAC business and I know where it is.

What should I do next ? As far as I can tell, I cannot find a Facebook or number. The only address I can find is that people search one, which may not even be her. I don’t want to just roll up unannounced. My only option is to approach her adoptive father and I am admittedly extremely terrified. I’m 100% positive he’s followed me over the years (my various social medias) and hates me, as I’m clearly pro LGBTQ+ and an atheist. Everything he stands against, as a Orange clown voting douche canoe (LOL). Anyway…

I’m lost. He could either be all “I’ve been waiting for this, here’s her info” or a big old FU “you’ll never meet her” and the anxiety is killing me because I fear I will absolutely curse him out and make a major scene, if he denies me.

Do I have any right to try and establish contact ? I don’t want to push anything on her but judging by the past he’s going to be a major roadblock – he always has been. I don’t know how to approach this.

A response (and I really like the humor in this one) – If she’s 31, you have the exact same legal right to meet her, as you do any other legal adult. She may choose to ignore you – due to the influence, manipulation or other coercion by her adoptive family. My unethical life pro tip (I have used this successfully, though never in an adoption scenario) is to approach dad*. Your name is <most common girl name of your generation, region> and you went to high school with Sister. You’ve just moved back to this area and you remember her as so kind and she taught you about Jesus and you’re looking to reconnect. Could he please pass on your phone number to her? *If he knows what you look like, or you don’t look like you could have gone to high school with her, have a friend do this instead.

Another suggestion was this – I would send her a letter, but if she still lives with her adoptive parents and they know your name, then I would actually put a different name on the return address. It may even be a good idea to use a different return address. if possible. One where the adoptive parents wouldn’t be able to search it and see you or your parents name connected to it. Maybe even get a PO box.

In your letter, explain the situation exactly as you remember it, making sure that she knows that you only found out about her years after the adoption took place. Let her know that you’ve always had a desire to meet and know her. Just be honest and share your feelings. Let her know that you’ll respect whatever she decides but that you fear her adoptive parents have been making the decisions regarding allowing contact with you. However, maybe that’s not the case. Maybe it’s actually been her decision all along. Let her know, you’ll respect her wishes but you just wanted to reach out to make sure that neither of you were missing out on a much wanted relationship.

And of course, do a DNA test !! It certainly helped me in my own family genetic roots discovery journey.