In my home state the records are always sealed. However, during the time period when my adoption was finalized, the state clerical workers were on strike, which meant that no one redacted my biological mother’s maiden name from the records like they ordinarily would do. This one thing made all the difference in my…

If you aren’t sure you’re ready to handle it, don’t do it. There’s nothing whatsoever wrong with that, I didn’t look until I was thirty seven years old. I firmly believe that if you’re going to do it you must steel yourself and prepare for any eventuality, especially negatives. You have to go into it with a degree of…

For many years I felt exactly the same way. I HATED it when someone would ask me about finding my “real” parents, it was beyond insulting. Although I began to feel differently later, it’s your choice as an adoptee and no one else has any right to ever suggest otherwise. These are our lives, not game show fodder.

YOU are his or her “real” mom. Period. My advice is that if your child ever asks you really ought to advise them to think it through and wait until they are old enough to grasp what they’re doing before attempting it. My parents were always 100% honest with me and they always told me it’d be OK if I really wanted to…

Another weird tale: while talking to the counselor who helped me out with my search, she told me about a son who reunited with his mother. They came in to visit with her and they were, uh, very “affectionate” toward one another in a most uncomfortable and peculiar way. Lots of hair stroking, kissing, touching and etc.…

During my sleuthing, I discovered that my bio-father was actually married to another woman when he impregnated bio-mom. She was unaware of this and to this day I haven’t brought it up, nor will I.

Me too. After I found my biological mother I tried to offer others my advice and tried to point out that these are real people who made a difficult decision many years ago and you have to respect that and not go into it with any kind of agenda or wish-fulfillment fantasy. And I was widely ignored.

Another weird and unexpected consequence I never saw coming: when I began my search I was active on a few forums devoted to the topic. After I successfully found my biological mother, I assumed these people would offer congrats or whatever, but the opposite happened. Instead there was a lot of resentment, like “oh,…

I had been conversing with someone online who found her biological mother online and, against all advice, basically ambushed her one day, exactly like you just said. “Hi, I am your daughter!”. It turned out that this woman (the mother) had a husband and seven other children who knew nothing about it at all. It was a…

Believe it or not I have known of people who tried to do exactly that. And it didn’t end well, either.

Thanks. I did it “hands-on” too, almost completely by myself, no private investigator or anything. In my case, I was looking for information and I hoped that maybe it’d lead to more, although I went into it prepared for any eventuality. Some people, though, are looking for something else, perhaps validation,…

Generally speaking, adopted people looking for their biological parents are 90% female. I was one of the exceptions, but again, in general men have less interest in it than women do.

I never felt that resentment either, especially after hearing my (and her) story. Typical of the mid-1960s...teen gets pregnant, ultra-religious family, she gets shipped off to the nunnery, gives birth and comes home like nothing ever happened. Unfortunately some folks cannot wrap their head around that as they have…

When I tracked down my biological mother, it was very important to me that her privacy was respected. I had an intermediary reach out first in order to see how receptive she was to the idea before I went forward. Unfortunately, though, some people won’t think like that and they just show up one day, completely…

It’s something you have to be fully prepared for either way. I have heard nightmarish stories, I’ve heard success stories and everything else in between.

I was adopted, I located my birth mother myself and all things considered it went pretty well. That said, it’s not a game and if you were adopted and considering a search you had better be prepared for the consequences which are not always “awwwww”-worthy. I became friendly with a few counselors and searchers during…