From the article: Kara's Adoption Reunion Story
Anything can happen once an adoption search is completed. It could lead to a dead end or to a happy adoption reunion. It's sometimes difficult to fathom, but it could also lead to a birth parent refusing contact or even a lawsuit. When the latter happens, many find the situation sad and feel sorry for all involved. What advice would you give the adoptee who is more than likely feeling out of place and lost after refused contact by a birth parent? Due to closed adoption records, this person is still without basic answers. What are the next steps for an adoptee who is refused contact by biological family? Share Feelings & Ideas
Also adopted
- I know the feeling about being shunned. I got a copy of a Penna. adoption letter that was available for about a year before they closed the option. I waited 20 years till my adopted parents both past away before attemping contact with birth mother. My first contact with my mother's family was at a nightclub, where the DJ was a cousin of mine. He really didn't see the importance of my discovery. He pointed me to his brothers sitting at a table, who quickly told me 'not to ask for anything.' I left it alone for several years, and here is my advice to anyone looking for their past or current relations. Find happiness with doing ancestry research. No.. you won't know all of your current 'living relatives', but you may piece together a history of yourself through research, as i am attempting to do. If you get lucky, you may find a relative who will feel in the gaps, as the 23 year old young lady has through her uncle. Young lady, work around the negative relations.
- —pghjack
Adoptee
- I don't know what I would do in a manner like that cause I am also so adopted, but I know if I was rejected from my birth parents that I would just let it rest cause your hurting your self grieving over someone that doesn't even care forget about it and go on with your life with your parents that raised you they are your real parents cause they have been there with you through all the years and sickness also. I know where you are coming from I am about to learn the experience of the birth parents cause I am looking also..I will be alright let GOD handle the situation and it will get better.
- —Guest Tammy Helton
Let it be
- I'm on the other side of this, as I noted in another article here. I've been found by birth siblings, I do not wish to be in contact with them, and they've tried to press a relationship I do not want. The only insight I can give is that if a birth parent or sibling does not want contact with you, remember they are NOT rejecting YOU as a person. They don't know you. If your birth family does not want contact with you, there's only one thing to do: let it be. Move on. You haven't lost anything because your expectations for reunion or additional family members were not met. Send your b-family one more communication, if you wish. Ask again for medical records, and leave them an email where they can get in touch if they wish to do so in the future. And then let it be. Persisting in trying to make contact, or force your biological relatives into a relationship they don't want, it will not convince them to change their minds.
- —Guest Zoe
Bless with a new friend and maybe a sis!
- Dear Zen411 Your post almost sounds like my situation but reversed. However the ages don't add up. I thought I just wanted them (my biological dad)to know that I exist and get medical information. Then I was denied until his only daughter found me again and wanted to help me in my search for answers. We are now doing a DNA test together because she wants to know if she has a sister that she never knew. Her mother died when she was three and she too has been searching for her siblings from her mother's side for 29 years. If it ends up unrelated, we have become friends.
- —Guest GUEST501
I feel a bit angry
- I was just involved in a reunion that I thought was just for medical purposes. While I feel who is not my half sister, is very nice, I wish I would have had some preparation for what I am going through now. No one in my family knew about her. She was adopted over 45 years ago and has a lovely adoptive family. She posted searches to local message boards looking for my father. She finally found him and called him. For what I thought would be minimal contact for health reasons, is now a full court press into my father's life. Guess what, I am the oldest and only girl now for over 40 years. No one asked me or contemplated how I would feel or the rest of my family. I will probably take it the hardest since I am closest to him. I can't really say much I guess but I do feel a bit angry that my life changed without my consent. He is my only parent. She now has two sets of parents and somehow I have to wonder why she wasn't satisfied with her life as it was in her adoptive family.
- —Guest zen411
