How would you feel if you found out that:

As an infant or small child that you were stolen from your first mother’s arms by an unscrupulous person who then profited from having you adopted?

Your adopted parents sensed something “fishy” during the adoption process, but ignored it anyway?

Your birth mother desperately wanted to raise you, but received no support for any option but adoption?

Originally your adoption plan including contact with your birth family that was abruptly closed with no reason given to your birth mother?

Hours after birth, social workers were in the hospital shoving papers into your mother’s face and urging her to do “the right thing”?

Your birth father wanted to raise you, but declared his intentions one day too late because he had no knowledge of the putative father registry in a state?

The adoption agency that your adoptive parents used had the reputation of getting babies quickly, but did so via coercive means?

Your adoptive parents were at your birth and waiting to take you home, and that this made your mother feel pressured and afraid to disappoint them, when in reality she wanted to change her mind?

Your birth mother was told that your loss would barely affect her and that she was blindsided by the intensity of your loss?

Your reaction to any of these possible scenarios would be affected by your evaluation of the life you might have had if your birth mother had raised you. If adoption was truly necessary, and ultimately provided you with a much superior life, you might feel differently than if your life had not gone well. However, no matter how great a life you had, finding out that your adoption had so many ethical breaches in it might be difficult for you to handle.

Maybe you feel that the end result – a happy life for you – justifies the way your adoption was handled. If you did not have a happy life, that is another story. You might also feel betrayed, lied to and hurt if your adoptive parent condoned bad adoption practices. Or, you might feel anger at the system if you discover that your birth mother was treated badly. There are many possibilites as to how an adoption is handled might affect an adoptee.


Further Reading:

It was all a lie

Damaging Words, Secret Information and Severed Ties


Photo by Jan Baker 2007