By Leanna Wiens
Every adoptee is going to have their own journey when it comes to connecting with their birth parents. I have always felt this craving to know my birth parents. This is a search that many adoptees want to embark on even if their adoptive parents are loving and caring. I realize that a lot of adoptive parents’ fear that their adoptive child would reunite with their birth family and run away to stay with them, never coming back to their adoptive parents. This is not something that I would ever want or even think of doing. I’ve been very fortunate to have the support of my adoptive parents in the searching and reunification of my birth family. Talking about adoption and birth family is a great time for an adoptive parent to build a connection and trusting relationship with their child. Opening up about my feelings and questions to my adoptive parents was hard to do but gave opportunities to process these emotions with my adoptive parents.
When I was little, I would sit on the couch and look at my baby pictures in a little photo album that my adoptive parents kept. Inside that album was a picture of my adoptive parents standing next to my birth mom and birth dad. I knew that both parties had agreed upon my adoption. I don’t know whose idea it was to take this picture, but it definitely has made my anxiety surrounding being adopted a lot easier. It is when I look at this picture that I know and remember that I am valued. I am valued because my adoptive parents wanted to take me in to their home. I am valued because my birth parents were brave enough to choose my adoptive parents and give me a better future than they thought they would be able to at the time.
It seems as if most often, a pregnant teenager is the birth mom and remains in the picture and the birth father is not in the picture. In my case, it’s the opposite. After 19 years of wondering and praying about where my birth parents were and if I’d ever come in contact with them, I got a message from my birth dad’s wife saying that they have been looking for someone and they thought it might be me. Finally, I knew that my birth dad had been thinking and wondering about me just as often as I thought about him. He and his wife have come to visit me and my adoptive parents twice now, and we keep in touch. After I met my birth dad, he said he had done the DNA test, 23&Me, and asked if I’d like to do it too. So, I did. Through 23 & Me, I found out character and physical traits that had gotten passed down to me from my birth dad. I also made connections with my birth mom’s family, but not her. I still wonder and have questions about my birth mom. I still haven’t received full closure, but have made peace with who I am. I have discovered MY truth, not just the story that was told to me from my adoptive parents’ perspective. Their story is true, but it is not filled with the same emotions as my birth dad’s story. For adoptive parents, receiving that call saying a baby needs a home is a call that stirs up excitement and for my parents hope that they will be able to be parents; for my birth parents, that call was one that brought loss and separation from their child.
>
“Post-adoption contact has reassured and helped my birth family accept my adoption. Knowing that I was in a safe, loving home with two caring parents was a relief for my birth dad. Establishing a relationship with him as well as my birth mom’s side of the family has made me feel more supported and loved than ever. I am at peace with my story, and trust that God will use it for good.”