So my adoptive mother (70F) adopted me (21F) and my brother (19M) as a single person as has never been in a relationship to my knowledge. However she has started referring to my adoptive family as "my side of the family" when talking about her sister (my aunty) what is all that about? I recently cut her off for kicking me out at 8 months pregnant and making me homeless. I have a history of her inflicting emotional and physical abuse from the moment I was adopted. I finally had the courage to start letting other family members know what had been happening and they have all been very supportive towards me. I recently allowed her to meet my child after 5 months of no contact and now she's "embarrassed" that family members are congratulating her on finally meeting her 'grandchild'? To this I say why be embarrassed when you caused all this with your unkindness ways towards me.

I'm just really hurt that she's now referring to the only family l've ever know as her "side of the family" I feel even more rejected every time we interact

I (14F) am a triplet, me, my sister and brother were all adopted about 40 days after our birth. Our bio mom was only 20 years old when she had us, she was addicted to drugs and abused alcohol. She had been kicked out of her parents house at 16 and had been living with her aunt until she started using and ran away. She eventually got pregnant with us. Me and my siblings were adopted by an amazing couple. My adoptive parents never made me or my siblings feel like we had to be grateful for our adoption, they recognized our trauma and never made us feel like we had to be happy with our situation. My adoptive dad helped put my bio mom in rehab but only three months after she got out she ghosted us and never made an effort to communicate with us again until now. Just a week ago our parents got a message that she wanted to see us. My brother couldn’t care less about our bio mom and doesn’t want to see her; my sister has always wanted to reconnect with our birth mother and have us all be a happy family. I don’t know what boat I fall into, it would be really nice to get to know her but I already have trust and abandonment issues and I don’t want to be let down. My parents have left the decision up to us but I don’t know what to. Any advice from adoptees who might have been in my situation or have some experience with something like this would be greatly appreciated.

Good day to all,

I'm looking for guidance/recommendations in which steps to take for helping my wife, and mother in law, find their biological family.

For a little background: MIL was adopted as a young child, possibly even removed from her home. She only knows that she was born in Chicago in 1970.

Via dna testing, they've managed to find that a big bulk of their DNA comes from Eastern Europe, localized between Southern Poland and Eastern Slovakia. This led me to suggest looking at Eastern European migration into the Chicago area history and learned about some neighborhoods were the majority of Polish & Slovaks relocated.

Any recommendations on which steps to take to possibly find some records, or surnames, or anything that'll help them get one step closer? I've read that you could request birth records through the county, but haven't looked into it any further. I'm invested as we have two daughters, and this is part of their story, too.

Thanks ahead, and blessings on your journey.

I am trying to decide if I want to adopt or to be childless. I worked for DFCS. This experience hurt me and changed my life. I know every child's experiences are different. I wanted to know if you plan to adopt, don't know right now, or want to remain child free. This could be married or not. Young or older. I just want to know from your experiences alone. Thanks. If you have any personal questions please dm me.

Hi everyone,

I would really appreciate some insight/advice/wisdom on my situation. I’ll try to keep this as brief as possible.

I had my daughter when I was 15 and was forced by my parents to place her for adoption shortly after she was born. To say I was devastated would be a complete understatement. To make matters worse, I discovered very quickly that her adoptive parents didn’t intend to provide updates.

I’m 31 now and I am not married and I don’t have any other children.

Last year, my daughter found me on Instagram. I was shocked and unbelievably happy! We began to speak via Instagram and had steady conversations for awhile. During this time her adoptive mother also added me on Facebook.

After a few months of this I noticed that my daughter was taking longer to respond and eventually stopped talking to me.

Since then, I stopped messaging her as often because I felt that might be what she wanted but was afraid to ask me for it directly… But I can’t shake the feeling that maybe I should keep trying to talk to her even if it takes a couple months for her to respond…?

Don’t get me wrong, I am SO completely grateful to have any type of contact with my daughter. I definitely do not want this to come off as me complaining, because that is absolutely not the case. I just really am at a loss as to what I should do next.

As said in the title, my mom was adopted as an infant, closed adoption. She was adopted into a cruel family and has struggled with her relationships and substance abuse to cope all her life. She grew up, married my dad, had kids, and abandoned us all when I was still quite young. I haven’t heard from her or her adopted family for the better part of 2 decades, except for a friend request here and there. I struggle deeply with feelings of betrayal and abandonment that also seeps into my relationships, similar to my mother. I’m estranged from my paternal family too as I didn’t have a good childhood. I also put a lot of effort into being a cycle-breaker and healing familial trauma that was passed down, and my interest in genealogy is related to that for me.

She’s been looking for her birth family all her life. I recently took a DNA test and decided I would find them once and for all, and I have managed to identify who I believe is her mother after some effort. My mother has also taken a DNA test (she’s in my matches) and is presumably actively looking as well, though she hasn’t appeared to have made any (public) progress.

I’m sitting on this information about her birth mother and brothers, unsure if it’s appropriate for me to be the one to reach out knowing she’s looking for them. I don’t necessarily want to be the one to reach out to my mother, who abandoned my brothers and I, and hasn’t had much to say for herself. It’s not a revenge thing, I just don’t know if I want to talk to her directly because she has betrayed me so deeply. I am also hurt that she has spent her whole life looking for her real family, while simultaneously abandoning her own biological children and wanting absolutely nothing to do with us. But I’m also quite sympathetic towards her in spite of my pain and I know this is important to her. She was probably motivated by her own feelings of unworthiness and the feeling of being an unfit mother, more so than hatred for her kids, though it doesn’t make much of a difference in the end since she wasn’t there either way.

Anyway, I don’t know if it would be selfish to be the one to reach out to her mother/my grandmother when I am not the person who was put up for adoption, and it should really be about their relationship with each other. I was initially planning to reach out, get confirmation, and if so I could send my mother my research and leave her to do with it what she wants. But thinking about it from the perspective of a birth mother and child, I’m not sure if that would be the most empathetic approach.

As adoptees, what do you think? Would it be wrong for me to reach out first?

ok sorry if im wording this weirdly lmk if u need me to elaborate on anythings here. i became interested in this topic after reading stories of people with adoption trauma and i believe at its core it mostly stems from systematic reasons. there are many ethical concerns about the foster care system and outside forces feed into these problems. for example since abortion straight up isnt an option for so many people it leads to more kids being put in the foster care system which in turn leads to more kids being put into shitty homes. id like to ask if you had like.unlimited power or whatever what would you do to change the system and the circumstances around it to make sure as few kids as possible get put into it and for the kids that r in it what would you change to make it as untraumatic as possible? if u believe it isnt possible to make adoption ethical or the issues arent just systemic please explain your reasoning

36F was adopted and raised by a poor family in the Philippines. I was forced into child labor since I was 5 yo, working in the family store. By 14, I was already working more than 8hrs a day on top of house chores, school, and taking care of another child they adopted. I was also constantly verbally and physically abused that I ended up getting a fractured spine after I was hit by a hammer on the head when I was 15, which became a nest for tuberculosis bacteria because it was not treated properly. I was paralyzed at 19 yo and did therapy for 2 years with the help of governement assistance programs. At 21, started working in customer service and later on became a manager in the course of 15 years. I'm doing well financially but since I'm single, I find it a struggle to get my own place. However, I feel like if I don't move out soon, I'm gonna end up committing suicide because of stress from work + stress in the house, especially after my adoptive brother got psychosis last year and started invading my privacy (he wants to go into my room because I have AC and also kept wanting to use the bathroom in my room because I have water heater). Note that I have been paying the bills at home for my grandmother and adoptive brother (electricity, internet, food) and was also the one who sent my adoptive sister to college and my adoptive brother to grade/highschool. Adoptive sister is already 30 yo and married but adoptive brother (27 yo) is single and living in the house.

IATA if I move out and cut ties with this family?

Where do I begin to search for my friend’s adopted son’s foster family? We have an email address and I’ve paid for reverse email searches but get no results.

My husband and his siblings were all born in the 90s in Arkansas. He is the eldest. When he was about 2-3 his biological mother attempted to give him up for adoption through a private agency. Her mother (my husband’s grandmother) and her husband intervened and adopted him. She had two more children and decided to do the same thing only she relinquished them to the state. They were subsequently adopted by people in Texas. We would really like to find them as they are all adults now and we would like to have a relationship with them. How can we go about tracking them down?

If you saw it, and are an adoptee too, I’m sorry.

If you’re the OP of the post about writing a letter to trauma dump on your biological child, after closing an open adoption, I think you need a fuckload of therapy before you do that. You are being incredibly narcissistic. You did have a choice, but your child doesn’t. You are condemning them to a lifetime of exile from their family.

You are not the only biological relative this child has. It’s a violation of our basic human rights to do this to us. And to act like this is worse for you is delusional. You literally gave someone a lifetime of identity crises, of loneliness and developmental trauma. You need help.

Forget what I said to you, I was wrong. You do not love your child. Save your letter and your “truth” until after you get some help. It’s completely self serving. To be clear, you are essentially considering using the child you abandoned as an emotional support animal. That was the whole point of your dumb letter. Their adoptive parents are probably doing the same thing, exploiting the child to make themselves feel good. I feel awful for the child YOU created and abandoned.

I was adopted at 9 months old, and while I have been fortunate enough to connect with my birth siblings and relatives on my mother’s side, I know very little about my father’s side of the family. The only information I have is that my father’s side is where my mixed heritage originates. I am eager to learn more about whether I have any siblings or other relatives from my father’s side, but unfortunately, no one in my family seems to have any knowledge of who he is.

I have four birth siblings, all of whom share the same mother but have different fathers. My sister reached out to our birth mother in hopes of uncovering more information about our father, but she doesn’t have any details to provide. Although I’ve never met my birth mother and don’t plan to in the future, I am still deeply interested in discovering more about my paternal lineage.

I’ve also taken an Ancestry DNA test, but the results haven’t been very helpful thus far. The closest match I’ve been able to find on my father’s side is a sixth cousin, which hasn’t provided much direction. Given these challenges, I would appreciate any guidance or suggestions on how I might go about learning more about my father’s side of the family when I have so little information to work with.

Backstory: My mom had four children, including myself. My brother and I stayed with our grandparents and fathers, but our two younger half-siblings were put into the adoption system. Our mother has struggled with abuse and legal issues throughout her life.

Present: Recently, I took a DNA test hoping to connect with my half-siblings. Through this, I discovered a younger half-sister I never knew existed. Our mother used a fake ID when she gave birth to her and left the hospital, so we had no idea she was even born. Her adopted family also had no knowledge of her true identity because my mother was never caught for this.

When I reached out, her adopted grandfather replied. My half-sister is only 10 years old, and the name I saw in the DNA results was a pseudonym. Her grandfather mentioned that she knows she's adopted, is optimistic about it, and is eager to learn more about her background. She's particularly interested in our shared Peruvian heritage, which comes from our biological grandmother. I’m excited to eventually share the many Peruvian traditions we have with her.

Out of respect for her age and their wishes, her adoptive family isn’t ready to introduce us just yet. They’ve asked me to create a scrapbook with photos and information to share with her when she’s 16 and able to better understand everything. I’ve already provided them with details about our biological mother, father, and our other siblings, which they were grateful to finally learn.

She was adopted at birth, and I feel reassured knowing that she’s in a safe and loving environment. It’s also comforting to know that one day, if she wants to, she can reach out to us. For a long time, I carried guilt for not being in the adoption system like my other siblings, so finding her and connecting has been meaningful for me as well.

Request: I'm currently working on a digital scrapbook of our family and a family tree that she can look at when she's older. If anyone has advice on what kinds of things they would have wanted to see or hear when reconnecting with family, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

The poster yesterday grew up with their blood siblings. So did I, and I have a lot of other blood relatives who have been in and out of my life, like if I wanted to see blood family once a week I could.

Anyone else? Or is this weird / rare??

Hi all!

My mom’s parents conceived a child before her, and put him up for adoption. I have always wondered if he is out there and has children that would be my cousins. My parents have complicated home lives. They both only have half siblings, so this uncle that is out there is my only full blood uncle.

It gets even more complicated in that my maternal grandfather is not a good guy. He has been to jail multiple times for various offenses and I’ve actually never met him because my mom went no contact with him when I was very young.

While I have always wanted to find my moms brother, she is afraid that the nature will be stronger the nurture and her brother will be a very bad person. Should I get DNA and look for him still? Would you want your extended family to be looking for you?

TLDR; My mom has a brother she does not want to look for. Is it okay if I still do?

Hi, my dad was adopted and had never contacted his birth parents or knew who they were. Unfortunately, my dad passed away almost 2 years ago and so while I don't want to intrude on the family that gave him up for adoption as it isn't my place to do so, I want children in the future and am becoming concerned about the risk of inherited genetic diseases. Would a doctor test me for these or would I just have to take the chance?

Hey all! So, I’ve been looking all over the internet to see how others feel about this, but in my case, I haven’t seen these specific questions being asked or answered. I truly mean no disrespect to anyone here, I am also an adoptee (found out at 14, stumbled roughly into my early 30’s now). So here goes: I was raised in a home where my adoptive mom always fostered children of almost all ages for the first 18 years of my life. I have always wanted to foster. My husband has always been in agreement with me on this, and I personally feel like this is what I need to do, being that I know what this feels like and I know there just aren’t enough good homes out there to truly help a child in foster care or adoption. HOWEVER, I have this huge need to have a bio child of my own. And I know my complicated feelings on this, but it basically comes down to wanting to know I actually share DNA with someone, someone who could potentially look like me as I never had that growing up. I could go on but I don’t wanna ramble too much! But I want to know, if any other adoptees have done this? I have seen a lot more recently that us adoptees see it as adding more trauma to a child that grows up along side another child who’s actually related to A-parents. I haven’t seen discussions like that until the last few months, so I’m sorry if this sounds ignorant. I want to be able to have bio kids AND foster, but it’s not for the same reasons as non-adoptees, so I don’t know if it’s still morally wrong or not. I wouldn’t keep things secret from them, as that’s been the worst part of my journey and I know what that does to a person. I already know, having been through it myself, what resources are out there for help, what behaviors or triggers to look out for and so on. I sincerely appreciate any perspective on this! I have no one else to ask as, this is a fairly specific thing.

For background I placed my son for adoption almost 18 years ago. He turns 18 in a few months. We reunited three months ago. I won't go into details but it was an unexpected reunion. He seemed very receptive to me upon meeting. Since then it's been very slow with communication. My question to any reunited adoptees, how do I navigate this relationship. Right now I just text him and ask questions. He generally always responds to my questions but doesn't ask me anything. I'd like to meet again in person so we can really talk and have a full conversation. For context our first reunion we didn't get to talk much so we haven't sat down and have a conversation yet. I'll be near his city soon and would like to ask him to meet up. Any advice would be much appreciated.

UPDATE: Thank you everyone for sharing your experiences with me. It was extremely helpful in my understanding of what my son may be going through. I reached out and let him know my availability to meet up. Unfortunately he didn't respond. That's ok and now that I've heard your stories I'm not hurt and I understand. One day we'll meet up again. Best wishes to all of you in your relationships.

I dated an adopted woman for 3 years. She came when a baby from Korean, raised in a White, loving home. She walked out on me last October.. as she walled out she actually said “I thought things were going well”… I couldn’t believe it. She came back a month later and we spoke about things. She focused a lot of what i had ‘done’ to her in the previous 2 years. It was like she was self traumatizing. But, she said she loved me. I made some simple, reasonable changes for her that she was right about. BUT, I kept on thinking in the back of my head that this was really about HER. She and her family said that all she wanted was a real commitment (marriage) from me. I was totally willing and loved her but was taking a bit more time. We looked at rings this Spring. I asked her to marry me a month ago, she was sad happy, he parents, etc. We got into a fight 4 days later based upon something she had done. I woke up to her being gone stating that I don’t respect her. I can’t even believe it. What 48 year old woman would blow up a largely positive, stable, loving life union? It makes NO sense to me. I’m devastated. Any insights?

Hello, adoptive mom of 3 here 👋🏼. I have a question for adoptees who were conceived out of rape. How/when were you told, and do you wish you hadn’t been told? My oldest (6yrs old) was conceived by rape and we aren’t sure how to approach giving our child that information as he gets older? So far he doesn’t have questions about his birth father but we know it’s a matter of time. His birth mother doesn’t necessarily want him to know but none of us want to lie to him. He’s a very sensitive and empathetic child and we worry about how he’d take that sort of news (when he’s old enough to understand).

I would like to start with saying thank you in advance for any thoughts/feedback/experiences/etc. shared in the comments.

I am not directly involved in adoption, but I am a mental health counselor who works with a large variety of adolescent clients, many of whom live with adoptive families or family members other than their biological parents. I have been very appreciative over the last several weeks to be able to hear adoptee voices on the more “ugly” parts of adoption that society generally seems to downplay or ignore. I am currently also seeking training and other resources to help me more competently work with my clients who are adoptees.

My question today is for any adopted person who has gone to therapy at any point in their lives, what was something your therapist did or said that you felt was actually helpful to you, specifically regarding adoption-related trauma and/or issues?

(I’ve heard several perspectives and stories from adoptees speaking on their experiences in therapy that were negative, and of course if you are comfortable sharing a negative therapy experience you are welcome to.)

Thank you in advance for any experiences shared!!

I have one son. I don’t want to have another kid of my own, pregnancy and pp has been too rough on me mentally. But I want my son to have a sibling. I’ve thought about adoption for years, even before I met my fiancé, because I was never sure about having my own kids. Do you feel like the relationship you have/had with your siblings were normal? If you were adopted at a young age, older? Do you still talk after you moved away? Did the relationship change after you found out you were adopted? Do you feel like a true sibling even into adulthood? Edit- I don’t want to adopt so my son can have a sibling. I want him to have a sibling, but not as the result of adoption. I made this post because I’ve always considered adoption, as it’s something people around me did and were passionate about. But I was curious of the dynamic between adoptive and biological children and how it was for them growing up and growing old

Edit #2- it’s hard to know what you don’t know you’re supposed to know. Many people in the comments have brought up that media portrays a lie about what adoption is really like. And that’s exactly what this is. I wanted to know more about the dynamics of adoptees, I didn’t want to bring in a child into a situation where’d they’d be worse off. I know now that’s exactly what I’d be doing, and have definitely dropped the idea. I wouldn’t have been ready to introduce a new person into my family for another at minimum 5 years, which is why I’m trying to learn now. I have more heavily considered fostering, and giving some kids a safe place to be for awhile until they hopefully eventually return home, since reading the comments. My goal with this post was not to seem selfish. I had no idea what you guys went through, and these questions I asked, which as simple as I thought they were, went a lot deeper, and has opened up a whole knew view for me on the adoption and foster system. I knew it was fucked up, but I never know how bad. And I’ll never know to the full extent, but I’m really trying to educate myself so I can do better and know better

My (19M) adoptive dad (32M) has been very loving so far, and I appreciate that considering I've only known him for a little over a year now. I say "adoptive" in the title bc legally it never happened but that's what he always tells people, and that how we live. Son and Dad. And usually things are fine, we have a very talkative relationship, we text to let eachother know when we're leaving or coming home from work, when we're headed to the store, just convenient stuff like that so we know what's up with the other. But recently, as of 4ish months ago, he's been like... gone. For anywhere from 16 all the way up to 37 hours at a time. Which is a lot because even with 2 separate jobs (one for weekdays and contracting for his buddy on weekends) the max was always MAYBE 11 hours. And during this time he won't respond to texts, answer calls, nothing. And it scares me because he's had a past with drugs and alcohol, along with "lady hopping" so to speak, which would also be bad because he has a gf right now. I'm worried he's maybe going elsewhere to do potentially bad things and not responding because I made it clear I can't respect someone who does drugs when they have kids (he has 2 bio kids, twins, both very young) and he's like... running off to do so? So I wanted to ask other adoptees if it's because I'm in a "unique" situation being adopted so late in life and such or if you guys think it's my reason maybe? Idk, I have an anxiety disorder so I overthink a lot, but I feel like things are adding up too well in his actions and stuff. Let me know your thoughts, thank you for listening.

Im someone that's trying to help one of my cousins connect with his kids that were adopted. His rights were Terminated due to neglect act that result in one of his children being injured. His other two children are with another family and he's found them and wants to reach out but he doesn't know if he should or not. I mind you this guy had completely changed. He graduated, is almost done receiving his first college degree, found God again, hasn't been in any trouble he was suppse to be on parole for 3 years he got off in 11 months and has now been off parole for 13 months no police contact at all. He's held down two jobs consistently since may of 22 . He cared for his grandma for the last 7 months of of her life as well. This guy is a good man that made a mistake when he was younger. Any advice

This space exists for people to ask any question to adopted people. It may feel frustrating to see commonly asked questions being asked here, but I think it’s important to remember that not everyone who is asking a question here is coming from r/adoption or an environment where they are exposed to adopted people’s experiences often, if at all. (Plus, upvoting posts here helps the community grow.)

Last week my parents dropped big news on me. To give context, my fiancé and I are having a Japan trip later this year and I needed to renew my passport. I had gotten a letter requesting court documents about my name change, as I was born with my mother’s maiden name as my last name, which was later changed to my dad’s last name when I was around 9-10.

I never thought that was weird, nor did anyone ever mention to me that it was weird, so I just assumed that’s how it was. I asked my parents if they had the documents and they did, and when I asked to have it so I may send it in, they sat me down and guess they finally decided to tell me. My mom had gotten pregnant with me while in college, but it was with a different man than my father. She basically cheated on my dad while they were dating, but when it came to my birth my dad unconditionally chose to be with my mom and raise me.

I been trying to learn a bit about everything, and what I do know is that I’m not upset at all with my mom, and I love and will always see my dad as my father no matter what. However I don’t know how to feel right now. Part of me doesn’t want to know about who my biological dad is, as I’m 30 and I have lived a happy and fulfilling life so far, so I don’t see a need to know. The other part wants to know who the man is. Do I have step siblings? Do they look like me? I’m not sure if I’m wrong in wanting to know. My mother is the main talker, as my dad is technologically inept, so I can only talk to her, but she’s been too uncomfortable to talk about it (she cries every time, they feel horribly guilty for never telling me, I don’t blame them), so I don’t push for answers.

I just don’t know where to go from here.

It is our priority to center the voices of adopted people on this subreddit. Because of this, it is extremely important to set your flair to self-identify so people are able to recognize that the people answering their questions are adoptees themselves.

If you are unable to set your flair, please comment your position in the adoption constellation on this thread and the mod team will set your flair for you.