Locating an adopted child’s birth mother – uplifting but unpredictable

Today, adoptive parents who desire to locate and possibly keep in touch with their internationally adopted children’s biological mothers have a chance to do so. Adoptive parents can hire a “searcher” in the country from which their child was adopted to attempt locating the birth mother. Deciding whether or not to initiate the search is not easy. While there are a multitude of heartwarming stories, there are also others, where alcoholism was rampant in the family or where the birth mother abused the child.

Another factor that adoptive parents must take into consideration before attempting the search is the possibility of birth mother asking them for financial support or to adopt another child. In one case, an adoptive mother, Mary, was able to locate an Ethiopian birth mother, who was ill with AIDS. The birth mother asked Mary to adopt her teenage daughter, Temame. Although Mary was living on a school teacher’s salary and was not planning on adopting more children, she told the birth mother that she would be honored to do so.

Once adoptive parents make a decision to search, the searcher develops a strategy with minimal risk for the birth mother. In some countries, such as Russia, there were cases where women were beaten and thrown out of the house after their family members found out about the adoption.

Birth mothers are overwhelmed with emotion when they learn about their children’s whereabouts. This is what a Guatemalan birth mother told an adoptive mother over the telephone through an interpreter: “When I saw the pictures…I started to cry. I could see that he was very loved. And it really filled my heart with happiness.”

See Maggie Jones, Looking for Their Children’s Birth Mothers, NYTimes.com, Oct. 28, 2007.