I’m one of those surprises. I was adopted at birth. I always wanted to search for my biological parents. California is a closed records state, so I felt it would be an impossible task. I contacted a search service, they wanted a lot of money.
Enter the internet and consumer based DNA testing. I decided, for personal reasons, I needed to do this to resolve some of my issues.
Both of my parents had told there subsequent children there was a sibling out there, although my mother’s memory was clouded by the trauma and the drugs used on the women giving birth in maternity homes. Both sides have accepted me, I’ve met both of my parents and my half siblings.
It’s important to remember that the women who gave up their babies back then were shamed and not given any options for raising their child. In my own situation, my father wanted to marry, my grandmother would not allow it. She put my mother in a maternity home and it was made clear she was to sign away her rights. My father said he explored avenues to try and keep me, but unmarried fathers back then had no rights. A good resource is the book The Girls Who Went Away. It’s women telling their own stories, and how being forced into adoption jacked up their lives.
DNA testing has let the genie out of the bottle, there is no way back. It’s possible today, if you gave up a child, and your family has been in this country for at least 100 years, if that child, now an adult, wants to find you, they can. It’s best to tell your spouse and children yourself. If you’re a man, and unless you were a virgin when you married and never ever cheated, it’s possible that you may have a child out there.
I know a lot of reunions don’t work out. Mine is shaky. For many adoptees the prospect of rejection is terrifying. It cuts to the core. It’s the reason many adoptees don’t search. Those of us who do just want to be acknowledged. We don’t want any inheritance, we just want our family history, medical issues, how we came about, and to hear the sound of your voice.
I didn’t mean to write such a screed, but it all needed to be said
My relative went through a lot emotionally with searching, looking for info before the DNA testing gave her info on relatives with a match. Her bio mom tried to find her first child, but ran into the situation where it would cost a lot of money to continue searching & she didn’t have it. It turns out the bio father wanted nothing to do with the baby when he found out about the pregnancy - the pregnant young woman moved back home, but the “shame” involved back then with being unmarried landed her in a home for unwed mothers. The bio dad’s family was located via DNA, too. It turns out he is deceased which, from the info available about him from relatives, might be a blessing in disguise.
As I said before, this reunion has been a happy one and has brought a lot of peace to bio mom and daughter - the holes in both of their lives are now full of many things - forgiveness, love, relief & mysteries solved. The resemblance between the two of them is striking - you’d be fairly certain they were mother/daughter just by looking at a picture.