I grew up not knowing my father. Not because I was adopted and moved half way around the world, but rather because my mother and father divorced (age 2 months) and that was that. I asked a few times, but my requests were brushed off. I think I was too accepting as a child. I've seen one photo. My father died when I was 21.
My story makes me sensitive to Oliver's story. I know what it's like to question. This is what makes me consider doing a birth parent search for him. Just to have a photo of the person you look like, or a photo of you as an itty bitty. To be able to know something about your medical history. Since Russia is a popular country among us adopters this search process seems to be well set up and seems to run pretty smoothly.
My questions are...
-Did you search for your child's parents/family members? Why? Why Not?
-Was the information you received worth it? Are you happy you searched?
-Who did you use? I've read lots about Mary...
-Anything else you want to add would be great!
Feel free to email me if you don't want to share in a blog comment. trisha.tylick@gmail.com
Thanks!
I know our situation is slightly different as our was a domestic adoption here in the UK but I think you should find out as much as poss Trisha. We have quite a bit of info for Gracie when she get older....and although its not horrible news it is still a heartbreakingly sad story. But I believe it will be of a huge importance to her when she is older. Good Luck. Dx
ReplyDeleteWe just completed our birth search and I'm so thankful that we did. The information is all there for Marina in the future if it is something she wants to know. It is very sad but it's her birth family and I'm glad we invested in the search. We got pictures, video and a full report.
ReplyDeleteThe main reason I wanted to do this was to get any family medical information that I could, along with general info on her birth parents that Marina may want in the future. We used Igor and went in with three other families from the same region to help share his travel costs. I would say our ROI was outstanding.
One tip - if you are going to do the search do it soon. The searcher will use the contact information in your court documents and the chances are far greater the birth mother(family) may still be in the general vicinity of the information in the documents if you search soon after your adoption is finalized (we waited about a year).
Contact me if you would like more information on him.
We were one of the families who went in with Wendi on the search. I would highly, highly recommend Igor. He is kind, efficient, thorough. He is Russian, lives in Russia and will travel. We literally risked his life to find information for us. We were given 20 plus pictures, which included even some baby pictures of our little guy, a 1 hour video of the interviews that he did. It is priceless, but it was a good price, compared to what I have seen.
ReplyDeleteWe chose to do a search because as we thought ahead to those teen years of figuring out who you are and where you came from, we wanted to have some answers...and to take some of the mystique out of "Russia".
Feel free to email me if you have any questions: Katemgarcia@yahoo.com