In my previous blog about birthmother* searches, I suggested asking yourself some hard questions before you begin a search for your adopted child's birthmother. Once you have decided to execute a search, you need someone to do it for you unless you are doing it yourself.

My experience is limited to searching for a birthmother in Guatemala, but some of this advice is relevant for completing a birthmother search anywhere – in the US or outside US borders.

1. Do not choose the first birthmother searcher you hear about. Get the names of several searchers and research their credentials.

 2. Ask for references from people who completed searches with the birthmother searcher and call them.

3. Find out how many searches the birthmother searchers have completed and how successful they have been.

4. Compare prices. Some birthmother searchers are more expensive than others; sometimes there are hidden costs. For example, searchers may have you pay a small price up front, but “al a carte” pricing for every additional service they provide. Some searchers quote a much higher price initially that is all inclusive: transportation, telephone calls, transcripts of information, photos, etc.

We have found my adopted daughter’s birthmother in Guatemala. The searcher who took this upon herself has sent us photographs and updated information.

Three years and ten months ago I was getting acquainted with my soon to be adopted daughter in a hotel in Guatemala City. A new friend and fellow adoptive parent asked me if I’d ever want to meet my daughter’s birthmother. At that time, I clearly remember saying “no”; having an “involved” birthmother was not something I wanted.

No sooner had I brought Ella home from Guatemala and I found myself poring over the adoption documents learning whatever I could about the birthparents and trying to fill in the spaces between the lines. I wanted to meet the person who had given birth to this baby who was incredibly adorable and loveable, to share the important milestones with her, and thank her for the ultimate and painful sacrifice she had made. I decided that one day I would search for her even though she had requested no future contact. Perhaps she had changed her mind.

My gut instinct said “go ahead, do it.” 

It was the right decision

Other reasons I had a birthmother search done:

1. Listening to adoptees over the last four years convinced me of an adoptee’s need to have as much information about her birthparents as possible, and in some cases the opportunity to meet them as well.

2. Most birthmothers in Guatemala want to know that their child is alive, healthy, and loved. So many rumors about the welfare of adopted children circulate in Guatemala, the worst being that they are adopted for their body organs.

On Monday, I wrote about the pain of the adopted teenager telling his adoptive mother, “You’re not my real mom.” That got me thinking that adoptive mothers are not the only people who have to deal with this. What about birth mothers who are in open adoptions with their birth children? I can see them getting hit with even more painful words, such as, “You walked away,” or other such variety. That’s got to hurt even worse than being told that you are not the “real mom.”

I can see the open adoption scenario now. The adopted child has an argument with his adoptive parents. He walks out in anger and goes to see his birth mother, certain that she will “take his side.” The birth mother chooses to support the adoptive parents, and the adopted child lashes out in anger, “What do you know? You’re not my real mom, anyhow. What do you know about parenting a child, anyhow, since you gave me up?”

Whereas I can only think of one dagger for the adoptive parent (“You are not my real parent”), I can think of multiple daggers that an angry adopted child could throw at a birth mother. If the birth mother is already feeling regret or insecurity about her decision to place the child for adoption, those daggers could do some serious damage.

A reader, who is an adoptive mother, is upset because her adopted child’s birth mother calls herself “mama” and wants her birth child to call her “mama.” The adoptive family has an open adoption with the birth mother, and this is causing friction in the relationship. The adoptive mother wants to know how to handle this situation.

For an open adoption to work, you need lots of communication. Open adoptions are fairly new, so, unlike with other relationships, most adoptive families and birth mothers do not have other families modeling how an open adoption is going to work. If you don’t talk openly about how the open adoption is going to work, then you are setting your relationship up for all sorts of struggles. Since there is no “standard” by which the parties involved can pattern their relationship, it can be easy for each person involved to have a very different idea about each party's role in the relationship.

I suspect that the adoptive mother feels like the birth mother is overstepping by trying to get the child to call her “mama.” Meanwhile, the birth mother might have no idea that this is even an issue. It is possible that the birth mother does not know what the child should call her, and, since “Mommy” is already taken, she chose another name.