Top 5 Reasons Adoptees Search for Birth Family Members

You’ve heard the saying a million times. “You don’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been.” Maybe not in this context, but it’s certainly applicable in adoption, maybe even more so than in other situations. And it’s true. You need a fundamental understanding about the context of the basis for any journey, and life is the ultimate form of that. Many adoptees that don’t know where they come from can feel lost on their journey of life.

Every time you go to the doctor, you get the same question. “What’s your family health history?” It can be a difficult and personal question for an adoptee. I have grown tired of answering, “I don’t know, I’m adopted.” It would be nice to be able to have a straight answer to this question so that the doctor can make an informed decision about your health, and it becomes even more important when you have kids.

I have heard adoptees say things like, “I just can’t relate to my parents,” or “I wish I felt closer to my brother.” There sometimes seems to be a bond that’s missing, and it’s one that could perhaps be filled by finding a biological parent or sibling. It’s true, there may be disappointment in the end, but you could also hit the jackpot.

Some adoptees have described feeling out of place in their families, lacking a sense of belonging. They can’t quite place a finger on it, but there is some type of void, an emptiness that they feel inside. They hope that a successful search for a birth family member could help fill that void and make them feel whole.