“Yes they are my parents but unlike those who haven't been adopted, I also have another set of parents. I know my adoptive parents love me and I love them, but I have a different connection with them than I would experience if I had been raised in my birth home. I still need to know who my birth parents are.”

“Part of me wished that my birth family could have been there too, but it would have been too hard for my parents, and I didn't want that day spoiled with strained feelings. In an ideal world, both my families would have come together.”

“I began to read everything I could find on adoption. It amazes me that, prior to starting therapy, I had never done it. I think it was my way of believing the myth that I was really OK. After all, I had two parents and I'd been told often enough how lucky I was, and how grateful I should be.”

“I wasn't crazy after all. I wasn't the only one who experienced fear about loss and guilt towards their adoptive parents. I was relieved that it seemed very common. Adoption is an emotional subject and the problems don't end with reunion. In some ways, reunion is just the beginning of the road.”

“I strongly believe that to heal from the adoption wound we all have to grieve our losses individually and then together. I don't regret finding my birth family, however hard it was. It has given me a sense of self that I didn't have before.”

“I left their house that night feeling very different from when I arrived. I was exhausted and relieved, yet more importantly, I felt more grounded, as if I was finally stepping into my own body. It felt good. At last I had done it. The secret was out and I knew then that how my parents chose to deal with this information was up to them. I simply couldn't carry it all any longer. I had to stop protecting their feelings. They were, after all, grown-ups. It was time for me to heal my sadness and anger, to stop being a victim of this situation, to move on with my life.”

“I watched my brother and sister interact with their grandparents and their mother. I could see the shared connection that comes only with years of being a family, years of history with one another, and waves of sadness crashed over me. I would never have that connection with them; those years were truly gone. As Pat had missed watching me grow, I had missed seeing my siblings grow, and I still felt like an outsider. Paradoxically, reunion helped in many ways to fill the void, but in other ways it made the void bigger than ever.”