I just re-read my blog about Chapter 8 of ‘Beyond the Red Door’, and thought it might be useful to write about how hard it is to take the first step and contact a birth parent. More importantly, people outside of adoption may not understand why it is so difficult. And I invite your comments as well. This is just off the top of my head.

It takes a lot of courage to make that decision, the decision to search. What makes it a hard choice initially is society’s inherent attitude towards adoptees, that they should be grateful for being adopted. How could they possibly want more than what they had – loving parents who chose to take them on?

It’s not something I was ever openly told over and over, but it cropped up either as a direct comment, or as an implied one. It was enough to stop me from expressing my real feelings to my adoptive parents, even though they were not the instigators of these comments. I was lucky, then, that they were the ones to bring up the notion to find my roots when I turned eighteen.

But even with their blessing, their support and my need to discover who I was, reaching out to my birth parents was frightening. What if I was rejected again? Was I really not good enough? And what “right” did I have to “intrude” into their lives?

These words, “right” and “intrude” certainly plagued my life, tripping me up all the way along the search and reunion track. Again, I think the belief that I didn’t have the right to contact my natural family, that I mustn’t intrude and cause them any hurt, came from covert and overt messages all around me. It makes building and maintaining relationships in adoption very difficult.

I suppose it didn’t help that in both initial meetings with my birth parents, I got the “not interested” and “don’t believe we’re related” messages. If someone had asked me “what’s the worst thing that could happen?” when setting out to make contact, I think I would have given these answers. Not a good way to start a relationship, if given the choice, which I wasn’t by my natural mother.

Another barrier to making contact is the fear of an aggressive response by the natural parent about being “found”. And here I am reminded of the laws that unfairly prevent adoptees from discovering their true identities, that it is somehow the product of a “warped or crazed mind” to want to find our families of origin. Just as I am appalled that Aboriginal people weren’t granted citizenship in Australia until 1967, I shake my head in disbelief at the lack of human rights to people affected by adoption. But spare a thought for sperm donor children whose records don’t even exist, and who encounter the abrupt “no contact” response if they are lucky enough to have identifying information.

The reasons I’ve listed here relate to my experience. There are many more reasons why adoptees find it hard to make that first contact with a natural parent. I’d love to hear your own experiences, and I’m not forgetting the other parties to adoption either. Feel free to make your comments.

I said you’d need tissues for Chapter 7, and you’ll need them for Chapter 8 as well!

Get used to me saying that this was the hardest chapter to write, because I think the further I get into my story, the harder it was to write about things that happened to me.

So in this chapter, I take the big plunge and contact my natural father through a mediation agency. Straightforward? No, quite the opposite. Again with the tangle of emotions that I was carrying, together with a lack of understanding of the complex issues for all parties in the adoption triangle, I stumble into a reunion that just about knocks me out. I’d been blind (excuse the pun) to any signs that my natural father doubted our relationship, so when he threw me this curved ball, I wasn’t ready for it.

Months go by with very little communication, letters that go unanswered, questions hanging. Finally, the DNA tests are done, and our relationship is proven. In all this, my adoptive parents stood by me, as solid as rocks.

Does it get easier then, yu ask? No, it doesn’t. And you’ll have to read the chapter to find out what happens.

Well, this is one of the most emotional chapters. It’s where adoption and its tangled web finally surface.

The chapter starts with my parents revealing the names of my natural parents to me on my 18th birthday. I am shocked by who my natural father is, because he’s well-known for one thing, and because I’ve always been fascinated by him, following him through the media, wanting to know all about him and the family. But he’s out of reach, and I have to stuff down my feelings yet again.

During my search and reunion with my natural mother, I discover a multitude of issues related to adoption that I’d never considered, and I’m exposed to a myriad of emotions and feelings. It was a reunion I’ll never forget, because it didn’t go the way I’d expected. It is the one and only reunion I would have with my natural mother.

The secrecy behind adoption crops up again and again, causing me so much hurt and pain.

After the painful meeting with my natural mother and a long period of struggling with my feelings, I decide to search for my natural father, because I’ll go crazy if I don’t fill in the whole picture.

You might need tissues to read this chapter.