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How To Find Your Adopted Child

By Dana on Feb 07, 2008 in Birth Family Search with 358 Comments

How To Find Adopted Child

Find Your Adopted Child

Here is additional information on how to find your adopted child. This post complements our previous article: Find Adoptee | Search By Date Of Birth Of Child, which we strongly suggest you read first.

Your adopted child’s date of birth, along with just a bit more information about the adoption and the adopting parents may be all you need to find your adopted child.

Our OmniTrace researchers have a lot of experience working with birth mothers attempting to find their adopted child. We understand how much stress you were under during your pregnancy up until your child was adopted. There is, of course, a lot you may not recall. So, you should make every attempt to interview anyone who knew you during that time period.

Of course we understand that anyone who had knowledge of the adoption may now be deceased, or perhaps no one you know has anything helpful to provide you. But, just in case, attempt to speak with:

Your parents–if they helped you facilitate the adoption.
Other members of your family– if they have any knowledge (e.g.: aunt, uncle).
Friends of your parents to see if they were told anything–they may recall some small morsel about the adoption and your adopted child that might assist you.
Former neighbors of your parents during the time of your pregnancy– to see if they were told anything. There is a chance that your parents shared some information about the adoption with them. Make sure that you bring some pictures of yourself taken around the time of your pregnancy. These may jar memories.
Your family physician and/or birth physician during the time of your pregnancy–if the family physician and/or birth physician is still alive, they may recall something about the adopting parents and/or circumstances surrounding the adoption.
Your family attorney during the time of your pregnancy– if an attorney handled the adoption, contact him/her for information. If the attorney is deceased, he may have left his records with a partner or a family member that took over his practice.

Okay, so hopefully you have found someone to speak with who has information about the adoption. Make sure you review and have all the facts at hand that you have developed to date. Try to conduct your interview in person; you may obtain more details this way than by phone or letter. There may be many small bits and pieces of information that they might have that they don’t realize are important. Write a list of everything that you want to cover. At the very minimum, you’ll want to ask:

What can you tell me about the adopting family?
Where were the adopting parents residing when the baby was born?
Do you recall the adopting parents names?
What were the ages the adoption parents?
Do you know if the adopting parents had any other children (adopted or natural)?
What was the educational background of the adopting parents?
What was the religion of the adopting parents?
When did the adopting parents pick up the baby?
Do you know if the adopting parents paid any of my medical bills?
Did you ever see the adopting parents? If yes, can you describe them?
Can you recall any information about the birth physician?
Can you recall any information about the adoption agency?
Can you recall any information about the adoption attorney?
Do you recall the names of any social workers?
Was my child placed in foster care?
When was the adoption of my child finalized?
Did we receive a legal notice of adoption by mail or in a legal newspaper?
Was my birth child named at birth?
Do you recall what name the adopting parents gave to my birth child?
Did the adopting family ever try to make contact with me? Did they send any letters, photos, or mementos to my parents that were withheld from me?

Your interview may go in many directions. You may be told something that surprises you, and you may forget to ask everything that you had planned. So, be sure to cover all the questions that you have on your list. And, write everything down!

Shortly, we are going to post articles on: (1) contacting the adoption agency (2) contacting the birth hospital and (3) we’ll address some secret methods that professional search companies like OmniTrace use to find an adopted child when you have reached a dead end and all seems hopeless.

Please post a comment if you have any questions.

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