Adoption Reunions

Adoption Reunions:
A Book For Adoptees, Birth Parents and Adoptive Families

by Michelle McColm

Second Story Press, 1993

Reviewed by Connie Martin

About The Author:

Michelle McColm was an adoptee in 1959 in Canada; she has been a volunteer in the search process since 1987 and employed in the Adoption Disclosure Dept. of Ontario’s Children’s Aid Society (CAS) since 1990. The book includes not only her personal experiences and encounters but in-depth personal interviews with many adoptees, adoptive parents, birth parents and social workers.

About The Book:

It is a sensitive, compassionate, extremely comprehensive guide for all of us involved in the reunion process.

Part One contains whole chapters on the birth mother’s experience, the adoptive parents’ experience and growing up as an adopted child. Numerous individual experiences are cited from the personal interviews. This provides insight from a variety of circumstances and, thus, broadens the scope of readers who would gain from this book.

Part Two is really the “meat” of the book. It covers the process of the reunion: the search, prereunion jitters, the reunion, and post-reunion. The discussion of each of these elements of the process is broken into sections; each section provides separate insight and assistance for each member of the triad—the adoptee, the adoptive parents, and the birth parents—with practical suggestions for coping with each of these stages.

Part Three, In Support of Reunion, discusses available avenues for support and education plus recommendations for change and healing.

Personal Comments:

I am a birth mother who was joyously but unexpectedly reunited with her 31-yr-old son earlier this year as a result of his search efforts. Like countless others, although my child was never forgotten and the questions always tucked away in the back of my mind, the traumas surrounding the birth experience had been totally suppressed. This was my way of coping with the pain. Not having discussed the experience, nor having allowed myself to entertain the possibility of a search, I was ignorant to the breakthroughs made for the adoptees and birth parents, making reunions more possible. Thus, when my son, Jeff, contacted me, I was at a loss as to where to start for help and understanding of the abundant, overwhelming emotions that were flooding over me ...... I immediately headed for the bookstore, found Adoption Reunions and, shortly thereafter, sent Jeff a copy too!

Adoption Reunions gave us SO many answers:

I gained tremendous insight to what I might expect as the relationship progressed—expect from Jeff, from myself, and from others involved, i.e. siblings;
I found assurance that all of the emotions I was experiencing—overwhelming joy shadowed temporarily by guilt, pain, confusion, doubt—were not out of the ordinary!
And, although painful, it gave me an understanding of Jeff’s life as an adoptee.
Jeff gained a deeper understanding of “what it was like then” for his birth mother;
It gave him an awarenessof what either of us might expect to experience now; and, unexpectedly,
It gave him much insight to his adoptive parents and their emotions, thus helping him provide the reassurance they needed.

In summary, I believe the gains from this book contributed greatly to the successful, happy reunion between Jeff and I and an everlasting bonding of two spirits through compassion and love.