Journeys After Adoption Understanding Lifelong Issues

Introduction
A Look at Issues and Their Impact
Secrecy in Adoption and the High Cost It Required
Lifelong Psychological Presence: Can Family Members Really Be Invisible?
Focus on the Adopted Person
Growing Up in Closed Adoption
A Walk into the Wilderness: Learning of Your Adoption As an Adult
Focus on the Birthparent
Birthmothers and Birthfathers--The Lifelong Journey Begins: Discovery, Disclosure, Decisions
Birthmothers and Birthfathers--The Journey Continues: The Lifelong Impact of Relinquishment in Closed Adoption
Focus on Understanding Adoptive Parents in Search and Reunion
Communicating the Decision to Search to Your Adoptive Parents
The Process of the Search
Making the Decision: To Search or Not to Search
Preparing Emotionally for and Initiating the Search
Patchwork Siblings: Adoptees in Postreunion Relationships
Synchronicity in Reunion
Dealing with Special Issues within the Search
When the Pieces Don't Fit: Finding Dead Ends Dead Ends
Revisiting an Old Wound: Encountering Denial or Rejection
Facing a History of Abuse or Neglect
Searching in Midlife: What Are the Implications?
Postreunion Relationships: Now What? New Beginnings
Changing Times Policy, Etc.
Appendix 1:Growing Up in Open Adoption: An Essay of Life Experience by Sara VanderHaagen
Appendix 2: Growing Up in Transracial Adoption: An Essay of Life Experience by Ai Loan Nguyen
Appendix 3: Search and Reunion Etiquette: The Guide Miss Manners Never Wrote by Monica Byrne
Appendix 4: Making Contact After the Search by Curry Wolfe
Appendix 5: Resources and Recommended Readings
Selected Bibliography