I have been through this twice now, and my experience says a big YES, at all costs.

I thought this might have attracted a bit of interest, as adoption was fairly common up to 20 or so years ago.
I'll mention one case I was involved in now.
My wife was forced, by her stepmother, to adopt out her first child. This was about 34 years ago. We've been married now nearly 17 years, and during the first few, she sometimes spoke of him, wondering how he was. When I told her to try and find him, she declined, out of fear in case he rejected her.
Well, 10 years ago, we got a phone call. The name given did not mean anything, but somehow I just KNEW. And while my wife was talking, I kept asking, "Your son ?", sher was too engrossed to answer, so I wrote the question, held it up, she nodded.
Two days later, he, and his fiancee, came up to Te Awamutu to meet us. They came out of the car very nervous, we came out of the house very nervous, but within minutes, everything just slotted together, and a lttle later, I told my wife that "Our family is complete now". They have gone to U.K. now, but we still have regular contact.
Now, to ANYONE who has either adopted out, or been adopted, I say "Find the other person." Even IF they say no, we don't want to meet you, you are no worse off.
But if on the other hand they say yes, we would like to meet, the HEALING, and I use that word deliberately, is absolutely fantastic. On BOTH sides.
This does NOT mean that you must give up the adoptive parents, or anyone else involved. It means that you GAIN a very important relationship. And everyone is a winner.

Chris, I so agree.
I was not adopted, nor did I give up a baby for adoption, but my father left our family when I was seven. For about a year he kept in contact with me, but then -- nothing. It wasn't until I was 34, a mother myself, that I searched him out again. I chose not to go into the past; his reasons for not contacting me were valid at the time. We spent a wonderful 16 years as adult friends until he died. I will always bless his second wife, who welcomed me kindly and made all this possible. We all want and need to belong to a family, no matter how imperfect.
I'm so glad your wife had a positive experience.
Sometimes I wish my dad had been there for me,in my growing-up years, but I'm just happy I found him before it was too late.

Hi kari. I haven't been back here for a while. Must admit I forgot about it. Oh well, that's life.
Now I said I have been through this twice, so here's the other one, again involving my wife.
Her mother died when my wife was only eleven, and her father, who was blind, had a number of house keeper, until he married again
Anyway, two years after her son found her, we got another phone call. A man at the other end asked her was she so and so, yes, was her father so and so, yes, Right, somebody here wants to talk to you.
A woman came on the phone, asked the same questions, and then said,
" I'm your half sister ! ". Talk about a bolt out of the blue !
It turned out her father had an affair with the first house keeper.
Anyway, they came around to meet us, and again, it was a time of healing, for both of them. Then, to cap it off, our youngest daughter asked, "What's with Easter, mum ". And we suddenly clicked about the similarities
1 Both babies were adopted out at birth.
2 In both cases, they traced us through the internet.
3 In both cases they contacted her brother in Auckland to find her.
4 In both cases they contacted us in the week before Easter.
5 And in both cases, my wife was knitting gloves
How uncanny is that. And get this. The following year, the phone goes, three days before Easter. Now, we know roughly, when our kids were likely to ring, and we didn't think it was one of them, so I told my wife "You'd better answer that "
Next thing, Chris, it's for you" Well, I KNOW I only have three kids myself. No two ways about that. And I'm pretty sure I know all my siblings.
So........, Well, I answered the phone. And to cut a long story short, there'd been hell of an argument in our family, some twenty years earlier, and my youngest brother disappeared out of sight. Totally. And you've guessed it. It was him, ringing from the U.K. And yes, my wife was knitting gloves again. He is still there, but we are all now in regular contact
So as you can imagine, Easter is a very special time for us.

my sister was forced by mum and dad to adopt out her first child, we lived in huntly in 1962 my sister was 17 years old. my mum and dad send her to palmerston north to have the baby ( girl ) and she was adopt out.she will be 47 this year, my sisters name is yvonne shepherd you hear how adopt kids get a bad time, i would be very sad if this went on in this girls life. i would like to met her and talk to her .she has been on my mind for 47 years, the time has come to met her.

I agree to parents adopting out children should be allowed to have the knowledge at least to know how the child is coping. I myself was a victim of both incess and been made to adopt this tiny bundle i carried for nine months to strangers. My guardian who at the time felt it was for the best, to give my son a good and secure life to some stranger, (which i feel was a crook of sh......t now!!), i feel i would have been an awesome mum. I am 54 years of age and have bought three beautiful chidren up and now raising my great great grand nephew. I did meet my son, but unfortunately he was a very, very, angry young man. You may ask, was it with me, his adopted family, his life he is still trying to find out.

Happy Halloween everyone.
Thanks for this topic. Chris21, you are wise, warm and kind. And Bonzai, I totally agree with you also. My biological parents only came together for the length of time required to make me and my sister. Over a period of time I tracked down my biological mother, sister, and father. And all of them rejected me again. Great stuff - rejected at birth, and again as an adult. I don't mind about my sister. Although we're close in age, we look similar and we have the same voice, we're aeons apart in other ways. And she was only a baby herself when I was born, and didn't know about me. I miss my lovely Dad the most. He must have been putting on a great act, because he seemed so warm to me. After I'd tracked him down, he turned up on my doorstep one day, out of the blue. Like most adoptees, I can't get very close to people, but I hugged him without thinking. Maybe it disturbed him, as he didn't stay in touch. I tried to keep in contact with him, but it seemed so one-sided; and I was worried that it was a chore and a burden for him to phone me or write to me. My biological mother can be a bit nasty, so I'm not so sorry about her - although blood is thicker than water, and I wish they'd both stayed in touch.

Ki ora Nawson, thankyou for your feedback, im sori you had it rough with the reunion of your bio whanau. As a mother, i assure you, if you were my baby i would have taken you into my arms and never let you go. You maybe saying to yourself now? (then why did you give up your son), well... what i did not tell you, my son was, a victim or rape i was only 14yrs of age. In the 60s and 70s it was unforgivable to be single and pregnant, and i would nt have been able to afford to raise him on my own so i had no option but to adopt. Although my sister at the time would have taken him if she was not pregnant herself. I hope one day you'll be blessed with the love of your bio whanau.

bonzai, definitely different times back in the 50s-70s. Most of what goes no now, went on in earlier times, when the dark and nasty parts of society were also the unmentionable parts; and 'blame and punish the victim' mentality often prevailed.

A family member adopted out her first child as she was only 15 and was agreeable to open adoption. This lovely young man wanted to meet me and his aunty when he was 18. I found it healing to finally meet him because I had been on my own myself when he was born and could not have given him basic needs or a secure future which is why he was adopted out.he wanted to know a bit of family history. It was a delight to meet him after all these years. I leave it to him to make further contact if he wishes. I hope all adoptive parents consider the maternal grandparents like his did.

The son of our neighbour was adopted and one day, out of the blue, he told his mum that he was going to try to find his birth mother.

Our neighbour put on a brave face but felt heart-broken and feared she would lose him.

Her son was successful in finding his birth mother. She was 14 when she had him so when they met up it was almost like a brother and older sister situation.

He came home and told his mum all about `Cathy'. Cathy this, Cathy that, Cathy was the bees knees!

Finally he arranged to take his birth mother home to meet everyone. This was the moment our neighbour had dreaded. That was until her son said "Mum, I want you to meet Cathy. Cathy, this is my mum, Trish".

He'd met his birth mother and they still keep in touch, but he still lives at home with his mum.

A good friend of mine came to me one day and broke down in tears. Her 70 year old mum had been acting a bit `off' in recent weeks and she feared something was wrong.

This particular day she'd gone down to pick up her dad to take him to the doctors only to discover her mum was dressed up to go out. Her mum thrust an envelope into my friends hands and said she had to go out.

My friend was terrified that the envelope held bad news and couldn't bring herself to open it. She stuffed it in her pocket and took her dad to the doctors, then afterwards she came around to my place and broke down.

It was so out of character for my friend's mum to act this way that I too, began to think that the letter contained news of a terminal illness or something.

In the end I went home with my friend and we told the father about the envelope. He opened the letter to discover that his wife of 50 years had a baby out of wedlock before they met and after all those years her child (a son) had tried to make contact.

The mother felt ashamed and couldn't face her husband and daughter with her news so she wrote it in a letter.

Eventually, after a few days, the son (and his wife and family) was invited to their home. Thankfully, everything went well and everyone are still on good terms.

My friend was the funniest though. When her new brother met her he said `So you're my little sister'. She said `Yes, but I don't know if I should like you or not because you've just taken half my inheritance away!'