What would you do? (First moms and adult adoptees) ?

Just get whatever information you can. You don't have to do that through her or the agency. You can do this on your own, keeping it available for your son. That way, whether the mother becomes more involved later or not, at least your son will have access. (Of course, if records reopen in his state, he'll have access to full names anyway.)

I've known adopted people who went through years of information gathering, only to find out at the end of it all that their adoptive parents had easy access to information and did nothing. They were less than thrilled.

By having the information available, you give your son that which everyone is entitled to have -- the truth of his own origins. This is what it's about. His first mother may have trust issues or whatever else that are making her feel uncomfortable at this point. But, that should never stand in the way of your son ultimately having his own truth.

I would also ask the first mother again about opening things up more, and explain that it is in the best interest of your and her son. She doesn't have to have contact, but she should understand that it would be best that she is more forthcoming with information for his sake.

Don't do anything that will draw legal attention to the fact that you "know more". That will likely only cause headache in the future. However, there are tons of resources on the internet these days. It would do no harm to start keeping a file of publicly available information. After all, YOU aren't the one who made the mistake, and you can't exactly forget what you saw.

My brother's actually came from a fully closed adoption, but we know the name of their biological mother because the foster parents took a picture of one of my brothers at the hospital. You can clearly read the bio-moms name on the card in the bassinet. I've never used it for anything, but still.. it's not like these slip ups are exactly rare.

Once or twice a year, you can re-run online searches and add anything you find to the folder. In the new age of MySpace and Facebook and LiveJournal etc it's amazing what you can find out. Just keep notes of all of this in case your son ever wants to look. Try not to leave tracks though. If she doesn't want you looking, you could scare her off if she finds out. She'll be more careful to hide her tracks then and could even get a legal restraining order against you and your son.

Good luck!

I think you should keep all the information you have or find out and give it to your child when they are an adult. Then they can do what they want with it.

For the record: I don't agree with open adoption but I agree with open records. My position is that every adoptee should be able to know who his or her biological family is when they are an ADULT. I am against having that knowledge in childhood. I am against visiting the biological family because I believe it is disruptive to the child's development.

Be VERY careful when contacting the father or learning more about he or his family. Was the father's paternal rights terminated? I HOPE so, if not he has legal recourse to get his biological son back. If his rights were terminated, there have still be instances in law that the legal system has given a child back to the biological families YEARS LATER because they changed there mind, as this happened with a friend of mine at age 4.

I would be careful about learning all this information about the father etc. Some times things are left resting. If you do decide to do this and go this route just check about the legal recourse should the father decide he wants the child again.

I would just hate for you to begin a bond with your little boy and have some thing stupid happen as happened with my friend.

I am also adopted and am trying to adopt a child myself right now (going through approval process currently) so I know a lot about what Im mentioning in here.

Since the adoption is somewhat open, the mother should be able to provide you with information and provide medical data for you. I cant understand why you would want more than that. I find it a little odd, and again, Im adopted.

Good luck though!

I would keep the info you have for your child, but not hunt for more. I would respect their wishes, and let them decide if they want to share more.

We know the name and address for my daughter's mom at the time of birth, but she doesn't want contact (although we met at the hospital). I am very curious, but haven't pushed it. I will share the info with my daughter when she is older and let her try to contact her natural mother. I have also told her that we are willing to have a more open relationship if she changes her mind.

I definitely think you should unobtrusively collect as much information as possible.

The hard part of this will come later on: Do you share the information you have as your ason grows up...thereby risking a betrayal of the agreement you made with the bmom? Do you sit on the information and hope for the "right moment" to show it to your ason...and risk making him feel betrayed and lied to?

Ignore Suzy. As a first mom I say find as much as you can. Gathering info isn't a violation of trust. As long as you aren't contacting people I doubt anyone would even find out. I think this should go both ways. Having someone's address isn't going to cause them a bit of harm. Knowing their dad's name isn't going to hurt anyone. Just tuck it all away in a file until your child asks for it.

I would find out as much as you can and preserve it for your son. Names and addresses of extended family as well. You'd probably be surprised about how much you can find on a person with their name.

Good luck.

Do all that you can under the radar. When your child asks, inform him of the delicate nature of the acquisition of that information.

Your son going to appreciate it so much one day.

It's not about betraying her trust, although I would suggest talking to her about it.

I don't know you, I don't know what your son will think, nor do I know his natural father.

So it's rather difficult to advise you here in an actual productive manner.

But I think it's important that you save everything you have - just in case he asks one day.