What if your birth parents had raised you? I hear other adoptees talking about how their lives might have been if they were not adopted and raised by their birth family. Yes, if you have a normal and loving birth family, I can see one having the thought. The reality is if the child was not placed up for adoption, this would have an impact on the events of the birth family. Changing the smallest event in time can changed the whole outcome.

As a child I wanted a brother so desperately that I continued to beg my parents to adopt a boy. Much later I learned that I had an older half brother and an older half sister that my birth mother raised. Could she have raised my sister and me? Probably so but I would not have had the life of a stable, loving family. My brother was hit by a car and killed before he reached his teens. My sister endured ongoing abuse by a family member that has left her deeply scared. Could my birth mother have taken a different road in life if she had not given us up for adoption? It is possible but could the stress of two more children put her in a worse place? Yes, I would have loved to know my brother but not live his life. I believe that when one decides adoption is the best choice for their children, then there are circumstances that led to this decision. Yes, in time the circumstances can change, but in the beginning they were still there. We can all have regrets about adoption but it is what it is.

I am writing about this because I have had contact with adoptees who seem to be consumed about how things would have been if they were raised by their birth parents. Getting caught up with what could have been is not allowing the adoptee to live a full life or even have a healthy relationship with the birth family. Living in the now can bring so much more to one’s life and the relationships with birth families.

I would imagine that most adoptees have thought of how their lives would have been if their birth families raised them and the thought itself is normal. The problem arises when the thought consumes the adoptee.


“They wanted me anyway” written by an adoptee at adoption.com.



“Nothing wrong with moving on” written by an adoptee at adoption.com.