Navigating grief, curiosity and heartbreak when searching for a birth parent

Adoption, donor conception, out-of-home care, an absent parent — these are all reasons why someone might not know their birth parent.

But beyond the reason, the decision to search for a missing birth parent or family member is often difficult.   

Ask forty-year-old counsellor from Sydney Kimberley Lee if she would like to find her birth mother and she will admit that until recently the answer was almost always 'no'.

"I used to be like, 'Everything is good. I don't know this person, why would I?'" she says.

Kimberley was born in Busan, Korea but was relinquished at birth and adopted at four months old by a Sydney couple.

Kimberley Lee's adoption photo, taken in 1983 by the Korean adoption agency, Eastern Child Welfare Society.(Supplied)

"'I have a really beautiful family so why would I want to meet this person who abandoned me and clearly didn't want me,' is the narrative I carried for a long time," she says.

"[Adoptees] wonder about all the different possible lives we could have had and there's a lot of grief around that."

Dr Michelle Blanchard is the CEO of Vanish in Victoria, a not-for-profit organisation that offers support and assistance to people affected by adoption, out-of-home care and donor conception.

She says reuniting with family is often romanticised but in reality it can be emotionally challenging and overwhelming.

"Regardless of whether a person has had a positive upbringing, they may still have questions around who they are and where they came from."

This leads many people to turn to counsellors like Kimberley, who works with adoptees like herself and organisations such as Vanish, for support.

Kimberley was adopted as a baby by a Caucasian mother and a Chinese father. (Supplied)

A complex journey

When we are introduced to Austin, a 20-something-year-old played by Michael Theo in ABC iview's latest comedy drama, he successfully tracks down the father he never knew.

Once they meet, their attempt at building a relationship soon turns rocky.

"Families and relationships are difficult and complex and so they often take work to build those relationships over time," says Dr Blanchard.

In the case of reuniting with family as an adult, that complexity is heightened.

Dr Michelle Blanchard says reuniting with family is often emotionally challenging and overwhelming.(By Rebecca Taylor)

"There are some examples where a natural mother responds very quickly to an approach from their adult child saying I've been waiting for this call for a very long time," Dr Blanchard says.

"In other cases, it completely takes them by surprise, so there are a range of reactions and responses in those circumstances."

This can also include what's commonly referred to as the honeymoon period following a reunion.

"For a little while it can feel that there is this close and warm connection," says Dr Blanchard.

But like most honeymoon periods, it almost always ends and the hard work begins in earnest.

Fear of the unknown

Kimberley has very little information about her birth mother.

"My birth mother was not married to my birth father and during that time in Korea — I'm 40, so it was 1983 — it wasn't socially acceptable and a lot of single, unwed mothers were told they had no other options and you had to give the child up for adoption," she says.

Flown to Australia as a baby alongside another young Korean adoptee, waiting at the airport were Kimberley's new parents.

"I was adopted by a Caucasian mother and a Chinese father so that's a very different experience to a lot of intercountry adoptees — I grew up with a whole Asian side to my family, a Chinese side.

"I also have a younger sister and younger brother, both biological to my adopted parents.

"That's had quite a profound experience when compared to other intercountry adoptees who grew up with two white parents in perhaps a small country town where maybe they were the only Asian face in the whole community …"

For Kimberley, when it comes to the question of whether to search for her mother, she will often tell herself just because you can, doesn't mean you have to.

"For me it's a journey around agency and remembering that I have agency and that as babies we had no say about what happened to us," she says

Kimberley (left), with her younger sister in Sydney.(Supplied)

But despite feelings of hesitation, Kimberley has taken a tentative first step.

"I've done four DNA tests with different companies, but I haven't ticked the box to match me with any genetic matches yet," she says.

"When the first DNA test arrived, it sat on my desk for three months – I couldn't bring myself to open the box.

"Once I open that can of worms, it can quickly take up a lot of time and energy, so I want to make sure I've got room for it.

"The documents say [my mother] was 21, so she would be 61 now. It's possible that she's alive."

Decided to search for your birth parents? What next?

• Talk to a counsellor or psychologist about your interest in finding your birth parents
• Get in touch with Family Relationships Online, a government initiative providing services and recourses to assist in a range of family issues
• Speak with family and friends about your thoughts on finding your birth parents 

Leap of faith

According to Dr Blanchard, even after making the decision to begin searching for your birth family, obstacles can make it difficult.

"Sometimes we find that the person they are searching for has passed away [or] that person doesn't want to connect and has decided not to build that relationship with their relative and unfortunately some of the early records aren't particularly accurate," she says.

"People gave birth under a different name or have changed their name and in the case of natural fathers, there might not be a lot of information available on the person's record.

Kimberley plans to return to Korea to continue her search for her birth mother. (Supplied)

"People often describe their experience as disenfranchised grief and it's that grief where others in the community don't necessarily understand what you're grieving, or perhaps feel that your response or experience with grief isn't as valid as other forms of loss."

For Kimberley, there were fears around how the emotional heaviness of searching for her birth parents would impact her family.

"Cognitively I know my family would never reject me or abandon me, but it comes to that first early experience of being abandoned from the person who wasn't supposed to abandon me," she says.

"It's not catastrophising. I've experienced this and lived through this catastrophic event so it's a very real thing that could happen again."

Hope and uncertainty

After much deliberation, Kimberley's first steps towards finding her birth family are now underway.

She said at this point it feels like "anything is possible".

"I want to go back to Korea next year and when I go back I want to have progressed my search."

"There's so much ambiguity let alone thinking about our identity and potentially having all these biological family members out there, which I obviously do because I wasn't born in isolation. I must have uncles and uncles and cousins…"

"I'm getting closer to being ready to tick those boxes that will help me find my genetic matches."