Adoptees and Reunion Secondary Rejection

Laura was adopted domestically as an infant. She has been in reunion with her biological mother since she was 19 years old, shortly after making an adoption plan for her eldest son. Her son, now 22 years old, was entrusted to a family in a semi-open infant adoption. They reunited when he was 16 years old and now have regular contact. Laura is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who has worked as a professional in adoption, as a medical social worker, and as a therapist in community mental health. She is parenting her 12-year-old and 1.5-year-old sons. Laura is actively involved in supporting open record laws in the state of Oregon.

Suzanne Bachner is a domestic adoptee and native New Yorker, adopted into a closed adoption through Louise Wise Services. Suzanne’s award-winning hit play, The Good Adoptee, (TheGoodAdoptee.com) about her search for her origins and first/birth parents in the face of NYS’s sealed records, has toured across the US and has been part of law and life-changing adoptee rights advocacy. The Good Adoptee is currently being produced as groundbreaking virtual theatre. As a once ambivalent and then completely obsessed searcher, Suzanne is passionate about empowering and supporting her fellow adoptees in their searches, stalls and decisions not to search.