In The Stranger Who Bore Me sixty adult adoptees discuss the difficulties they have encountered in a world where biological kinship governs. Each of their stories reveals the personal dilemma created by the societal demand for secrecy and the deep pain and intense joy associated with adoptees making contact with their birth mother. Karen March has created a compelling and informative analysis of this need of some adoptees. Little research has been done on the actual outcome of adoptee-birth parent reunion and most arguments in this controversial area are based on personal anecdotal reports. This book offers the first systematic study of the consequences of reunion. As such it is an invaluable guide for any member of an adoptive triad as well as for professionals and government officials in the field of adoption.