Case Studies and Examples of Adoption Tracing in Thailand

We put some case studies onto our Facebook page after clearing them with the adoptive families, at facebook.com/Thailand.Adoption.Tracing

Adoption tracing is often a very private and personal matter, for the biological parents, the adoptee, and the adoptive parents, so I don't want to go into case stories in too much detail which could identify people, but I can cover some general issues here based on our experiences in over 100 adoption tracing cases over 18 years as of the time of this writing.

I know people like to read stories and hope to find another story which is just like their own, and media outlets like to tell stories, but there is such a wide variety of outcomes of adoption tracing cases that I think it is better to understand various experiences in tracing -- partial stories -- and how they might apply to your own situation, so that I can try to cover most peoples' potential future stories. This includes some parts of case studies.

If the information on the birth certificate very clearly identifies a biological parent, then normally we can find this person. Engaging each parent in the most positive way is usually the main challenge, for the best longterm outcome, not just finding them, then going forward in a simplistic way.

There are two other sections of this website which are strongly relevant: understanding the biological parents and their needs, and our process of approaching biological parents in our "step 3". (As noted in the latter link, our step 1 for free is looking at your documents, and our step 2 is searching for records on, and researching, the biological parents before we try to visit them in step 3.)

When we are able to engage face to face in person by our method as discussed in our step-by-step method of step 3 referenced above, we have a very high percentage of successes, which is quite different from what we have read about and heard elsewhere by various other approaches, statistically. Sometimes another approach is successful, too, of course, but future cases are journeys into the unknown, so we follow what we have learned are "best practices" and try to provide some guidance, both by this website and also, if you wish, you may engage our help for your particular case.

The following is general experience over a wide variety of cases.

In many cases, the identity of the biological parents is clear, with a full name, 13-digit ID number and/or birth date, and/or address, which can ensure we have the right person by a particular name, since there are often many people by the same name. Sometimes we've gotten only a name.

Sometimes the information in the documents of the adopted person is not clear, especially if the mother departed the hospital without completing the paperwork, such as when a mother arrives in labor, or with a freshly born baby, and shortly thereafter the mother abandons the baby at the hospital and escapes. The mother or an accompanying acquaintance might have given a name, but the name might have been recorded in error, or be incomplete, or even be fictitious. Other information might be missing. There may be an address on the birth certificate where the mother or an accompanying party verbally stated she was living. There might be no name or address given, and all we have is the hospital information. The mother might not even be a Thai citizen.

In many cases, the baby was found abandoned somewhere, such as in a market, or near a doorway which is commonly used, or beside a road, or somewhere else with no trace of the parents.

Sometimes, the child was left with a babysitter in a community but the mother never returned, and information on the mother is unclear, but at least somebody knew her, can describe her, and tell what they knew about her such as the province where she came from, her apparent work routine, and where she said she was living before.

I would like to cover our experiences in many situations generally, below.

First of all, we have found many biological parents when the government did not. Sometimes records come up in the name of the person as listed on the birth certificate, which matches age or some other parameter. Sometimes we get a good match for a name spelled slightly different, the equivalent of Cheryl vs. Sheryl as a first name, or Jenson vs. Jensen as a surname, but Thai names. Sometimes we must consider multiple people by the same full name who could possibly be the biological parent. We have a process for that ... whereby we are usually able to determine which one is the biological parent and get it right the first time, but occasionally we must visit more than one person.

Sometimes we get information about a listed address, which might physically exist or might not. Sometimes the address can be a little off but we can find out more by talking with people in the community.

Whether it be an address or the identity of a person being traced, you should consider that when a government officer turns up at a location asking for somebody in response to a baby being abandoned at a hospital, many people may be fearful of going to jail and/or paying a big fine, and just pretend to know nothing and stonewall. We have a much different approach, as discussed in our section on that, our step 3 on process.

In many cases, we have found abundant information, and engaged with biological parents, when government officers had previously turned up very little or nothing, an enormous difference.

We've had cases where there was no name and no address, only a baby abandoned at a hospital or clinic. For these cases, it is best to visit the hospital or clinic as soon as we can. For one thing, staff and witnesses can change jobs and move. For example, we had one case where the baby had been left at a fairly large hospital years before, whereby one particular staff member still worked there and remembered the incident, including what the biological mother had told her about her work location, but we were told that the mother was actually not Thai but was a Myanmar laborer, and they told us the particular location and construction project they were working on. The project had been completed long ago. The Thai project manager responsible for the laborers had since died (not of old age). We got there too late.

Generally, the smaller the hospital, and the more provincial, the better our chances. Big hospitals in Bangkok have a lot of cases and employee turnover, so going to visit one too many years later may not have a good outcome. However, small hospitals and clinics in outer provinces have a better chance of resulting in a nice engagement even after longer periods have passed, as they tend to be less busy, have more stable local staff, and engage better interpersonally with members of their community as well as friendly outsiders.

We've had other cases of a rental addresses that were very old. Landlords often throw away records after 5 years, the minimum time that accounting records must be kept. However, occasionally we have been able to get a copy of an ID card this way even after a long time, and/or found out information from other residents still there.

The most difficult cases are for a baby found abandoned in a marketplace or some other public location, with no information whatsoever on the biological parents, only that a baby was found by a third party. To date, we have not yet had anybody claim parentage. However, we have found the people who have found the babies, and gotten a lot more of the story, including who first found the baby, details of the baby when found, who initially took care of the child, and details of the story, providing GPS location, photos of the exact spot the child was found, and video, to give a better feel and understanding of the environment and situation. Again, it is important to trace as soon as possible, because local witnesses can move on. In some cases, the exact location the child was found was not recorded, but we found the exact location by talking with community police, ambulance people, and general residents of the community who heard the neighborhood gossip, eventually finding the first person or people to find and take care of the baby. There has sometimes been quite a story, and a happy local community to find out about the child's history and to get in touch again. However, this is when we got there in time. Police are often rotated between stations, ambulance people are sometimes volunteers or otherwise transitory, and other people often move.

We have engaged very well with mothers who left their baby at the hospital and simply departed. The most common situation is that the father abandoned the mother, or failed to show up at the hospital, and the mother had no money to take care of a child, or pay the hospital bill, and they simply walked out and left the child in the care of the state that way. Occasionally it may be an illegal immigrant fearful of being jailed and deported. In many cases, it can be seemingly hopeless parentage situations.

There is a case on our Facebook page about a baby left at a hospital a little over 15 years before, whereby the only information we had was the first name of the mother, which consisted of just 2 letters and was a common name for Myanmar people, and the mother was from Myanmar. Most people may think that case would be hopeless, but to make a long story short, we actually found this mother eventually via the community, and a DNA test confirmed she is the mother.

Most of our cases are for Thai mothers who were very poor and unable to raise a child well, and needed to work to survive, unable to stay home alone to raise a child as a single mother. In many cases, the father had abandoned the mother of the child, or both are too poor, or it was a teenage pregnancy..., and/or the mother is a migrant Thai worker far from home and a supportive community, and/or the child is illegitimate whereby the mother does not want to introduce the child to her community or the extended parents may be uncooperative, or the extended family is too poor or too dysfunctional, or there are other issues which led to the mother departing, including substance addiction or mental health issues. In many cases, nobody in the mother's family knew about the child except the mother, and sometimes the biological father didn't know he has a child.

Some have said that they had planned to go back and take the child back if/when their situation improved. However, most had pressing issues of survival and/or migrant work. We have stories of mothers going back only to find out that the child has already been taken away, and then giving up.

When we do engage a biological mother in person, usually we are successful, but sometimes it ends in failure. The most common kind of mother who does not engage is substance abusers. Failures are just a small percentage. Most cases are successful to various extents.

Of mothers who do engage, many eventually tell their families. Some do so on the first day, but many need time to broach the subject.

For example, in one case, the mother's teenage daughter arrived while we were talking with the mother. The mother didn't try to cover up anything. She called her daughter over. She showed her daughter the photos and told her daughter that she has another child, the other teenage girl in the photos, who is the daughter's sister. The daughter's eyes got big and her mouth opened, then her daughter pointed to herself and asked "I have a sister?" Then this maximum sized smile spontaneously filled her face and she was so happy, eagerly wanting to meet her sister ... who she then found out was overseas ... and then there was also grandma, who was also so happy ...

In most cases, it's not so quick. The mother needs some time to prepare, and wants to choose the best time and particular individuals in her family to tell first, such as her own mother, her current husband, a close sister, or somebody else, and then discuss it with others with this support. That may take hours, days, weeks, months, or even years. However, days to weeks is a more common outcome.

Notably, we had a case where the adoptive family had used an agency for the adoption, and the adoptive mother told us that agency offered to trace the biological mother, whereby the biological mother's family address was clear. However, the agency did not want to go in advance on their own. They required that they go with at least the Caucasian adoptive mother, and if the biological mother is present then at least the adoptive mother visit her at that time. No other option. Of course, that is questionable. The adoptive mother later contacted us, and was relieved to find out that we were more flexible. We went on our own and found the biological mother living with her new partner and teenage son, neither of whom knew about her older son, nor did her community. (It actually turned out to be a very unusual case, long story ... but I should not get into further detail publicly.)

We are flexible and approach every case based on its own particular situation. While we have standard operating procedures, it's not just one standard way, it's more like options and "best practices" in different kinds of situations.

This is a journey into the unknown, and anything is possible, but this has been our most careful approach and resulted in statistically better results than what we've heard about elsewhere, including from some adoptees.

The best time for a step 4 visit by the adoptee or the adoptee's family may be some time after all this has stabilized, there have been communications back and forth between adoptee and biological family, and everybody is ready and prepared.

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