Find a therapist who understands adoption

Adoptees may feel loss, identity confusion, and longing during joyful birthday celebrations.

The nervous system can hold implicit memories of early separation that resurface on birthdays.

Rituals like lighting a candle and placing a letter in a grief mailbox can help adoptees honor this day.

For most people, birthday celebrations are filled with cake, candles, and being told, “We’re so happy you were born.” For people, who were adopted, at birth or through foster care, some enjoy celebrating birthdays, others dread them, and for many adoptees, birthdays can feel like an unspeakable loss. As one adoptee said: “When they told me to make a wish before blowing out my candles, I always wished secretly to meet my birth mother.”

For most people, birthday celebrations are filled with cake, candles, and being told, “We’re so happy you were born.” For people, who were adopted, at birth or through foster care, some enjoy celebrating birthdays, others dread them, and for many adoptees, birthdays can feel like an unspeakable loss. As one adoptee said: “When they told me to make a wish before blowing out my candles, I always wished secretly to meet my birth mother.”

As a psychotherapist specializing in adoption and foster care, and as an adoptee myself, I understand that birthdays can carry a double meaning: a celebration of life and a reminder of loss. Both truths exist, and both are hard to carry at once. This day serves as a reminder of the separation from one's birth family, an agony of grief that is real, hidden, and not always recognized, validated, or openly acknowledged by society. Adoptees often keep this loss locked in an internal vault, leaving many holding a vessel of grief that has no clear place to go.

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