Finding My Birth Mom Part 1: Searching

I've always known I was adopted. I am so thankful for this because it saved me from a lot of struggle throughout my childhood.  I will forever be grateful to my parents for being up front about that.

Here's my little story.  My parents were told they couldn't have children so they started an adoption journey.... they planned to save for a while but then I was born and suddenly they had a daughter!  A few months later, they discovered my mom was pregnant!  My sister and I are 14 months apart.

I never once felt resentment to being adopted or hurt and rejected by my birth Mom.  I always had a sense that it was exactly what was supposed to be.   Even still.... throughout the years, I felt a yearning to know her.

As a child I would sometimes lay awake at night, wondering about my birth mom.  Did she think about me?

When my birthday happened every year, I always wondered if she was thinking of me that day.

Was she happy?  Did I have half siblings? Did she want to know about me? Thought after thought would come. They were all over the map and varied greatly.

Let me walk you through some things that come up when you've been adopted:

I don't look like anyone in my family.  My Dad had dark olive skin, black hair and brown eyes.
My Mom has reddish/auburn hair, brown eyes and beautiful freckled skin. My sister got Dad's olive skin, a mix of both parents hair and some features from both of them.  Needless to say, my blue eyes, blonde hair and pale skin set me apart.  I always stood out in photos and when people would meet us, I would see it on their face..... this didn't add up... so I would blurt out "I'm adopted!" and then it would all make sense to them. This would bring up the question, who do I get my looks from?

Every single time I would see someone who looked similar to me, I would wonder if we were biologically related.
I remember one time when my husband and I were dating, someone mistook us for brother and sister. That was my worst fear, that I would end up falling in love with someone I was actually biologically related to. Looking through his family history, there was no way we were connected that way..... but this question popped up a few times when I was in the dating stage of life.  I didn't know and so it always was this teensy fear in the back of my mind.

I craved having someone, ANYONE, in my world that looked like me. I was always fascinated with and drawn to, strong family resemblances.  When my first child was born, I wept when I held this little person who looked LIKE ME!  I now had one person in my world who shared some features with me.  This might seem superficial, but it was a real feeling for me.  One of many that I have felt over the years.

Growing up, I've always been inclined to music.  My Dad could play the guitar and piano by ear a bit and my Mom could play a few songs on the piano but here I was... music was IN me!  I LOVED IT! Sang it. Played it. Felt it. Craved it.  Where did this come from? My biological mother? father? Was it just me?

I am sensitive. Everything.  Skin, eyes, hearing, sinuses and emotionally. Was allergic to things. Was this somehow from my biological make up?

When you go to the doctor, what is the first thing they need from you?  A family medical history.... guess what mine always says? N/A.  unknown. So you can imagine, how every time I was in the situation, I would wonder, what hereditary things should I be on the watch for?  There are 2 ways people can go with this... Paranoid about everything because you could have it all... or blissfully go through life feeling perfectly healthy as a horse because you know of no issues in your history!  I chose to be in a middle on this.

These are just a few of the things that popped up.  I could write an entire blog or two about this, but I think you get the idea.

Back to my journey.

Throughout the last years, I've attempted to find my birth mother.
Posting on every message board, reuniting board, adoption search page, I could find.
Contacting the attorney who handled my adoption.
Contacting the person who match my parents with me.
Oklahoma birth records are sealed and it would take a court order to open.  For a long time, I didn't have the resources to pursue that way.  So I would search everything  I could find...
I hit a lot of dead ends.

People who knew about my journey would ask my reason why.  Why did I want to know?  In all honesty, the answer would vary.  It depended on when I was being asked.  The reasons were different at different stages of life.  There are a million reasons why I wanted to find this part of me.... some were selfish, some were selfless, some were easily explained, some impossible to put into words.

This desire would ebb and flow, at times so intense I couldn't get it out of my mind, then other times when I didn't give it much thought at all.

Once, I was contacted by a tv show to help me search for me birth mother.  That one was incredibly tempting as I knew they had the resources to make it happen!  I thought about it for a while, tempted, but knew in my heart it was not the right way to go about it.  I am thankful today that I let that one pass.

Then, I found out about this judge in Oklahoma City that was granting people the court order for their original birth certificate.  This would be huge!  I could have her name and actually be able to search more effectively!  I just needed to purchase a plane ticket, rent a car, take time off work and pay the $40 fee.  This one was thought about for a long time.  Lots of discussion with my husband and also with a friend of mine that had been through this experience.  My husband was strongly encouraging me to go for it.  He kept telling me that I shouldn't worry about the money at all and just do it.  He knew how long I had thought about it and how badly I wanted this to happen.  There was something in me holding me back though.. Part of it was fear, but another part was something I couldn't put my finger on.  I now understand why, but I didn't know then.  This was a "fall back" option though that I filed away in my mind.

I have always wondered what my genetic heritage was.  My husband encouraged me to take the DNA test from Ancestry to find out.  I was so thrilled to learn what my genetic make up was and to see that there were familial links to other people!  I hoped that it would lead to my biological mother.  Every day I would log on to see what new matches had been found for me!  In a matter of a few months, all of the sudden, there it was.  My Birth mother was on there!

This was the right way to find her. No more dead ends.  It wasn't a find that was unsure, it was fact. DNA doesn't lie. My searching for WHO she was, was over.  But now a whole new chapter in my journey began.

I thought searching for her was hard...... that was just time and effort... this next chapter was a whole different story.

I will continue to share parts of this journey with those of you who have been following it.
Thanks for stopping by.

Ta Ta for now!