Finding my birth parents - Part 5
At some point in my children’s lives I explained to them that I was adopted. I don’t remember the details, but it was probably a response to them noticing I didn’t look anything like my sister or my father. That was always a big thing for me, looking like someone. As fate would have it, my children look much more like their father than they do me.
Over the years, I made a lot of attempts to find my birth mother. I was on just about every registry on the web. I scoured over these sites reading every entry looking for some clue that I could be reading a note by my mother. “Birth mother looking for birth daughter. xxxx, 1959. Poughkeepsie, NY” That’s all I wanted to see. Instead, I read things like “I was left on the fifth floor of a Brooklyn apartment building. If you are out there, I still want to meet you.” Desperate individuals all in my boat looking for some link to their birth families. Driven by an innate need to connect with their families of origin. To know where they came from and learn their stories. To know “why”.
I only knew a few facts surrounding my birth. I was born in one of two hospitals in Poughkeepsie, NY. And my father’s dear friend, another pediatrician, had helped my parents arrange my adoption. I often wanted to ask him anything he could tell me about my birth parents, but it was complicated because he was my father’s friend. I really didn’t want my dad to know I was hoping to meet my birth mother. I didn’t want to hurt him. But after so many years of turning up empty on the web, I finally wrote him a letter asking him to share with me whatever he knew. He did write back to me, but with only minimal information. He knew the name of the attorney, but also that he was now dead. And he knew the obstetrician, who had long since retired and moved to Florida, and could possibly be dead. I researched them both the best that I could, but that didn’t shed any more light on my birth. He did suggest I exercise the Freedom of Information Act. That didn’t get me too far. My records were sealed, and only a judge could decide if they could be opened.
So life went on, checking the web on a regular basis hoping for something, but beginning to realize I may pass from this world without ever knowing who I was or where I came from. I prayed that I would, but my faith in God told me that He has his reasons for everything and I would have to accept what He knew would be in my best interest.
In late August of this year my whole life would change. It was a particularly stormy afternoon with thunderstorms and heavy rain and we were all stuck in the house. I sat at the dining room table doing a jigsaw puzzle with my oldest daughter, Sarah and my step-daughter, Athena. We were having fun and I was enjoying spending time with the kids. My father had to go to the bank to retrieve a document from his safety deposit box to get a copy of his own birth certificate so that he could obtain a passport to do some traveling. When he came home, he sat down at the table with the girls and me and told me where he had been. And then it came. He said “I know you were asking Dr. Blank (I’m not going to reveal names for their privacy) if he knew any of the circumstances surrounding your birth. When I was looking through my safety deposit box, I found your original adoption papers. I thought you might like to know your mother’s name was … Blank Blank.” Just like that. And right then and there, right in front of my kids, I burst into tears. Tears of shock and amazement at first. Then came tears of joy and relief. And even a few tears of betrayal and lost time. It occurred to me that he had known this information all along and had not shared it with me. I wasn’t angry, really, like I had been years earlier. Maybe hurt is a better description. I had to excuse myself from the kids and try to collect myself. My mother had a name. It all became personified. What should I do now?