There Was Never a Time I Didn’t Know I Was Adopted

The below post was written by someone I know.  I love it and think that it’s important to post. Many times (especially me on this blog) we forget that adoption is a tripod – the adoptive parents, the birth parents, and the child(ren).

There was never a time I didn’t know I was adopted. But I always felt kinda different. I don’t think I looked like my family although not that different either. People would ask me what it felt like to be adopted. All I could say is that it was no different than being born directly to a birth family.  “But you’re not really Irish like your parents and the rest of your family,” other kids would respond. I knew however in my heart that I was loved and truly wanted.

When I was young, I would fantasize about what it would be like to meet my birth mother and the other children I was told she had. Maybe they would search for me because she needed a kidney and I was match.  She would tell me she was sorry. My parents told me she had been unable to care for me, and how blessed they were to have my brothers and I as their children. They even showed me some hand written notes “from the safe” written from the social worker. Apparently, I looked similar to her.  She was short too.  But I never felt like I didn’t belong to my adopted family. Family are people who love you more than you can imagine or even fathom. 

Fast forward many years. After I had my own children, my curiosity began to gnaw at me again and I contacted the City of San Francisco for information about my birth family. There were lots of official notes with last names left out. I had (my birth mother) Judy’s story in her words, and it mostly matched what my mother had shared with me growing up.  And there were other children. Shortly after that, coincidentally, a birth half-sister (who had also been given up for adoption several years before me) contacted me after she saw the Oprah show of when she met her half-sister.

Celeine and I met for lunch to compare notes. She had researched and found the entire family and been in contact with them through the years. Our birth mother had died a few years before of lung cancer. When they were cleaning out her home, they found paper work about a baby girl given up for adoption in 1966. That was me. Nobody had known. Celeine set up a meeting with my birth mother’s family. I had the opportunity to meet aunts and cousins and learn about my birth mother. 

I am glad that I met some blood relatives. But they are not my family. I was raised in a family that gave me all they could and more. We weren’t without troubles or issues. Then again, what family is? I was loved, what else does anyone need to know?