The Results Are In

It’s the end of 2018 and I’m waiting. Waiting for DNA results from Ancestry and for non-identifying birth background information from Sacramento County. I’m waiting for something I never thought I would, details that will lead me to my biological beginnings.

Like a Christmas present the DNA results come on December 23rd. I contact my new search angel, not expecting to hear from her right away due to the holiday. But she responds right requesting access to my results. A note on search angels: the one I met serendipitously on LinkedIn leads me to another who leads me to two more. True angels they do research and lead me to the answers I seek without payment.

The search angel wastes no time and gets back to me the same night I receive my DNA results. I have two matches that are 97 and 99% related to me, only my daughter is closer at 100%. One has only initials but the search angel messages me that the person’s father has the same surname that was on my original birth certificate. She also forwards an obituary that shows he died in 2004 but was born in 1959 in the town I’ve been living in for over 50 years. This is stunning because although I was adopted a short distance away, people could be anywhere in the world after such a long time. He will turn out to be a half brother.

The search angel cites the lateness of the hour and asks if we can pick up the research of my other DNA match the next day. She encourages me by saying I’m fortunate to have “riches of information.” She’s had to work much harder with much less. She signs off by saying her partner search angel will join in the research and they’ll get back to me as soon as possible.

It’s now the second week in January 2019. I arrive home from work to find a manila envelope in my mailbox. My heart flutters. This is it, the non-identifying information from the agency I was adopted through that I’ve been waiting three months for. I’m surprised and grateful that the document is very descriptive and is seven pages long. I sit on the couch and start to read.

The details begin with a description of my birth mother. She was 21 years old when I was born. Her height, weight, hair color, complexion, eye color, and nationality were listed. These simple things are fascinating to someone who’s wondered what the woman she came from looked like.

A description of my birth father followed, he was 23 years old when I was born. It went on to say that when my birth parents married my birth father worked with his father in business but when that ended my birth father fell into drugs and had been in and out of jail. He did meet with an agency social worker to sign the relinquishment papers that would allow for my adoption and stated he did not want any further contact. The social worker stated that my birth mother had been depressed but was planning to get more education so as to obtain a job. Although she loved my birth father, she would remain separated from him unless “he took definite steps to bring about change in himself.”

The document went on to describe the two biological brothers I’d always known about. I’m stunned to see their ages were two and three when I was born, meaning my biological mother would’ve had three kids under the age of three. Left by herself in that situation it’s easy to see why I was put up for adoption. The report states however that it was not an easy decision, “your birth mother cried when she talked about you and said it would be hard to give her baby up; she wanted to see you while you were still in the hospital and wanted to be notified when you were placed.” She went on to tell the social worker that she didn’t ever want her sons to know she’d given up a full sibling.

Further is description of the almost three months I was in foster care, which I found very comforting. I’d always wondered about it and felt the sense of peace that comes from curiosity relieved.

After eight more days the search ladies message me with names, dates, places that are somehow related to me but they aren’t exactly sure how yet. I begin to research the other 97% match from Ancestry using Facebook. I find the person quite easily and unbelievably, she lives in MY TOWN. I send her a direct message. She kindly answers me and we exchange messages until she drops in the missing piece, her uncle is my biological father. And he died 35 years ago. It will take more messages and a couple of months before she answers the question of how he died, young at the age of 40. He wasn’t able to recover from addiction and was found dead downtown, an assumed drug deal gone bad.

A lot to process is an understatement. Thought and feeling overload. And I haven’t found my biological mother yet.

Next time: “You’re From Where?”

The Four o' clock Martini Chronicles: A Search Starts

In September 2018 I reached out to an Adoption Reunion Search Angel I’d come across on LinkedIn (of all places). In my direct message to her I asked what the first step would be to start a search for one’s birth family. Three hours later she responded and asked if I knew the birth parents names, birth dates or places, ages, or any background information. I tell her what little bit I know which has come from my mother over 40 years ago. It doesn’t include any concrete information about who the birth parents are. No problem she says, she’ll conduct research to find out a definite birth name and will get back to me. I’m not believing this is really going to work yet 24 hours later I receive an email saying her research has turned up something. A last name that looks like the birth mother’s and initials of the birth father’s but no last name. She encourages me to request non-identifying information from the agency I was adopted through, gives me contact information and suggests I do a DNA test through Ancestry.

As I start to think about the biologicals, I get out a box of family pictures and start going through it over a few evenings time. I’ve moved this box of pictures around with me since I was 18 and have looked through it many, many times. Midway through the box I pull out a manila envelope with my mother’s handwriting called “forever papers.” This isn’t a new discovery, I’ve seen this envelope before and I’ve pulled the papers out and looked through them. It contains my parents divorce papers, early drafts of my mother’s will and some of my adoption papers. I start to set it aside and then decide to look through it again. I leaf through until I come across a legal size document typed on thin, translucent paper titled “In the Matter of the Petition to adopt a minor female child.” It’s much like the other paperwork I’ve read until I reach the bottom of the first page and a section called “Natural Parents.”

There in plain sight for 35 years was information about my biological mother including her birth date (she was 21 years old when I was born), the date of her marriage to the biological father (she was 18) and a description of him being born a year before her, completing high school through the 11th grade and serving in the military. Stunning beginning pieces of the puzzle and amazing that it had gone unnoticed for all these years.

I forward the newly discovered details to the Search Angel and she puts my directly in touch with her researcher. She says she will continue to search for more information that can lead to the identity of the biologicals and says what we know already is huge. What I’ve learned in only two months is dizzying and in November of 2018 I send my DNA sample to Ancestry and a request to the adoption agency for any information they can give me. Now I wait.