Like Nothing I've Ever Experienced

It was never a secret in my family that I was adopted. My parents loved me at least as much as any parents would love their non-adopted children, and I knew this from the beginning. I had natural talents in fields that didn’t come from them, but they went out of their way to help me develop them. I was never denied anything because I didn’t share genetic heritage with my family.

As I was growing up, I didn’t give much thought to the fact that I was adopted. No one treated me differently because of it. On the occasions when I did think of my birthparents, I thought of them as they were described to me, as two people who cared about my future, and thought that someone else would be able to better to provide for it. 

I never really gave serious thought to ever searching for them – I had assumed it would be impossible.

Fast forward to 1996. I’m in my late 20s, married, and thinking about starting a family. One night I was watching the TV news program "48 Hours". They had a story about an adult adoptee who found her birthmother with help from people she met on the Internet. An accomplished web surfer, I thought to myself, "Why didn’t I ever think of this?" I hadn’t yet experienced an emotional need to find my birthparents – I just thought it was a neat idea. 

The following day, I started searching the Internet for adoption-related web sites. There were hundreds of them, filled with stories of successful searches and reunions. I promptly subscribed to the Adoptee's Internet Mailing List (AIML), a group of adoptees who share search and reunion stories, ideas, and support.

For the first few weeks, I’d spend hours every night reading AIML messages. At this point, I had informally decided that I would like to search for my birthparents. I wrote to the agency that placed me with my adoptive parents, asking for non-identifying information. They sent me many pages from my file, after photocopying them, whiting out every possible piece of information that I thought could help me, then photocopying again. Interesting information, I thought, but it would probably never help me in my search.

About a month later, I saw a message on AIML from Diane, an adoptee and volunteer searcher in Wisconsin, saying that she was making a trip to the city where I was born to do some records research. I e-mailed her the information I had, hoping that she would be able to help me. 

Diane had me fax her all of my non-id information. After reading it over, she replied with her interpretation – target dates, cities, aunts and uncle’s ages, etc. She was making a lot of assumptions, I thought, but she’s the expert. (They all turned out to be right!) She said she was 95 percent sure that if she had a last name, we could find my birthmother. This was in August. Over the next few months, I put my search on the back burner. We were busy building a house, and planning for the child we were expecting in the spring.

A few days after Christmas, I got a wonderful present – my birthmom’s name. Her last name was very common, but I remembered Diane’s "95% sure" comment, and sent her the name. The next two months were quite an emotional roller coaster. By this point, my search had become much more than the ‘neat idea’ it had started out as. As I started to feel a bond with our unborn child, I gained a new respect for the sacrifice my birthmother had made.

Finally, at the end of February, after three trips to Vital Statistics by Diane, I got the call from her I had been waiting for. She had names and numbers for bmom, aunts, uncle, and grandparents! That night, with much preparation and support from my wonderful wife, I made *the call*: "You have reached the phone mail system, the party you have called: Laura XXXXX, is not available…" 

It was her work number, but I had heard her voice for the first time in almost 30 years! By this time, I had already built up the courage to talk to her, so I was determined to get her on the phone. I called her brother, who gave me her home number. He insisted on knowing why I wanted it. 

I told him, "It’s sort of personal."

He asked again. "Well, I think you’re my Uncle."

"Yeah, that’s sort of personal," he said, and gave me the number. 

It was busy for the rest of the night. Great, I thought, he called her and warned her that some psycho who thinks he’s her son is going to call her. 

After a very long but unproductive day at work, I sat down the next night and dialed her number...

I had only thought through how the first 30 seconds would go, and those 30 seconds went pretty much like I expected. It seemed like we talked for about 15 minutes, but when I hung up, it had been 1 hour. It went great - I couldn’t have been happier! I had in incredible feeling of peace and contentment for the next few days; it’s nothing like I’ve ever experienced.

That was less than a week ago, but it seems like an eternity. The real roller coaster is just beginning!

     - Scott
     March 1997