Learning The Truth
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When I was 19-years-old, married to my husband, Bryon, my parents invited me home one Sunday because they had something to tell me.
When I got back to their home I sat down thinking it was going to be something terrible. I had already lost my brother a few years before and I was still traumatized by that. My father said, "Your Mother is pregnant!"
I looked at him and just smiled. I knew he was joking. My mother spoke up saying that was my Father's way of breaking the ice. He then said the my brother and I were adopted. My mother went and got the adoption papers and showed them all to me.
I just looked at them and said, "So what?! You are still my parents and my family. You were there to raise me and fix my boo-boos."
At that time I wasn't really interested in searching. This wasn't a shock to me. After what I had been through with losing my brother nothing really bothered me. They told me that they adopted me when I was 5 months old and I spent time after I left the hospital in foster care. Later I found out that it was more like 8 or 9 different foster care homes.
My parents gave me the papers they had and the few photos of me as a baby that they got from the foster parents. They told me that they would support me in whatever I wanted to do with this information. I, in turn, told them that I was pregnant with my first child.
I decided to put off searching for my birthmother until after my child was born. It turned out to be a year later that I started my search. My son, Phaylin, had problems at birth, so I waited.
I went through the Internet via Prodigy to find help in locating my birthmother. I was directed to Janet Mackey out of Washington State. I contacted Janet through a letter and she told me what I needed to do to get started. Janet is a Confidential Interme-diary. So I got everything together and talked to my parents about it. Janet's fee was $300. I was told I could pay half upfront and the other half after she found my birthmother.
My parents gave me the money to begin my search. I started it in June of 1995. At that time I was 8 months pregnant with my second child. Janet got my records and had them opened.
On my birthday, July 4th, my father gave me the other $150 to give to Janet.
In October 1995, I was reunited with my birthmother, Judy, by phone. That was a wonderful day for both of us. Not only has she regained her daughter but she got a son-in-law and two wonderful grandchildren, Phaylin and Caitlynn.
April 5, 1996, I met my birthmother in person. She spent 5 days with us. It was wonderful seeing someone that looked like me and acted like me even right down to loving Dr Pepper and hating wearing dresses.
We are still in touch with each other and I am planning a trip this summer to meet the rest of her family.
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© 1999
