I stared at the big brown envelope sitting on my kitchen counter. After 10 minutes I gingerly gathered it to me and sat down at the dining room table. I cautiously slid out the contents. Five days previously, I had made contact with my birth family for the first time. One of my new sisters had sent me this package. Its contents were as precious to me as pure gold: photographs of birth family spanning over 100 years. As I looked into their faces, something changed within me. I felt a connection that I had never felt until then. Tears bubbled up from deep inside. I looked like these people. I saw my mother's hands. They were identical to mine. I felt like they were mine. This was the reconnection I needed to begin the search to finding myself.


That paragraph is definitely personal. The more factual part (although it is all personal!) would be that I was born in Oakland, CA at the Salvation Army hospital for unwed mothers, August 13, 1945. I was relinquished two months later and three months after that I was adopted by a very wonderful family. However, in my mind, January 4, 1946 was the day my life began. I never thought about another mother or what my life was like the days before.

But in my unspoken heart, I was feeling a growing sense of dissatisfaction and malaise. I didn't know myself. I very easily felt rejected. I married in 1970 and was very co-dependent most of those years. By 1996, I had no sense of my identity or sense of direction. I needed control. I went to Therapy. I wanted to look at my adoption as a possible reason for the huge hole I was feeling.

Fast forward, I began the search for my Birth Mother. I learned from the investigator that my mother, Lucille, had died of cancer in April 1995, but they had located my Birth Family, 3 sisters. On March 12, 2000 I made the call that would change my life forever. It was as if I was wandering, lost. I was now connected to my roots and I felt like I was home.

I may also want to talk about my search for my Original Birth Certificate. California adoption records are sealed. I petitioned Alameda County Courts 3 times only to be denied. I can't even get them now even though my Birth Family knows me. If my petition had been approved, I would have met my mother, and found myself.