An Adoption Story

 

I am adopted.

Before I get started, just for clarification purposes, I call the woman who adopted and raised me my mom. I call the woman who gave me up for adoption, my birth mother.

The first question I usually get asked is, “when did you know you were adopted?” Honestly, I feel like I have always known that I was adopted. Growing up I knew very little about my birth parents. I had a closed adoption through an agency out of Texas. As a child, I always pictured my birth mother as a princess and I was an heir to a foreign throne. As I grew up, I realized this was only a dream; the reality was probably more along the lines of a young woman who couldn’t raise me.

I really didn’t have a desire to find my birth mother. I wrote her a letter once and got everything out I wanted to say, and then that was it. I never really thought about it much. I credit this to the fact that I have had an amazing life! I am amazed by the things I have been able to do and the life I was given all because of a selfless young lady.

However, once I became a mom, I wanted to know my genetics, so I sent my DNA off. I knew that there was a possibility of finding my birth parents, but I honestly thought it was a long shot. Boy was I wrong! When I got my DNA back, I found out that I had a full sister–this was mind-blowing. I expected to have half-siblings but not a full sibling.

 

Within a week I had made contact with my birth mother, and we were able to have our first conversation together in 30 years. We spent the next year getting to know each other and forming a relationship. We finally came together last June to spend a week together. Being able to meet my birth mother, sister, and half-sister was absolutely amazing. I think the best thing I witnessed that week was my mom and my birth mother interacting with each other. I never thought that this would have ever happened, but it was one of the best weeks of my life.

I was given two women who love me, support me, and want the best for me. Each one does these things in very different ways but I am blessed to have so many people who care about me.

Adoption is a beautiful thing. It not only helps one life, the child, it helps two other lives as well. I am beyond lucky to have this life that was given to me. No one can ever replace my mom and everything she means to me but no one can ever fully thank my birth mother for the biggest, hardest, and most loving thing she ever did by letting me go. Now we both have a second chance to not only know each other but to become friends.