So far, so good (beware: it's long!!)

As some of you may know, I've been on this board, and others, for about six years looking for any of my birth relatives. It's a lot shorter of a time than many of you, but considering I am almost 22, born/adopted in 1987, and thus a member of the online generation so to speak, I was beginning to get worried that if I hadn't found anyone by now, they were unable to be found.Well, at the suggestion of several people here, I finally contacted Spaulding for Children, the adoption agency that had taken over for Christian Child's Help Foundation (the agency that handled my placement), and asked about getting another copy of my non ID info. My parents had always had what appeared to be (and actually was) a fairly thorough document of non ID info, and hospital records. But I finally decided I might as well get another copy. And lo and behold! Instead of being a typed copy with information omitted and some things covered with tape prior to copying, as was the case with the old one, this was a handwritten copy with names simply blacked out with sharpie!! As I noticed some of the loops and curls of the handwriting had made their way outside of the sharpie, the realization that I could still make out bits and pieces of what was underneath dawned on me. I held the paper up to the light, and sure enough - I was able to make out the full names of paternal grandparents, and my maternal grandfather. I already knew my birthmother's first name from the original papers, so I quickly jumped into probably my eighth free trial on Ancestry.com and easily discovered all the names of my relations!The first thing I saw was that I had three older half siblings. I had always known I had four from my birthfather's side (the fourth, it turns out, was from a different woman and my birthfather's name isn't on his record so I didn't find him right away) but I didn't know genders or ages. Well, they are a LOT older than me. Like I said, I'm a month shy of 22, but my older half sister is 40, and my half brothers are 34 and 33 (the other is 26). My half sister even has a son a few months older than me! Crazy. I found her youngest daughter's MySpace, which eventually led me to my half sister's Facebook, and I tentatively made contact, explaining what I thought was the case. Oh, I also should add that I saw online that my birthfather passed away in 2000. I'm somewhat disappointed, but as strange as this sounds, I always had the feeling I would never ever meet him, and I didn't have that feeling about anyone else. So while it was not how I would have liked it to be, I wasn't at all surprised somehow. But anyway, we compared some facts and determined we did in fact share the same father. He had left when she was younger and it brought up some stuff for her, which I tried to be respectful of, but she was so very nice in telling me some stories and giving me her brother's email address, and telling me to stay in touch. I emailed my oldest half brother and he's also very nice! I'm currently in college studying film/tv production with an emphasis on screenwriting, and he was telling me all about how he and his brother, who lives with him, have gotten really involved with 3D animation lately and are making their own films and stuff. How cool! Half sister had told me that she got writing from my bdad and the youngest got drawing skills (I was really into art when I was younger too :P) so that's really fun to see where I got that stuff from. And my half brother told me in his email he thought it was commendable I made the first contact to them, and assured me there should be no awkwardness between us. He kept referring to people as "our dad" and "our brother" and it was kinda neat. I guess he saw my picture because he said he would have recognized me immediately. I'm going to ask for a picture of him in my next email, but I think I look a little like my older half sister, and her kids even. At least that's where my darker hair comes from for sure.Now the thing I was concerned about was my birthmother. I researched her on Ancestry and found that she had another daughter a little less than two years after me. No father was listed. After some intense googling - the daughter uses a completely fake last name on all her online profiles, just like I do hehe - I found her MySpace. I wasn't entirely sure at first but as soon as I saw the pictures....my gosh, she looks just like me. Growing up without any reference of what I might look like, that was so bizarre to see! But I knew it was her. I tried to calm myself down and refrained from contacting her, on the chance that she didn't know about me or that my birthmother really didn't want me to find her and this would cause problems with them. It was hard, because while I grew up with great parents, I also grew up an only child, and that's the only thing I've always regretted about my life, and any siblings are really who I most always wanted to find. But I managed to use her page to track them to a different state than where we were born, and luckily my bmom had never gotten married and I was able to find an address for her. I sent her a very basic letter the day after I contacted my half sister. I'm very thankful for this site as I used anecdotes from everyone here in helping me shape my letter. I told her who I was, who I thought she was, and gave her my email address and my parents' address in case she didn't want contact now but did at a later date (my college address will be no good in a year). I told her I knew about Maggie (my sister) and didn't want to disturb their lives. The reason I mentioned her was because I'd read some birthparents feel guilty about keeping other kids later and that makes them hesitate in getting in contact with the adopted kids. I wanted her to get the feeling that I wasn't bothered by that at all (which I'm not, I think it's awesome). I also told her that I'd had a very good life, and always had known I was adopted, and never harbored any negative feelings about it. Two weeks went by. The letter should have been there in two days. During this time, I found out through my older half sister that Maggie wasn't my half sister as I had suspected, but my FULL sister. Our parents had been together for something like thirteen years. I was shocked, and absolutely thrilled, and it became so much harder to not contact her. But I held off, and stalked her MySpace and Facebook pages relentless hoping that, if she was anything like me, if she heard anything she would post it as a status update on facebook lol. Sure enough, this past Thursday night, she wrote "Today I found out I have a SISTER. Her name is Rachael." (Well, Rachel, but close enough :P) The conversations with her friends/cousin that followed showed me that she was excited, and had always known about me. But still I waited! Somehow! And Friday morning my bmother emailed me briefly, saying how happy she was I wrote her, and that just a month ago they had been trying to figure out how to find me! (lol the internet - I'm all over it!!) I think what happened with the time frame is that I had an outdated address and it had to get forwarded to a new one, but it finally got there!I wrote her back and finally wrote Maggie too and it's been really cool. I still haven't talked to them all that much but I found out we have two more younger siblings (I think they're full and not half but I haven't directly asked yet) who were given up for adoption too. A boy who would be 19 and a girl who would be 18. My bmother is visiting my sister right now, but she said she will send me the info she has (apparently more than she had about me, including some pictures!) when she gets home. She was worried I would think she was a terrible person for giving more kids up for adoption but I don't think that at all! Sometimes that's what you have to do, and I'm just thrilled I have more siblings out there. I just hope they are willing to talk to us when I find them too.For the most part I've been really controlled and calm about all this. I think mostly because I was a little disappointed that my older half siblings are so much older and the reality that they really already have grown lives of their own was quick to set in (though I still hope to get to know them). But now finding my little sister it's getting harder to stay so...passive I guess. And I can tell she feels the same way. I've read enough on this board to know that getting too emotionally involved right away can lead to problems later on so I'm trying to keep a balance, but I think hopefully I've got a good enough head on my shoulders to handle it. My (adoptive) parents have always known I would search one day and are completely okay with me finding these people. I keep them up to date with everything so they don't start to feel like I'm excluding them. And I live far away from everyone so a quick face to face reunion won't be happening anytime too soon either, so hopefully that will give some time for adjustment and things settling into place. But it's still just so awesome. My sister looks so much like me, and she has the most adorable little one year old boy who has BRIGHT RED hair just like I did when I was a baby. But anyway, that's everything so far! I need to email my half brother back today, and I may end up talking to my bmother/sister on the phone today or tomorrow because I gave them my number. I was really hesitant to do so. I've ALWAYS hated talking on the phone to anyone, I'm just really awkward at it, but I felt this was a time I finally need to make an exception and start growing up in that regard lol. So...yeah! Everyone re-order your non-ID info, you may be surprised :P