My name is Tim, and I was adopted as an infant back in 1959. I never asked a lot of questions about my birth mother as I was growing up. I was just told that she was in college, unmarried, and loved me very much.
I got married in my 30s and my wife and I adopted a beautiful baby girl. Because ours was an open adoption, we met the birth mother beforehand, and were able to be at the hospital for the delivery. We named our girl Anastasia, and her birth mother and other members of her birth family had a chance to hold her. We still keep in touch with the birth family to this day.
Because of my experience with Anastasia and her birth family, I decided I wanted to search for my birth mother. I joined a local adoption support group where I received a lot of good advice on how to search and what kind of emotions I would experience along the way. Because records are sealed in my state, it took me one and a half years before I felt I had found the right person.
I wrote my birth mother a letter telling her who I was and asking for a meeting. I was prepared to wait a few weeks for an answer, but she called me just a few days after receiving my letter. We agreed to meet in a town close by to where she lived, as she had not told anyone about me except her husband.
Although my birth mother, Susan, was very scared of her secret being revealed, the relationship between us quickly blossomed. I found out that so many of my personality traits had come from her. Although I loved my adoptive parents (who had died many years before I began my search) and my adoptive relatives, I had very little in common with any of them. In Susan, I finally found someone who could understand why I thought the way I did, or why I did the things I did.
We immediately became very close with each other. I found out she had never forgotten about me all these years, and was so thrilled to have me back in her life. I also found out that I had two half sisters and a half brother for siblings.
I had read a lot of books from the adoption group before my reunion, and I was able to empathize with the feelings Susan had. I gave her time to assimilate my being back in her life, and she was slowly able to tell her children and her friends the story she had kept bottled up since she was a teenager. It was no longer a source of shame to her, but a prelude to having her son back in her life.
As of this writing, Susan and I have been reunited for over six years. We have continued to grow closer to each other, and I have established a relationship with all of her siblings. It is such a thrill to finally see where I got my looks, my talents, my likes, and my dislikes. I am very fortunate to now have two families who love me, and to have had two mothers who could both call me ‘son.’
To begin your own reunion story, visit the new adoption information website to access adoption training.
