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My biological mother was not even seventeen when I was born. I am very grateful that she chose to have me and give me the opportunity to live. I am also grateful that she chose to put me up for adoption rather than raise me herself and struggle through life because of me.

The family I was adopted into was a good family. My parents divorced when I was young (15 months or so), and my brother and I were raised by our mom. Mom was the best, I can not even begin to praise her here, I'd run out of room. Mom was the one understanding person I had in my family when it came to my being curious of my roots and who I was. When Mom died (I was 21), all hope of any help in finding my biological parents was pretty well lost. Little did I know some information my mom had shown me prior to her death would aid me when the time was right. She had shown me my adoption papers which had my birth mother's last name listed on them. My pediatrician sent me a letter that my adoption agency had sent him which listed my birth mother's date of birth. These two bits of information aided me in finding her in 1998.

In September 1998 I had the opportunity to speak with my biological mother. I'm one of the fortunate ones in that it seemed to occur for both of us at the right time in our lives. It will be difficult for me to talk about this with my family, because only my mother seemed to understand that my curiousity was natural and not meant as any form of disrespect toward the family who raised me. My initial curiousities stemmed from the fact that 29 years ago they did not ask as many medical history questions as they do today. Heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc. were not known to be hereditary conditions. I knew that my mother may have been allergic to penicillin and that she had hay fever. Those are the medical tidbits I was provided. It just doesn't seem like enough, knowing my adoptive mother died of ovarian cancer at the age of 54 - with no history of cancer in her family, my step-dad has severe heart problems, and my boss at the time had been diagnosed with adult diabetes. You see these occurrences around you and you wonder "What's in store for me?" and you just don't know. I now have the opportunity to find out.

I met my biological mother, Cyndi, in May 1999 after countless e-mails, telephone calls and handwritten letters. She flew down to Orlando for the weekend. We had dinner together on Friday night, spent all day Saturday and most of Sunday together. My kids loved her, and she seemed to get a kick out of my son, Arthur. It was something that took thirty years in the making, but I am happy to say that I have no regrets about contacting her. Oddly, since we had spoken and corresponded so much in the nine months before meeting it wa almost as if we knew one another. She also came down for my thirty first birthday in August 2001.

I was given my biological father's name in December 1998 and located an address for him. I sent him a letter, which he responded to. We have talked quite a few times. Admittedly, I was a little hesitant in contacting him because it appeared he had at least one child living with him. I didn't want to disrupt a family which was happily in place and moving along. He received my letter around his birthday, and has told me I made this birthday one of the best he's ever had. It turns out he had been curious about me over the years, but never knew when or where I was born to initiate any type of search. I have two half-brothers I discovered. We met in October 1999 here in Orlando after ten months of corresponding via e-mail and AOL IMs. I, admittedly, had never been as curious about my father as I was about my mother. She was the one who went through nine months of pregnancy and gave birth to me, but meeting him was gratifying nonetheless.

Also in October 1999, I had the pleasure of meeting my maternal biological grandmother, uncle, his wife, and four cousins (one is two months younger than my son) while at my brother's wedding in Dallas. What a wonderful experience it was to meet them all. My daughter hasn't stopped talking about Cyndy since (of course it helped that Cyndy spoiled her).

In July 2003 I got married for the second time and had the privilege of having my birth parents as well as my adoptive dad, his wife, my step-dad and his wife present. One of my husband's relatives commented on how well my blended family gets along despite how different they are. I was so happy that things went off without difficulty or incident.

In August 2003 Stephanie and I drove to Chicago for my half-brother Michael's wedding reception. It was fun to meet my birth father's sisters and brother as well as cousins.

There are many who find their biological family and have bad experiences from it - some choose not to communicate, some have been refused communication, some have become life long friends with other siblings and relatives. I happen to be one of the lucky ones - my situation seems to have begun on a positive note.

Adopting.com || Adoption.com || Adoption Information || Adoption Search || Adoption Webring || Bethany Christian Services || Children's Hope International Agency || Especially for Adoptees || National Adoption Center || The Cradle Society-The agency I was adopted from