Posts Tagged ‘Ohio’

Secrets in Review, Issue 3

Saturday, April 19th, 2014

Since Secret Sons & Daughters launched two months ago, we have enjoyed connecting with adoptees through their powerful stories, comments and through our social media.

It’s exciting to watch the voices of the adoptee community grow more candid and outspoken.

We are honored to have shared adoptees’ tales about searching, reunion, and what it was like for those in their 40’s or 50’s to discover that they’d been adopted. We’d also love to hear stories about what it was like to reunite with your biological father. Have you experienced rejection from your families, and if so, how have you dealt with this hardship? Are you an adoption rights advocate? What event inspired you to work for open access in your state? Maybe you’re an adoptee who’d prefer no contact at all— we’d like to share those stories, too.

We’re happy to offer you writing ideas and editorial assistance. To learn more—read our submission guidelines.

At Secret Sons & Daughters, we are passionate about helping adoptees connect, and hopeful that through our stories, we will create a groundswell of people to support original birth certificate access across the United States. Today, only eleven states (see Discover Your Rights) allow adoptees to have that access.

As noted in a New Era for Ohio Adoptees Began Today, Ohio is soon to be the most recent state to join that short list to provide original birth certificate access to all adult adoptees.

The adoptive story collective holds power. We’re seeing that stories beget more stories, from a writer who shared his search angel information to help another writer, to these comments that speak to what it’s like to share an experience—

Amy, and adoptee, enthusiastically related to Scott Baker’s inspirational reunion story when she said, “I am in tears! I have looked for years on and off, but have recently started searching with all my heart. I have an emptiness inside that I can’t explain compounded by the recent death of my adopted father. Please continue to share your story with as many groups as you can as it gives such extreme hope! I am in NY, and it seems when search angels hear that they seem to shy away a bit. Thank you so much for the wonderful story, you are very blessed!”

Another reader and adoptee, Mary, summarized the potential healing effect of writing her story after reading Paige Strickland’s interview on self-publishing a memoir: “I like what Paige said about ‘writing got a lot of “garbage” out of my system.’ That’s what is happening with me now as I just started my search at age 65. I didn’t realize how much I had suppressed, and how it has affected my life…I didn’t realize how many adoptees are out there, as I have never personally known anyone who admitted to being adopted…I felt odd about wanting to know who my family was, especially after the things I was told—like there was something wrong with me for being inquisitive. Thank you Paige, and all the [adoptees] and search angels out there— for freeing me and giving me the opportunity to know the real me.”

Many others supportively connected with our contributing authors. Here are the highlights from the past month:

An Adoptee Comes Full Circle When He Finds His Birth MotherAdoptee, Scott Baker

An Irish Adoptee Talks Adoption over Tea with Philomena LeeAdoptee, and Journalist with The Irish Independent, Catriona Palmer

An Ohio Adoptee Finds Her Way Home to HerselfAdoptee, Molly Murphy

An Iowa Adoptee’s Thoughts the Night Before He Meets His Birth MotherAdoptee, Dan Koerselman

Paige Strickland, Author of “Akin to the Truth: A Memoir of Adoption and Identity,” Speaks About Self-Publishing Her BookCofounder of Secret Sons & Daughters, Heather Katz, interviewed adoptee, Paige Strickland.

New York’s Spence-Chapin’s New Modern Family Center Offers Support for Adult AdopteesCofounder of Secret Sons & Daughters, Christine Koubek, spoke with adoptee, Misha Conaway, Outreach Manager, and Dana Stallard, the center’s Adoptee Services Coordinator about the center’s opening.

New Era for Ohio Adoptees Began TodayChristine also spoke with Ms. Betsie Norris, the executive director of Adoption Network Cleveland, and an adoptee whose father was partially responsible not only for Ohio’s sealed records practice, but also for its reversal many years later.

Coming up next are new late-discovery adoptee tales, and stories of secret daughters finding their strength through difficult reunions. In addition, Christine will share the highlights of her recent trip to San Francisco where she met a few adoptee tale writers and many others who are making a difference in the lives of adoptees at the American Adoption Congress Conference.

We’ve also reorganized our “News” section, which is now “Secret Talk.” Within it, you’ll find posts grouped under: Words of Wisdom, Legislation News, Secrets in Review, and Blog posts (which are our thoughts on various adoption related topics).

Please be sure to subscribe (here on our sidebar) to receive the latest Adoptee Tales and updates. And like us on Facebook to connect with other adoptees— help us reach 600 “likes” this week.

Thank you for spreading the word about Secret Sons & Daughters. We hit over 20,000 views yesterday!

Best wishes,

Heather & Christine
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An Ohio Adoptee Finds Her Way Home to Herself

Saturday, April 12th, 2014

Nine months before I was born, my parents had a son who only lived for one day. They had had another son four years prior. My mother had a RH—negative blood factor. Back in the early 1960s, that usually meant that a woman couldn’t have any more “natural” children. My parents desperately wanted a second child, so they turned to adoption, and took me home when I was three-months-old.

From a young age, I knew I was adopted. My parents told me I was “special.” For a long while, I thought that was true.

I’m not sure when I began to feel differently—maybe it was when I saw my pregnant relatives, or when I had to listen to my other well-meaning ones say, “You weren’t in your mommy’s tummy like that baby is.” Maybe I felt differently when I wrote about my family tree in elementary school, or brought baby pictures to share with my classmates. Maybe it was all of the above.

I often wondered, Why was I given away? Yet, I never spoke of my adoption to anyone. I wanted to be like everyone else. I felt like I didn’t belong. Sometimes, that feeling was even reinforced. At a family reunion, one of my cousins told me that I didn’t belong in their family tree, and that they weren’t sure where they were going to “put me.” I felt like telling her to go to hell.

It didn’t help that my brother never liked me. Almost weekly he told me to go back to where I had come from. I don’t think he ever got over the death of his baby brother, and he blamed me. He was further challenged, and angry, after a severe case of measles left him mildly brain damaged.

My adoptive parents didn’t know how to effectively deal with the situation and sought counseling to help us both. As he grew older, my brother became an alcoholic and was in and out a jail several times. We reconciled shortly before he passed away in 1996.

After he died, I decided to search for my birth parents. I had had my own children by that time and was curious. My original birth certificate was inaccessible because I was born in Ohio in 1964. Nonetheless, I posted what little information I had on an adoption search website. A month after I posted, a woman contacted me by email and offered help. She charged $25 to search for records and mail them to me.

She found three possible birth mothers and I researched each one. After I ruled out the first two, I knew the third had to be connected to me. The woman who originally helped me indicated that this third woman had since had other children.

I didn’t live far from the county where I was born, so I traveled there and went to the Hall of Records where I was able to find birth certificates for two of her children. After that, I had enough information to go to the courthouse and search for information that might confirm my own identity.

The courthouse was full of temporary walls and half-constructed hallways. It felt like I was in a maze. I asked a female employee where to find marriage records. She asked if I was doing “genealogy research” and pointed me in the right direction. We joked about how long the construction might take, and I shared that my own office was going through the same process.

Using the information from the birth certificates that I’d just bought, I was delighted to find a marriage record for one of the (now grown) babies. I returned home, looked up the phone number, and chickened out when I tried to call.

My husband called instead, after I left for work, and contacted me several hours later to say he had talked to the woman, Melissa. Melissa said she didn’t think that I could be her sister, but agreed to talk to me if I called.

When we spoke, she said that my voice sounded just like her aunt. Sadly, the other baby whose certificate I had found, Melissa’s sister Melinda, had passed away when she was a child.

Before we hung up, Melissa promised to ask her mom for information and call back. The next 24 hours were agonizing. The next night she called and said: “YOU ARE MY SISTER!”

I asked Melissa to have my birth mother contact me when she was ready. I didn’t want to pressure her. Several days later, my birth mother, Janet, called. We talked, we cried, and then we agreed to meet.

I learned that she was a widow with six children at the time she met my birth father. Her first husband had died tragically in a car accident the year before. My birth father had been separated from his wife when they began their relationship, and he ended it when he learned of my birth mother’s pregnancy. He reconciled with his wife and moved to another state.

She had nowhere else to turn. Janet explained that her mother had said, “You have six kids, for heaven’s sake—you don’t need another one.” And that was that. She had given me an “M” name too: Michelle Ann.

Not long after this conversation, I was on my way to meet her and realized that I had passed her house many times before. My heart was pounding. I got out of the car and walked up the sidewalk to the front porch. Janet had been watching out the window and quickly opened the door. She took me into her arms, hugged me tightly and said, “You look just like the rest of us!” I was 39-years-old and felt like I had finally come home.

Her home was a century-old farmhouse that had been lovingly restored. I stepped inside to find the wallpaper in her front room was the same as I’d used in my foyer. I followed her into the kitchen and there at the table sat the courthouse employee, who had giving me directions a week before.

Did I break the law? What was she doing here? I thought. She looked up and said, “When I saw you at the courthouse, I thought you looked familiar.” Days later, she told Janet about “the woman who had come in to do family research.”

Life is funny— it turns out that that this woman is my birth brother’s wife.

That summer was a blur of familial meetings—I met brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, and nephews. I was my mother’s seventh child. She had three more children after me, and she had lost three husbands and two children. I was the only child she had placed for adoption.

Relinquishing a child for adoption doesn’t just hurt the child. I learned that a birth mother carries that pain with her for the rest of her life. I had been born exactly one year after my cousin, and every year on my birthday, Janet painfully remembered that I was celebrating my birthday with another family.

When I first met her, she gave me all the information needed to find my birth father. I contacted him a year later by phone. Five years after that initial contact, I received a phone call from a woman named Candi. She said that her father had told her about me, but her mother would not allow him to remain in contact. Candi and I corresponded often and she eventually helped me meet him, albeit it was only once. He looked at me and said, “Not too shabby.”

He passed away two years ago. Candi and I have kept in touch ever since. Another sister never wanted anything to do with me.

Before I began this journey, I was angry for many years. I was angry at my birth parents for giving me away. I was angry with my adoptive parents for adopting me; and I was angry with people who grew up in “normal” families.

Once I found my birth family, I moved past the anger, and am now a much happier person. I have wonderful relationships with my birth mother and siblings, albeit I think adopted children never quite fully fit into either family. I didn’t grow up with them, so we don’t share the same memories, and they can’t identify with the life that I had, since I grew up in the suburbs and they grew up on a farm.

My adoptive parents met my birth mother, too, and welcomed her into our family. In 2003, four years after my reunion, my father passed away. My mother passed in 2009.

From where I stand today, only one remaining thing angers me about my adoption—when I first searched for my birth family, I had to petition the courts to get my original birth record and I was denied.

I’m not the only one who has suffered. There are millions of us in the United States who have no access to this most basic of possessions —a birth certificate. I’m very thankful that Ohio has moved forward and will soon allow adoptees access to their pasts.

Image credit: Molly as a child with her family.

Thanks for visiting our online community. In addition to stories like this one, you can find valuable resources, discover your rights to your original birth certificate, meet other adoptees, and join the discussion by commenting (below) or on our Facebook page.

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Paige Strickland, Author of “Akin to the Truth: A Memoir of Adoption and Identity,” Speaks About Self-Publishing Her Book

Friday, April 4th, 2014

Author, Paige Strickland, answers questions from the co-founders of Secret Sons and Daughters on how to self-publish an adoption memoir.

Secret Sons & Daughters: What prompted you to write a memoir about your adoption? 

Paige: When my kids and I visited my mom’s house during the summer of 2002, they grew curious about my complex family history after they viewed some of our old slides. For the first time, my kids wanted to hear all the details of my youth, including the “bad” fashion tastes of the ‘70’s.

I’ve always enjoyed writing, but it wasn’t until that same summer when I enrolled my kids in a daily, three-hour summer course that I found the time to write more seriously. My project began as a document of family trees and stories for my kids, but over time, it grew into much more.

Secret Sons & Daughters: What part of your adoption experience did you choose to focus on most?

Paige: My story reflects how it felt to be raised as an adopted kid in the 1960’s through the 1980’s, a time when adoption was more shameful. I also cover my search experience and what it was like to finally find my biological family members in 1987 and 1988.

Secret Sons & Daughters: What was the easiest part of your writing process?

Paige: I was truly motivated to write, and as an adoptee, I have the firsthand knowledge and expertise to convey how it feels to be adopted.

Secret Sons & Daughters: What was the most difficult part? 

Paige: Dealing with the daily distractions of life. When I started to write this book, my kids were in school. Although they were old enough to entertain themselves, I was also working at a time consuming job. It was hard to find the energy to teach to the best of my ability and give my children the attention they deserved.

Secret Sons & Daughters:  Who encouraged and supported you the most during the writing process?

Paige: My husband, our kids, my sisters and friends all helped in various ways, including serving as first readers. I also hired a professional editor and joined a local writing group called Writing Workshop-Workshop, which is a spin-off of the Cincinnati Tri-State Writers Group. I highly recommend joining a writing group. They provide invaluable feedback.

Secret Sons & Daughters: Through the process of writing your memoir, did you discover something about yourself, or about the relationships you shared through the years with your families?

Paige: As I wrote my memoir, I began to realize just how dominant my adoptive dad really was. He had always been that way, but through the process of writing, I was able to see it much more clearly.

Writing got a lot of “garbage” out of my system. I wrote for me. However, I had to really soul search during the editing process.  For example, writing about my father was tricky, but in the end I wanted my story to be honest, so he had to be in there. There were other things too that I had to decide if I should mention and consider what sort of impression I wanted to leave on my readers. That thinking ties very closely to the typical adoptee mentality of, ‘I don’t want to offend anyone, lest they reject me.’ I hope I struck a happy medium.

Secret Sons & Daughters: What authors inspired you?

Paige: I’ve been most inspired recently by other memoirists. Right before I began writing my book, I had read Angela’s Ashes by the late Frank McCourt. I loved his style of writing about the past in the present tense. I think he was brave to disclose so much about himself and his family. He was also a teacher, so I thought if this guy could do it, so could I!

I enjoy books by Jeanette Walls, The Glass Castle in particular. I like how she presented her father-daughter relationship. That meant a lot to me because I also have a similar theme. Jennifer Lauck’s books, Lost and Blackbird were great ones as well. I read a lot of other adoption-themed memoirs as I continued to write. Though I read these books and many others for my professional growth as a writer, they also entertained me.

Secret Sons & Daughters: How long did it take you to complete your memoir? 

Paige: I began the project in the summer of 2002, and I wrote during every school vacation through June 2008. I edited until May of 2012, let my editor have her turn with it, and then I did a few more pass-throughs before going live. I  released my memoir on the Kindle and iPad on September 15, 2013. The printed version was released one week later on September 23.

Secret Sons & Daughters: Why did you choose to self-publish your memoir? 

Paige: For about 18 months, I queried over 100 agents through Querytracker.net. A few agents/agencies requested sample chapters, but beyond that, I had no further luck. I attempted this query during the downturn of our economy, and quite a few of my rejection messages stated that the agents could not afford to take on additional clients at the time. I am not famous, nor do I have special connections, so I figured my chances of being published with a traditional publishing house were pretty slim. When I had exhausted this route, I decided to take the independent one instead.

Secret Sons & Daughters: How do you self-publish a memoir—what are the steps?

Paige: I don’t know if there is more than one way, but I do know the answer to this is based on your goals. If your goal is to write a family history document alone, you can use a “vanity press” or small local publisher and have print copies made for your relatives. It typically costs between $100 and $1,000, depending on how many copies you order.

If you have enough of a story from which you can create a plot, conflict, and interesting characters to read more like literature, then you may be able to query traditional publishers, or try your hand at independent publishing.

If an agent or traditional publisher accepts your work, you sign over many of your decisions for the sake of getting published. The publisher and editors take over from there, often changing a title, selecting a cover image, and other potential changes. You may lose much of your creative control in the process.

I used 99 Designs to create my book cover. Nelly was my talented cover designer. Design costs run between $100-$600.

Next, I secured a Bowker—ISBN numbers for my iPad, Kindle and print editions of the book for $250. I also created accounts at Amazon Kindle, CreateSpace, and Apple.

Secret Sons & Daughters: Where can your memoir be purchased?

Paige: At this current time, it is available through the Apple iBooks store and on Amazon.com. Two local stores in my hometown of Cincinnati carry it as well: The Bookshelf in Madeira and The Booksellers on Fountain Square. I’m in the process of having printed editions available in retail stores like Barnes and Noble. For now, my memoir in print can be ordered online via BarnesandNoble.com, but not for Nooks.

Secret Sons & Daughters:  Paige, thanks so much for taking the time to share what it was like to write and self-publish your memoir.

 

 

New Era for Ohio Adoptees Began Today

Thursday, March 20th, 2014

Becky Drinnen’s adoption was finalized in mid-December, 1963, just weeks before Ohio began sealing birth records on January 1, 1964. She has had her original birth certificate since 1981, what she calls “important proof of my identity.” What if her adoption had been delayed just a few weeks? “My birth mother would have signed the same documents, my adoptive parents would have signed the same documents, yet I would not have had access to my original birth certificate,” she said. “Which strikes me as completely ridiculous, and illustrates the ridiculousness of the tiered access laws.”

The first step in eliminating those tiers, and creating equal access for Ohio adoptees, began today.  On December 19, 2013, Ohio Governor John Kasich signed Substitute Senate Bill 23 into law, granting 400,000 adoptees born January 1, 1964 through September 18, 1996 access to their original birth certificates. The law has two key dates.

Between today, March 20, 2014, and March 19, 2015, birth parents may file a “Contact Preference” form or a “Birth Parent Name Redaction” form.  The redaction form allows a birth parent to have his or her name removed from the original birth certificate prior to its requested release. If a birth parent chooses to submit the form, a complete social/medical history form must also be submitted. All forms are voluntary, and if the handful of states that have enacted similar legislation are an indicator, a very small percentage of birth parents choose to redact.

Once this waiting period is complete, adoptees can apply for their original birth certificates beginning March 20, 2015.

This bill is 25 years in the making and the result of several dedicated people, many of whom worked with Adoption Equity Ohio and it’s prime sponsor Adoption Network Cleveland. One of those dedicated people is Betsie Norris, Executive Director of Adoption Network Cleveland, and an adoptee whose father was partially responsible not only for Ohio’s sealed records practice, but also for its reversal many years later when he testified in support of the practice’s demise.

Ms. Norris searched and was reunited with her birthparents in 1986. Much to her surprise she found that her birth mother and birth father had married and had three sons. They welcomed her in to their family. In 1988, she founded Adoption Network Cleveland to provide support and assistance to others and decrease secrecy in adoption.  “Secrecy had been so powerful,” she said. “I was steadfast in wanting to create a discourse between all three sides.” Over the years, Adoption Network Cleveland has assisted in more than 1,850 adoptee-birthparent reunions.

Ms. Norris has also worked on open access legislation since 1989, and was thrilled that the bill passed virtually unanimously with bipartisan support. In addition, she said, “Ohio is the only state thus far to have a Right to Life group support the legislation.”

Adoption Network Cleveland’s excellent resource page provides birth parents and adoptees with information on what to do and when in terms of the new law.

Ohio adoptees can celebrate the new law at the 38th Cleveland International Film Festival (CIFF) next Tuesday and Wednesday, March 25 and 26, when two documentary films by Jean Strauss will be shown together:

An Adoptee ROARed in Ohio is a short documentary that reveals the interesting story behind Ohio’s sealed records, and how Betsie Norris worked tirelessly to change a system her own father had inadvertently created; and A Simple Piece of Paper, a moving documentary that follows more than a dozen individuals as they apply to the State of Illinois to discover the truth about their origins. The latter offers a preview of what could be in store for Ohio adoptees. Tickets are available here or by calling: 877-304-3456. Use discount code “ADOPT” to save $2.00 off the $14.00 admission price.

Nine states have passed similar legislation. Details are available on our Restored Access States page. In addition, New JerseyNew YorkConnecticut, Pennsylvania, and Colorado currently have similar legislation pending. To help support access legislation in any of those states click on the state name to be linked to each state’s version of Adoption Equity Ohio.

Kendra Crookston, whose reunion story Making Sense of Fantasy and Reality is featured on Secret Sons & Daughters, was born during Ohio’s 32 year period of sealed records. Even though she knows her birth parents’ names, she says that when the time comes, she’ll be in line for her record. “To many, I can imagine, the point must seem moot. I can assure you, it is not,” she said. “My existing birth certificate reflects little truth about my birth, and my original one is another piece to a life long puzzle.”

 

Making Sense of Fantasy and Reality

Monday, February 3rd, 2014

Divided loyalties, unforeseen consequences, joy, loss—California daughter, Kendra Crookston, discovers that reunions have many seasons. 

As a child, I spent much of my time wondering about my origins. Initially, I perceived myself as quite different from my parents. My mom and dad were, and still are, disciplined, conservative, and heavily involved in local politics. On the other hand, I was an oddball—free-spirited and with a wish to never conform.

Through those years, I recall feeling badly for my mom and dad because they could not conceive a child of their own. They are both smart and generous, and I grieved because they could not create a biological person to take after them.

Perhaps my sadness had stemmed from a belief that I paled in comparison to that imagined child. I think he/she would have been a math whiz, someone who knew the value of a dollar, and a good decision maker. As I type here, the tears run down my face. I longed for them to have the child I thought they deserved.

My parents, however, always described my adoption as a blessing. They provided very few stipulations to the adoption agency, and had waited years to become my mom and dad.

All in all, I had a happy childhood. I was close to my many cousins and they accepted me for me.  My parents referred to me as “traveller”—a child who had never met a stranger.

As I matured, I talked to my parents about everything except strong feelings. They never fought, nor did they seem to share their feelings with one another, so I was unaware if they were ever ill, hurt, or sad. Therefore, I had plenty of room for fantasizing. I wondered who my birth family was, and who I really was.  My mind spun a patchwork of romantic and catastrophic possibilities.

I only knew that I had been born in California, and placed with my adoptive parents in Ohio. Why Ohio?

I remember wondering if my birth mother was a movie star (I was from California after all), and on the bad days I imagined I came from a family who couldn’t care for me. My parents always joked that I had crawled from California to Ohio as an infant. It took decades before I would uncover the truth of that trek.

The few times I mentioned searching for my birth family to my parents, they said they’d help me when the timing was right. I was twenty-one years old, living on campus, and about to graduate from an Ohio college with a useless degree in the study of people when I was finally ready. My parents and I went to a restaurant and discussed the cost of a search. They offered to split the bill.

With the help of Adoption Network Cleveland, I hired a private investigator. In three days, the investigator located my birth mother by combing through California voting records.  Being the impulsive person that I am, I immediately called the given number.

After a few rings, a woman answered. “I’m one of Karen’s high school friends.” I stuttered and lied.

“Karen doesn’t need any old friends,” the voice replied and then abruptly hung up.

I sat befuddled, staring at the receiver. A few minutes later, my roommate and longtime friend poured me a glass of champagne. I called again and nervously said, “Um, I’m Karen’s daughter.”

The woman sighed, “Oh, you must be Shannon.” Hearing the sound of my original name hit me hard. I had never heard it before. Numbness swept through my body, followed by an odd combination of excitement and panic, which was all the more heightened because of the woman—who was this woman? She didn’t sound pleased.

She rambled about some birth sister having a baby, and said she’d try to get in touch with someone. Finally, I realized I was speaking to my birth mother’s abusive ex-husband’s new wife. Maybe that’s why she was abrupt.

Hours later, my phone rang. For the remainder of the night, I spoke with my birth mother and birth sister, Chantel, who had been born three years after me.

The following day, I boarded a plane to California. My birth mother paid close to $2,500.00 for that flight. The experience was breathtakingly exciting! I arrived at the John Wayne airport in the evening and exited the jetway. I scanned the crowd and immediately spotted my birth mother who was visibly shaking as she stood beside a man I assumed was her new husband. She had my same skin tone, blond hair, and blue eyes. One of my many childhood fantasies had just come to life—that burning desire to scan a crowd of strangers and lock eyes with the woman who had created me.

Meeting her had an immediate grounding effect on me. I felt newly tethered to the plane. On that first night, I slept on the living room floor, curled right up next to my birth mother. I cannot imagine doing that with any other stranger. We have similar body types, which I later learned included feet that are shaped like hands. When I look into her eyes, I see a familiar person—a feeling that is truly difficult to describe.

Our courtship continued after I returned to Ohio. Six months later, I moved to California. It seemed natural to move across the country to get to know her better. In retrospect, my parents must have been horrified. The day I departed, my dad helped me pack my car. I remember him standing in the driveway of my childhood home and smiling. He said, “So, if this doesn’t work out, I’ll fly to California, and we’ll drive your car through Vegas on the way home. We’ll play some slots.” I laughed.

When I arrived in California for the second time, I discovered a family in transition. We spent the first three days in and out of the Pediatric ICU with my birth sister and her son. When not at the hospital, my birth mother and I studied each other. Soon after my arrival, my birth mother experienced flashbacks to the early months after I was born. She started to call me “Shannon,” the name she’d given me. My birth sister didn’t know what to make of me, and went about her routine as though I had never appeared. I spent much of my time alone.

Three weeks later, I took my father up on his offer. He drove us home, while I slept and cried, only stopping for food and to play the slots.

My birth family and I hurt after I left. For the next several years, we didn’t speak to each other. I tried to put the entire experience behind me and move on. I got married, bought a home and had a child—all without ever telling them.

It wasn’t until I reunited with my birth father seven years later, that I encountered them again. During the initial search for my birth family, I had registered with Ancestry.com. A member of my birth father’s family saw my post and connected me to him.

This time I was more cautious. My birth father and I spoke briefly on the phone. My husband and I made flight arrangements, and once again, I was en route to California.

My birth father’s daughter, Tracy, met me at our hotel. She brought me a mix tape and a beer. We bonded instantly. Had the tables been turned, I would’ve brought the same things. I think she is the funniest person that I have ever met.

Tracy, like Chantal, was born three years after me. My birth parents had both moved on to other relationships. He got married for the first time (to another woman) and together they had my brothers, Christopher and Ryan. Christopher and Ryan are half Chinese. Of all my father’s children, I resemble him the most.

I remained guarded around my birth father, but I appreciated him. He is affable, direct, introspective, and able to articulate his feelings well. He has an innate insight about other people. He had been on his own since age 15. His immediately familiar gestures upset me, though, so I focused more on my siblings.

During that first visit with my birth father, I saw my birth mother again. We went to dinner together. I hadn’t seen her in years. The meal was awkward. My birth mother made her desire to reconnect with my birth father a little too obvious. His wife was well aware of these advances. Dinner was tense, to say the least, and our estrangement continued for another eight years.

Before I returned to Ohio, my birth father told me he thought I’d inherited many of his traits. I had a hard time accepting his attributions, because if I accepted them, I thought it would in some way minimize the beautiful people that had raised me.

To this day, I visit my birth father regularly. I treasure those visits and my children have enjoyed knowing him, too.

Recently, I contacted my birth mother. She’s living in Maui with her sister after a stint in rehab for substance abuse. I try to put the past behind us and encourage her through her fragility. I also try not to read into the mystical texts that pop up on my phone from her, and instead acknowledge that while she grapples with mental health issues, she is an incredibly spiritual, perpetually optimistic, and Bohemian-like woman.

After all this time of collecting pieces of my story, I understand the circumstances better. My birth parents were minors when I was born. For six months they tried to raise me while living on friends’ couches and in their cars, until they realized they were unable to raise a baby together. As an infant, my birth mother once threw me across the room. She knew then what she had to do to save me and herself. I thanked her for making such a selfless decision.

My birth parents headed for Ohio after a few Los Angeles adoption encounters where people offered to buy me. That was one horrifying scenario I’d never imagined. Having been raised in Ohio, they returned to place me with a reputable agency. The day they signed the surrender papers they boarded a Greyhound bus back to California.

After all these years, some of my greatest blessings are my siblings. I am the oldest of five. My two brothers and two sisters share uncanny similarities with me: the same dark sense of humor, same sense of honor, and same sense of friendship. It’s better than anything I could have hoped for. They call me “sister” and it’s music to my ears.

I remain close with my mom and dad. They’ve been supportive to this day. My mom watches my kids daily. Whenever I leave my parents, I get a little sick to my stomach. Perhaps it’s some odd form of separation anxiety. I now know that they enjoy me for who I am.

A reunion’s reality is often quite different from the media’s portrayal. I have had some of the most joyous, authentic moments with my bloodline. However, I have also experienced some of the most devastating feelings of loss and disappointment, too. I strive to find a place in my head and heart for everyone. I still wrestle with divided loyalties and uncertainties at nearly every turn.

When I reflect on all we’ve been through, I see that reunions are lifelong and have many seasons.

Image: Kendra with her adoptive dad, Ken.