In my research over the years as an adoptee, the one thing I've noticed is that the adoptee who is privileged enough to have their birth information is usually the one who doesn't want to know anything more about their birth. Those of us who have no information about our biology are the one's who want to know. Why is that? Is it because our curiosity is piqued by the unknown? Would having the information be enough for me or if I got the information would I want to reach out to my birth family? Perhaps that is why the Confidential Intermediary held back just enough information to keep me from trying to find my birth mother on my own.
Several years ago, when I sent letters regularly to Montel Williams, Sally Jesse Raphael, Jenny Jones, Phil Donohue, Oprah and all of the talk show hosts who periodically featured reunions on their show, I was home from work one day and I still swear to this day Montel was speaking directly to me. He said "if you've been writing to us about finding someone from your past and you don't hear back from us, it's not because we haven't looked. If we find who you are looking for and they tell us they don't want contact, we have to stop the search and pretend like it never happened." He apologized and went on to introduce the adoptee and her birth mother who were the guests on his show that day, leaving me in tears because once again, it wasn't me who had been found.
Does my birth mother think about me? Does she miss me? Does she remember what it was like to give birth to me? Does she remember my birthday? Has she ever tried to find me? These are the questions that I would like to ask her. Of course, I would love to have a relationship with her and maybe that's what she's afraid of. But I would settle for answers to the questions above.
I still have to believe I'm only a sleigh ride away from finding myself.
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