Adoption Week e-Magazine Article

Annonymous

Probably should start at the beginning. I was adopted at birth as well as two younger brothers. We were two years apart. Adoption wasn't really an issue. It was like breathing or eating, just something you were aware of but not an issue, very natural.

We did have a great childhood! My parents made sure we had pretty much what we wanted. Most of all, we felt loved and wanted. There was dance lessons, swimming lessons, swim team, gymnastics, horseback riding lessons. Then there was camp. I was horse crazy. I went to camp every year, basically for the horses.

When I was in my teens I went on a trip with camp, one week backpacking in the White Mountains, and one week schooner sailing off the coast of Maine. I never felt any different during any of those years growing up than what I would imagine a birth child would feel.

It was about the time I turned 18, maybe a little before that I started feeling 'different', not quite the same as others. I couldn't figure what I wanted to study to be. I rebelled and turned to bad friends and all. Ended up pregnant. I had the baby, a girl who is now 24, and married the father who turned out to be a huge mistake.

Over the years, I have found myself floating from one mess to another. I have worsening depression and a real indecisiveness about my life in general. About 10 years ago, I started thinking about finding out about my biological parents. It pretty much started when my middle brother was contacted by his birth mother. She had been searching for him and finally found him. My youngest brother decided he didn't want any contact with his biological parents but he did want to find out pertinent information about his biological parents.

It got me started thinking and wondering about what I wanted. Then about 5 years ago, I had a stroke, I was only 39. Through a series of events, most notably it took me a week to go into the hospital, it was never determined the cause of the stroke.

Now I'm left to wonder so many things. Is this something that runs in my family? Is there anything else medically that happens early? I have had glasses since about 5th grade. My eyesight has progressively worse, I think maybe more than normal. About 4-5 years ago they started sending me to a specialist to be checked more thoroughly for retinal detachment. My eyes being pale blue, having astigmatism, near sightedness, and high blood pressure; all makes me more prone to the condition. Is this something that runs in the family? I feel at this point I do need information about my family history.

It isn't anything against my adoptive parents, it really has nothing to do with them! The love I feel for them will never change. People try to explain to their children how they can love more than I person without changing how much love they feel for another. It is kind of a perfect example of how I feel, I love my adoptive parents and that will never change, but there is room in my heart to care about another, maybe just in a different way.

Like I said previously, growing up was idyllic, I couldn't have asked for more. But I have questions I believe only biological parents can answer. If for medical reasons alone, I need some type of answers. It isn't that I want to replace anyone or even add anyone to my life, I need to find answers about me.