Before I tell you how I found my birthmother, I should probably tell you that my adoption wasn’t what I now consider to be a conventional one. By “unconventional” I mean that my adopted parents got a phone call from the doctor that I believe delivered me. (Actually as I just realized that my birthmother and I have never really talked about that – I may find out he was merely the family doctor.) My adopted Uncle knew that my parents weren’t able to have children and he called them up and said “hey, I have a little girl here who is going to be placed for adoption, are you interested?” They were, the rest is my history and written up somewhere on this blog.

My Uncle had a relationship with my biological family, he was a Family Medicine doctor in a small town in Texas where my biological family lived and because of that relationship I had a little bit of insight into my biological family that most people probably don’t have. I don’t mean that my Uncle came running to tell me anytime anything happened in my biological family, but I do mean that when I found a lump in my breast at the age of 20 he told me that he didn’t believe that I had a family history riddled with cancer so I didn’t need to be too worked up about it. (Yes, the laws in place now would keep him from telling me even that much I think.) I always knew that I had that link there, it was kind of a security blanket.

After getting my first update, my Mom called my Uncle and a few weeks later she gave me all the pieces that she had and what she gathered from my Uncle. I learned that my biological father was, for lack of a better term, kind of a jerk – he completely bailed on my birthmom when he found out she was pregnant. (My Mom also told me that he denied being my birthfather and yet signed his rights away, but I believe I would later find out that wasn’t quite true.) My Mom told me how many siblings my birthmother had and gave me her full name at the time I was born, and being a good computer geek – I rolled up my sleeves and went to work.

With the help of some genealogy sites and a little bit of luck, I was able to locate my biological uncle, David, who was still living in Texas, not too far from where I was born. (The only information I had been able to gather about my Birthmother was her date of birth.) My plan was simple, and not very well thought out, to get in touch with David and ask him for my Birthmother’s contact information.

David did not cooperate with my plan.

I left a few messages (and by a few I mean more than one and less than five) on his answering machine over the next couple of weeks, and got no answer, and no call back. I got frustrated.

While venting to my Mom, she told me that David used to work for a newspaper and so I called the newspaper and while I didn’t get David, I did get some news. I called the newspaper office while I was at work, with a friend sitting close by for moral support. I didn’t get David but I got a very helpful secretary that had apparently known David and his family for most of their lives. I explained to her that I wasn’t really looking for David, but for one of his sisters. (I was very vague about which sister and exactly why I was looking for her – something that astounds me when I look back considering the information she readily gave me over the phone.)

The helpful woman at the newspaper office told me that David usually worked in the evenings, which is probably why I never had any luck calling him when I got off work. However through the course of the conversation she also told me that both of David’s sisters were married and one lived out of state and the other lived in England!

I grimaced as I hung up the phone, and looked at my friend, “my Birthmother lives in England.” I said, because I just knew in my heart that it was true.

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