If I had to guess, I would say that it took almost a month of calling David, of trying to walk that fine line between being insistent (and letting him know that I wasn’t going to stop calling) and yet not being scary or stalkerish. It was really frustrating because the stubborn insistent child in me wanted to call, daily, over and over again until I got David on the phone, but I didn’t. I called…left a polite, albeit vague message…waited for a return call for a few days…called again. After a while I suppose that David finally realized, I wasn’t going to stop calling, and he was left with no choice but to talk to me.

I didn’t expect him to answer the phone when I called and frankly I was caught unprepared. I was listening to the phone ring, standing in kitchen (I think I was dancing along with the radio) when he answered the phone.

“This is David,” a rather curt voice said on the other end of the line.

I was so shocked that I almost dropped the phone, I scrambled to get to the radio and turn it down.

“Hey, this is Joy,” I said.

“Yes, you’ve called several times.” he interrupted.

“I have, I’m trying to get in touch with your sister, Leah, I was hoping maybe I could get some information from you.”

“Why?” he asked.

I was stymied. It was extremely naive on my part to not be prepared to answer this question but on some levels this felt like very personal information that I should not share with “just anyone” and then on the other hand this was my birthmother’s brother, surely he had to know that she had been pregnant. The wheels were flying in my mind as I tried to decide, how to best handle this situation. I realized that anything less than the truth was probably not going to help my cause.

“I have reason to believe that she might be my birth mother.”

This statement was met with a long pause, and by long pause I mean that I started to wonder if he was still on the phone or not. It seemed to stretch on for an eternity.

“I’m going to have to call one of my sisters, someone will get back in touch with you, you don’t need to call me again.” he said, and then he hung up the phone.

“Right-o, no need to put Uncle David on the old Christmas card list,” I thought, as I put the phone back on the cradle.

A week went by, and I was a little despondent. I thought I had been given the big brush off and I was on an emotional roller coaster. Maybe he had called my Birthmother and she wasn’t calling because she didn’t want to have anything to do with me? Or maybe he hadn’t even bothered to pass my message along, since he had clearly told me not to call him anymore. Was I ever going to find my birthmother?

Before I tell you this next snippet, I should probably confess that I have an odd sense of humor and I have always loved “unconventional” answering machine messages. The message on my answering machine at the time was something like -”Hey this is Joy, I’m probably here but avoiding someone so leave a message and if I don’t call back – it’s you.” Terribly witty, I know.

I came home at least a week after talking to David, to a message on my answering machine. The message started with a long and pregnant pause.

“Yes, hello, this is Nancy, you were looking for my sister, and *pause* I’ll call back later.”

I cannot express my embarrassment and chagrin, so far my interaction with my biological family were that I had “stalked” my “Uncle” until he broke down and talked to me. (Probably, mostly to get me to stop calling.) Now my Aunt, who probably thought I was utterly rude and possibly a lunatic based on my goofy answering machine message.

Yes, we were off to a GREAT start.

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