After A Week...
I've got to say, this entire process of having contact with my birth mom has been much less stressful/traumatic/emotional than I thought it would be. I'm fairly low-key to begin with, but occassionally stuff gets to me. This whole process really hasn't. Part of it has probably been that I've had a really busy week and honestly haven't had much time to even think about what has transpired. I also think that the fact that it took almost two years to hear anything was a blessing - I've had plenty of time to think through outcomes and responses, and for the most part, given some time, I can digest just about anything without losing it.
So far, the hardest thing to wrap my head around is the fact that I have all of the family's last names. I, of course, immediately signed up for an account at ancestry.com and began digging around some different sites. I've never had even a slight interest in geneologies or ancestries, so it was all pretty new to me. She wasn't kidding when she said we were Swedish - I'm fairly certain my great-grandparents were actually born in Sweden on one side of the family and, after many hours of late night ancestry research (which will fry your brain after a while...) hit a gold mine of information and managed to trace another part of the family back to the 1500s - also about 90% from Scandanavia. So far, that has been my only "freak out" moment - after a few hours of looking at this stuff, it was almost 2am and I realized I was looking at a list of 60+ of my ancestors names - first names, last names, birthdates, cities, states, countries-and it was one of the strangest moments of my life so far. I never thought I'd have ANY more info besides what the adoption agency gave my parents, and to have been blessed with so many answers was pretty overwhelming.
I guess the only other thing that has really surprised me is how hard it was to write the second letter. I wrote the first letter with the thought that if she never wanted to hear from me again, I was going to say everything I needed to say. She ended her letter with a tone of "I'll let you decide how to move forward" and hinted that maybe someday we'd meet and that if we did she was sure I'd be welcomed by her family. I'm really happy her family is OK with us communicating and am glad she would want to correspond further. Its just hard to know what to say, really. Not exactly sure about meeting in person at this point. It'd be weird on a few levels - especially the fact that because she lives about an hour or so away from my parents, so if I were to visit her, I'd have to do it while I was staying with my mom and dad which doesn't seem quite right to me.
Speaking of which, I did talk to my mom and I told her I got my medical information. She wanted to hear all about it and seemed pretty happy that I got it. I didn't mention the direct correspondance at all. I don't really know how she'd react to it, and figure there's no use in upsetting anyone over something that doesn't need to be upsetting.
So, I'm sending my second letter tomorrow and we'll see what happens!
So far, the hardest thing to wrap my head around is the fact that I have all of the family's last names. I, of course, immediately signed up for an account at ancestry.com and began digging around some different sites. I've never had even a slight interest in geneologies or ancestries, so it was all pretty new to me. She wasn't kidding when she said we were Swedish - I'm fairly certain my great-grandparents were actually born in Sweden on one side of the family and, after many hours of late night ancestry research (which will fry your brain after a while...) hit a gold mine of information and managed to trace another part of the family back to the 1500s - also about 90% from Scandanavia. So far, that has been my only "freak out" moment - after a few hours of looking at this stuff, it was almost 2am and I realized I was looking at a list of 60+ of my ancestors names - first names, last names, birthdates, cities, states, countries-and it was one of the strangest moments of my life so far. I never thought I'd have ANY more info besides what the adoption agency gave my parents, and to have been blessed with so many answers was pretty overwhelming.
I guess the only other thing that has really surprised me is how hard it was to write the second letter. I wrote the first letter with the thought that if she never wanted to hear from me again, I was going to say everything I needed to say. She ended her letter with a tone of "I'll let you decide how to move forward" and hinted that maybe someday we'd meet and that if we did she was sure I'd be welcomed by her family. I'm really happy her family is OK with us communicating and am glad she would want to correspond further. Its just hard to know what to say, really. Not exactly sure about meeting in person at this point. It'd be weird on a few levels - especially the fact that because she lives about an hour or so away from my parents, so if I were to visit her, I'd have to do it while I was staying with my mom and dad which doesn't seem quite right to me.
Speaking of which, I did talk to my mom and I told her I got my medical information. She wanted to hear all about it and seemed pretty happy that I got it. I didn't mention the direct correspondance at all. I don't really know how she'd react to it, and figure there's no use in upsetting anyone over something that doesn't need to be upsetting.
So, I'm sending my second letter tomorrow and we'll see what happens!
posted by everyscarisabridge at 7:57 PM
4 Comments:
Wow! Congratulations! It IS interesting that you are so calm about this. Maybe that's how you are in general?
I remember waiting for the first phone call from my son what a wreck I was. Jumped everytime I heard the phone ring. But, I am pretty excitable anyway!
Good luck - sounds very promising, and it is great that you already have so many answers.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I think there are so many aspects to this experience, and I think it means a lot for us to share what we are going through, whether we are searching, have found, or are choosing not to search.
Thanks again.
Come back...
You have taken the steps I am afraid to take. Congrats. Sometimes I think not knowing is better because my imagination can fill in the blanks. But not knowing leaves a lot of holes and gaps.
I wish you luck and admire you for taking the step.
I have started a blog about a book I am writing about my adoption(.http://mymindonpaper.wordpress.com/)
I am sure someday I will have to take that step but not ready quite yet. I admire your courage
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