I was adopted as an infant.

Two wonderful people chose me to be part of their family. I had a beautiful life with loving parents, and I couldn’t have had better role models, felt more loved, or loved anyone as much as I loved them. I always viewed them as my “true” parents. When I was very young, and they had told me I had been adopted, they said they had chosen me, out of all the other babies, at the baby store. I felt so special then, and still do today.

They both are gone now and I miss them dearly.

I had never given much thought to who my biological parents were. I always felt it didn’t matter, that their pairing—and my conception—was only a biological accident involving sperm and an unprotected egg.

But then, about 6 years ago I wanted to find some information on my family heritage. This was driven more by my young adult sons, frankly. I wanted them to have some info on their ancestry, as well as to not have to wonder about what health-related concerns they may have inherited from unknown genetics. All my life I had always had to draw a huge X across the “family medical history” sections when filling out the paperwork at doctors’ offices.

So I gave my sons and husband 23andme test kits for Christmas. Having all of my family do the test sounded fun. My kids could see the Japanese ancestry from their father’s side of the family, and also see what they inherited from me. The health reports sounded like they’d be interesting. We all took the tests.

It was then that I found information that would lead to my biological mother. The test results somewhat surprised me, actually, as I hadn’t really been looking for a DNA match to biological relatives. But the genetics test results identified some connections, including some with the same maiden name as my birth mom (info from my adoption paperwork). That, and some research on the internet and ancestry.com eventually led me to ID her.

You can read that story at this earlier blog if interested. It’s not really a “happy 23andme reunion story” to warn you in advance. It took two handwritten letters from me to get my birth mom to finally respond, and while she did acknowledge that she was my biological mother… unfortunately, her response came via her lawyer, and included her requesting I never contact her again.

It was upsetting at the time, for sure. After being so abruptly dissed, I had sworn to never contact her again.

But then, one day, I did.

The reason? Well, I wanted more family health information than the skimpy few sentences of info her lawyer had provided me. I had also decided I wanted to find my bio-dad. After finding my bio-mom, I was now curious.

So, I wrote a third letter to her directly, bypassing the lawyer. I waited a while, with no response. Sigh. I thought I’d at least get back a “cease and desist” from the lawyer. But there was no response, and more time passed. I finally decided to move on, I figured I wouldn’t ever know who my biological father was.

But just when I thought I wouldn’t hear anything back, I did. As before, the reply was from the lawyer.

The good news is that my bio-mom provided a bit more detail on her family’s health history (which I very much appreciated receiving, specifically to pass along to my adult sons). The bad news: she had no intention of providing me info on my bio-dad. Period.

Oh, and now please go away.

So I did go away, but continued my sleuthing to find my bio-dad. It’s fairly amazing (maybe even a little scary) what you can find out using readily available internet resources. I found myself searching a lot of old records on Ancestry. I even searched high school photos of classes around the time my bio-mom was in high school. There were only a few high schools in the vicinity of her family home at the time. The class sizes weren’t that large. I actually identified a few possible dads based on their photos. I knew I had to have gotten my extremely high forehead from my bio-dad’s side of the family!

One prime candidate (shown here, compared to my 3rd grade photo, one of the few pics ever taken of me with my forehead showing) had the last name Smith, so clearly that wasn’t going to be easy to research further. I found out later that he also used a nickname in school and life, versus using his given name. That made finding any info on him pretty difficult. All of my sleuthing kept turning up empty. The guy was a ghost other than the one high school photo I had found.

But then one day I did find a different Smith who had a father who was in construction in the same city as my bio-mom had lived. My adoption paperwork had said that my paternal grandfather was in construction. This Smith had died, and in reading his obit turns out he was the brother of the ghost! So I felt pretty strongly I had found my bio-dad, even though there was absolutely no way to confirm it. I needed him or a relative of his to confirm it. How was I going to do that?

I added his name (and my bio-mom’s name) to my 23andme profile, along with a note that I had been adopted, my birth year, bio-parents’ location, and a few other details from my adoption paperwork. I figured if someone DNA-matched with me, they might just read my profile. They might just reach out.

I did have some (second and third cousin) 23andme matches with the last name of Smith. I reached out to them on the platform, thinking that perhaps they could help. But none of them got back to me. I have always wondered what they thought if they read my profile. I guess it was a secret they didn’t want to get involved in.

Then some time later I received an email from a new 23andme DNA-match, a first cousin (once removed). Her email said she had read my profile. She confirmed that I had identified the right person as my birth father. She said, “I know who your biological dad is. He is my uncle, and he is still alive.”

I was so excited to confirm that the ghost was in fact my bio-dad. That cousin, and her mom, were so helpful to me, and so kind. A completely different experience than when finding my birth mom. They sent me tons of photos and provided a good deal of family history, and many fun stories about my bio-dad though all his ages and stages.

The only downside was that my dad had earlier told a sister that he might have a child although he wasn’t sure if his child had been born or was still alive. He had been pretty quickly out of the picture once my bio-mom’s pregnancy was revealed, she was only 18 at the time, and they hadn’t kept in touch, so he hadn’t heard the outcome of the pregnancy. With that said, he had told his sister that should a child ever show up, that he didn’t want the family to find out. He had been married for 68 years to the same woman and hadn’t wanted to upset her—or their family—with the news. I could understand that. I could accept that.

But I did at least want him to know that I was alive and had had a great life. So, I sent his family (those I was in contact with) the original letter I had sent my bio-mom, expressing how wonderful my adoptive parents had been and that I had had a blessed life, talking about my career, husband, kids and family. Just in case they wanted to share it with him at any point.

And that was that. I now knew who both of my biological parents were. I had photos, health history and some ancestry information. It was time to move on to other projects, and I really didn’t think much about him again until several months later.

One evening I received word that my bio-dad had passed away. I read the text while watching TV with my husband, and strangely, burst into tears. I told him, “My bio-dad died.”  His reaction was complete confusion, as he knew I had never met or talked to this man. Why was I so upset?

I got up and left the room. I was sobbing, and couldn’t seem to stop.

I sat down and re-read the text from my bio-cousin. She had attached the obit. I clicked over and saw the kind eyes of my bio-dad. I read the obit, about his life and his love for music (he played the piano, as I did for over a decade). His wife had passed a month before him, so I felt for his family at losing both of them. So sad.

I then came to the listing of family members—the children—he had left behind.

That’s when another wave of sadness hit. No mention of his 4^th child, his eldest child. But then, that was totally understandable, for so many reasons! Why was I emotional about that?

I had never met this person, talked to him, or had any type of true connection. It made no sense to be crying! Our only relationship was in strands of DNA.

But I still felt a loss.

I wondered, had they ever told him about me, or shared my letter? Had he known I was alive and well? I don’t know why it mattered to me, but it did. So, I asked my bio-cousin.

And the response was that he had been told. He had known I existed and had been happy. And while I can’t explain WHY, that brought me some level of peace.

My cousin also said that one of his daughters (the one he had earlier “confessed” to, that he might have had a child) had been told that I had DNA-matched with a cousin, that her dad was in fact my bio-dad. I imagine this would have been a shock for her to learn, even though she had been told a “biological child of her dad’s” might exist. I hope she won’t hold it against her dad in any way, but I know that family secrets have a way of festering. Upsetting my bio-parents or their family members was never my intent. I never wanted to cause anyone pain.

It’s now been over six years unraveling my biological family history. I feel like so many secrets still swirl around me, but also, possibilities. I have 5 biological half-siblings and many, many biological relatives. Several are already matches on 23andme. Perhaps they will someday wonder why we’re matches. At least one half-sibling knows of my existence. While I certainly won’t dwell on it, I somehow feel that my biological story isn’t finished being written. Only time will tell.