When I opened the message from Liz, it didn’t register at first who it was from. She immediately acknowledged that she was my birth mother and confessed that she had initiated a search of her own over the years but, similar to my experience, hit roadblocks since it was a closed adoption and records were sealed. Letters she sent to my old addresses were returned. She was comforted knowing I had been raised by a family who loved me. She wanted to open a line of communication with me, and I agreed.
After four decades of not knowing who or where my birth mother was, I was finally able to communicate with her through email, text, or phone freely. She added her perspective to my adoption story. She was stationed with my birth father in the U.S. Navy in California. They dated but were not serious. The timing was off for them. When she was transferred to Goodfellow Air Force Base, she began feeling ill and discovered that she was pregnant. She did reach out to him back in California to let him know of the pregnancy. However, he was not in a place where he wanted to start a family. Eventually, he would also be transferred to Goodfellow months after her arrival, but somehow they managed not to have any contact with each other. Because she was 23 years old and early in her service commitment, she made the difficult choice to put me up for adoption.
Once she was comfortable with her decision, a local Catholic church helped her find my adoptive parents. My parents were parishioners and were seeking to adopt a baby. In many ways, it seemed that it was meant to be. She and my parents never met in person—the attorney overseeing the adoption acted as the intermediary. When I was finally born, I spent the first two days of my life with my birth mother. When she and I were released from the hospital, she took me to the lawyer’s house, where we waited in a back bedroom until it was time for me to be brought to my awaiting parents in the living room. The lawyer was the person to hand me over to the parents. Liz never laid eyes on my family. Her remaining time at Goodfellow was not long. She would be stationed elsewhere and not return to Texas.
Over the last 7 years, we have continued to share updates in our current lives through texts and phone calls. She and her family are on our Christmas card list. She has my son’s school pictures on her fridge. She sends flowers on my birthday. But I worry that she carries guilt for giving me up for adoption. I have never harbored any ill feelings growing up or even today. I loved my parents, and they loved me. I can’t imagine what kind of life I would have if the stars had not aligned for all of us.
Graciously, Liz gifted me the blank section of my original birth certificate, which was reserved for the name of my birth father. She had minimal information about him, seeing as they had not had contact in over 40 years. She knew that he was originally from New Mexico before joining the Navy. And unfortunately for me, the internet wasn’t very helpful either. He has a common surname, so narrowing down the search seemed impossible. Reaching out to “close” matches through the DNA website was unsuccessful as well. I stepped back from actively looking for paternal biological relatives. Through it all, I’ve realized that life can catch you by surprise.
In October 2023, I had just finished my history midterm and had an email waiting for me. The sender was a young woman who had just received her DNA results and discovered that she and I shared a parent. That parent is my biological father. I had finally found the connection to my paternal side.