Our Story

My Husband was born in the late 60's to a young unwed mother. He was placed for adoption and immediately given a loving, forever, adoptive home. He was raised in a wonderful family, cared for and loved. He has always known he was adopted, and has always wanted to know more about where he came from. But the adoption was sealed and his parents had little information to go on.

In 1996, we had our first child, and this desire to know more grew in him. We then obtained what is called the "non-identifying information" for my husband's birth record. This document provides information about the circumstances of his birth, and general information about the mother, father and other family members such as family health history, hobbies, ages, occupations, height, complexion, nationality etc. without providing any identifying information such as names, places or dates. We were lucky in that this information was quite extensive, as it provided some clues about his background.

In 1998, Oregon took this issue to the voters: Should adult adoptees born in Oregon be able to obtain a copy of their pre-adoption birth certificate? This document would usually contain their natural mother's name, sometimes other information as well. For the history of measure 58, go to Oregon.gov.

The law passed, but was not without numerous legal challenges, and we didn't submit our application immediately because we were waiting to see what would happen. Eventually the law was put into effect and we submitted our application. We received hubby's birth certificate in March of 2001.

And there it was. Her name.

The non-identifying information, paired with her name, provided a pretty accurate portrait. We had a first middle and last (maiden) name, along with the ages of a number of family members, as well as extensive history about various marriages and other genealogical information.

I spent hours most days on the Internet, seeing what I could find. I had begun with genealogy because I figured that is one place where women are always listed by their maiden name, married or not. Through an act of God, I happened upon an extensive genealogy of her family. All the people, places and ages added up to the very last detail.

When I realized the odds that this genealogy I had found was her family were high, I began to search for her male relatives (because they don't change their last name when they marry), and after several months I found contact information for a relative who lived not far from us.

I gave my husband this relative's name and phone number and told him I was quite sure this person was a relative of his. Then I told him the rest was up to him.

It wasn't until the days after September 11, 2001 that he felt compelled and confident enough to use that phone number.

This relative, among other things, said that they knew they would receive this call one day, and was very excited to hear from him. He was disappointed to hear that his natural mother had passed away a number of years ago, but he was thrilled to find out that he had two half-sisters.

Another relative then called one of the sisters and provided her with hubby's name and phone numbers. She called us right away, the same day I believe.

His sister told him that they had known about his existence and they were so excited to finally have contact with him. We spent several years in phone conversations with both sisters, swapping photos and information, and getting to know them, hoping for an opportunity to meet them in person. Because they lived thousands of miles away, we knew this would be difficult.

They lived in two different states at the time we made contact with them, and we could not decide who to visit first. Then last fall, one of his sisters moved to the state (Indiana) where the other sister lived, and we knew then that we would begin planning a trip to meet them both.

That is where we have been for the last week.

I still have much to process, and my husband (of course) even more so.

But in a nutshell, it's been so amazing for him to find out who he is like, who this woman was, and to get clear glimpses of her through her daughters. It was amazing to us, as well, how much he could be like these women he had never met, just because they share some of the same genes. They have a different father than him, but there are still so many similarities, it's a real testimony to nature rather than nurture (not that I want to get into that argument, but it's true).

I will post more later.