Current location:	dani's apt
Current mood:	shocked
Entry tags:	adoption

today i opened my email to find the following message:

"My name is Lynne.  I found your name on this website.  I believe I am your birth mother."

as i read further i realized that this was not a mistake.  she knew enough of the details of my birth and subsequent adoption to not be mistaken, or at least i can say, it is a reasonable assumption to think that this is legit.  i had registered a few years ago on a online adoption registry, never thinking anything of substance would materialize from it.  needle in a haystack kind of odds, but what the hell, right?

i have always wanted to meet her, though never really went out of my way...life always had too many distractions and it so happened that PA had some of the strictest laws on the books for sealing adoptions records in the country around the time i was born, pretty much with out a court order, i was not going to be getting any additional info from my files that the case worker didn't share with my mom 31 years ago this coming november.  so, i kinda just left it go, posted on a few registers and moved on with life.  mostly what i really craved was to know who i looked like.  as i got older, family medical history became more important.  but i never expected to find out. 

i started thinking about it a bit more after my dad died.  i do no think it was a case of losing one parent looking to gain a new one, he can never be replaced and while i have a special bond with my birth parents, neither of them would ever really be my mom or dad.  but i think going through that process of losing a parent made me just wonder about these parts of me that were missing.  and wonder if my brith parents were ok. 

i am not sure where this email will take me, if it is really my birth mother, i am very hopeful about how this new aspect of my life will unfold.  she seems very kind and compassionate from her email.  after i calmed myself down, i wrote her...it was one of the strangest things i have done in my life.  surreal.

i have not told my mom yet.  she is in PA, i am here.  i know she will be supportive, but i would like to tell her in person, reassure her that she is my mom, etc. 

wow.  i am still in shock. i mean what is the correct response to "i believe i am your birth mother"!?!