So my mum just gave me a 26 year old document...

[Kayano]

With all the information she had about my biological family. It sounds like a horribly sad story :(

'Kayano is the second child of her mother, the first little girl xxx remains with her mother. She received a great deal of help with her care from her parents but they are growing older and feel they have had their responsibility of the upbringing of their own children and cannot undertake the care of Kayano.

Mother: 25 years, green eyes, brown hair and 5'

Straight away I feel :( as I am 5'2, 26 years old with brown hair and green eyes. Did she look like me??

'She had meningitis as a child and although she attended normal school she was below average ability. Her interests are crosswords, baking, swimming and sewing'

I love baking and swimming too. How strange

The reason for delay in placement was that it was felt Kayanos birth mother was being places under a lot of pressure by her family and needed time to come to her own decision about the baby's adoption.

ive just had a baby of my own and this makes me sad to read

Natural Father: xxx 5'10 brown hair and blue eyes like my newborn! average build. He has had a deprived childhood in that his mother killed herself when he was 11 and he was raised by his father
His interests are motorbikes and motor sports

wtaf I was going to call my child Jenson if it was a boy! I love motor sport

Mother xx and father xx had a difficult relationship as he had not been fully accepted by er family and there have been numerous occasions where they have split up then reunited. He is also the father of xx

so she is my full sister out there sonewhere

I feel a bit stunned and I don't really know what! Ack!!!

Thoughts?

My sisters name also happens to be the name of a character from the tv show 'the oc' so I can't google her.

My mums name brings up zilch. It was my original name too.

I have the phone number. Going to call catholic care on monday

I hope all goes well.

Decide what you want, do you just want a photo and an update? Or do you want to meet relatives? Or the thousands of options in between?

I have a friend whose grandaughter was adopted 13 years ago, a couple of years ago a letter came via social services asking if she would like to recieve a letter from the child. There have been regular letters back and forth since - all via social worker.

My friend is incredibly happy because her grandchild seems to have a fantastic life, one that her other grandchildren have not had.

I kknow there is a system where both birth parents and children can register, maybe catholic care have that.

I have the number right here but decided to give myself a week or two to chill the hell out.

I have used that time wisely to eat obscene amounts and have put on 3 pounds.

Grrr wonders if genetically predisposed for easy weight gain

I am def. Phoning this week though.
I have an adoptive aunt who made it more than clear that she didn't really give a toss about me or my baby so been wondering even more about what it is to be family.

My mum said to ignore her. It's not actually adoption related as she treats one of her biological daughters badly too...

No idea what I will ask/ say but will update when I phone. In all honesty it won't be til thursday because I am shit scared busy and popular

Gosh how hard for you, I wo try about all this as DD is a straight surrogate baby, but we've made sure she knows everything and also see her bio mum once or twice a year. So far its worked well but I do worry that the what ifs might surface one day.

Do you have o ther adoptive family members you are close to? I suppose thinking about it, it's easier for my dd as she is my DHs bio child and therefore has a plethora of bio family members already as well as my side
Sorry, sorta thinking outloud!

It's a really difficult dilemma isn't it? Because once you start thinking "I wonder if that is genetic", you can start to think it about everything from whether you like hot food to whether you are going to get a horrible disease.

And of course the problem is that even if you trace, you may not find out the answers - because many of us who aren't adopted don't find out whether our tastes/looks/illnesses are genetic based, but we don't have to think about it.

Adoption is a bit "elephant in the room"-y (if you see what I mean) in that as soon as you start thinking about it, and noticing it, it is relevant to absolutely everything.

I hope things are ok with you this week .

Kayano - you need to be realistic in that your Birth grandmother may not still be around, but it is more than likely that your BM, sister and other family in their generations would be. With that in mind you do have time on your side to sit and eat chocolate think about what you want to get out of making some kind of contact.
My BM had wanted to keep me and it was her parents that had convinced her to give me up for adoption. I had grown up with a real downer on them thinking how much more supportive they should have been. Having found my BM I now know that her parents had both been made unemployed and were re-locating to find work. The following year, my BM had a DS, my Birth grandparents had found steady work, and they supported her fully, letting her go to college and get a good job.
As it happens, she named me after her mother. She looked after her too until her death (the only sibling to look after her - another similarity!) and never blamed her parents for not being able to support her.
So you can find answers, but they won't change who you are, or your relationship with your adopted parents or your relationship with your baby. You are who you are.
Fwiw, I look very similar to my B grandmother, more so than my BM, but our mannerisms are spot on. Both our husbands were quite freaked out at our similarities