So how did I find her?

Well.. someone asked, how did I find my birth mother.

Grab a seat, a glass of wine (or whatever your poison) and read on.

So after I received all my non identifying information I was interested in finding out who she was. Who this mystery woman was who cared enough to have me hang around in her for 9 months and then hope I would have a great life. So I contacted my adoption agency again, which by the way is The Cradle in Illinois, and for a few buck (like $5000) they would "see" if they could track her down and "see" if she wanted to have contact with me. I was going through a very bitter separation, was working two part time jobs and raising my child full time. 5G's was not in the cards. Even if it was, I feel it to be somewhat of a blood money/blackmail situation. Some folks just don't have that, and why should they have to pay for something if perhaps their biological parents are out there looking for them too?

So what happened? Here's a little tid bit that had NOTHING to do with finding my birth mother. It turns out that at the same exact time (down to a week period) when I contacted The Cradle my biological mother had also contacted The Cradle looking to see how to try to find me. Wow that would have made a good 10G's for them huh if we had paid. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

But back to reality.. Reality TV that is.

So one night after I put my little one to bed, I sat down with a bottle of cabernet or merlot and sat in front of the computer with the internet. I punched in adopted children websites. By this point I felt that this was going to be my last ditch effort to find her. After The Cradle extortion I tried to figure out Illinois laws and they were INSANE relative to closed and sealed adoptions in the 70's. I could hire an attorney, go to court, be granted the ability to see what my birth parents were, but if my birth parents had blocked me from looking then it was all for naught.

So a glass of vino in, I started hitting every adopted child reunion website possible. I put in all the information I knew from my non identifying information. I put information on so many websites I called it quits at 4 am. This was my last ditch effort. I walked away from that computer with carpal tunnel syndrome and most likely a hang over in the making.

I felt at peace. I had done all I could do and I was exhausted. I left my search right there at the computer and carried on with my life. Of course I felt that 1/2 of those websites I entered all my information into would sign me up for swingers sights and credit theft disaster so I used my work information for contacts.

Nate Fletcher (way back when he was a dispatcher for our dept) called me one Sunday morning. He said "hey Woof, your mom is trying to call you". That seemed really weird since of course my mother knows all my information. She would never need to call my work to find me. Then he went on to tell me that it was actually a woman from Florida who said she had found my mom and was trying to get in touch with me. I had no idea what this meant so I came into work. He gave me the Floridian's phone number and I called it back. I still remember to this day sitting in a chair at work where a woman named Judy had told me that she had a match. She worked for one of the web search engines and that absolutely everything I had put down in my online search matched that my birth mother had entered. I didn't believe her. And this also meant that my birth mother had been looking for me!

So like all good folks who work in a police department- I grilled her. I refused to believe that this is real. She told me everything, and then asked if it was ok that she give my phone number to my birth mother. ABSO FREAKIN LUTELY!! She also told me that after our phone call if we wanted to meet she would make sure that would happen. At first I was ecstatic but then I asked for more details. Free web search data bases don't just fly people around to meet each other without something for them to gain. The fine print was that we would have to go on a tv show. Deal off. Too tacky.

So anyway, she still gave me the name of my birth mother and told me that she was going to have my birth mother call me later that day. Denise, my birth mother, did call and it opened up this whole new world.

Now many of you who know me realize I am an optimistic skeptic. I wanted more solid proof. In the next few days, when I can get a portable scanner home I will scan pictures of myself and Denise. You'll see no DNA testing is necessary. Denise sent me pictures of her right around the time she had me all the way up to currently. She also sent me a few baby pictures and it is next to impossible to tell us apart