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The Irony of The Search

Date: August 17, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Be careful going in search of adventure – it’s ridiculously easy to find.” (William Least Heat-Moon)

It’s ironic that we ever met, my birth mother and I.

After we found each other via Facebook, she told me of her 10 year search. She had done everything she could think of to find me, but with no success. (We discovered she’d been given fake names for my parents, among other incorrect information when I was born.) And although she had listed her information on several registries that specialize in uniting birth parents and their children, I hadn’t heard of any of them. I wasn’t registered anywhere. I’d never planned to find her.

But for being thrust into my unexpected life and finally feeling the need for my medical history, we probably never would have found each other. And we certainly never would have met but for an impulsive act.

Years ago, she had the impression I knew who she was, where she was and that I had chosen not to contact her because I was happy and doing well. (That was true. I’d known her address since approximately 1997 and had never acted on the information.) She held to that belief, continued living her life, until early December 2009 when she fasted, prayed and meditated that she would find me.

When she got on Facebook weeks after that to check her inbox, she was stunned to see I had sent my impulsive message 2-3 days after her meditation!

“You know, I’ve often thought if I were much older, I might not have done that…As you get older, you get more conservative, but I was still young enough to be a little bit impulsive.” (Kirk Douglas)

And I’d been thinking I was old, too old, an “old bag!” Thank goodness I was still “young” enough to be impulsive about something. You’ll never guess what I think I have to thank for that: my unexpected life.

I’ve seen firsthand that you can do everything “right,” you can do everything in your power to achieve one specific outcome, you can be on course and living your dream but you still may end up with a completely different life– maybe even a life you didn’t necessarily want when it initially became yours. Starting over unexpectedly. Seeking to create a new life out of the ashes of the old. Finding new dreams.

And it’s ok.

I’ve learned it IS possible to start over even when you think you’re old. It IS possible to dig yourself out of the darkest disaster. It IS possible to have faith, hope and trust a lot more and to choose to worry a lot less. It IS possible to create a new life and to dream new and different dreams than you ever have before. And it IS possible to be equally happy in the new and unexpected life; maybe even happier.

I’m living proof of that.

Thanks to my unexpected life.

An Impulse

Date: August 5, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

In December of 2009, I was checking my email before heading to the office when I had an unexpected thought.

“You should find out your medical history. As the sole parent and support of your four children, you need to know all you can to make sure you’re here for your children as long as you can be. How irresponsible of you if there is something you should know that might help you (or save your life) and you don’t bother to at least TRY to discover it!”

I had a brief debate with myself.

I had been adopted as an infant; blessed with wonderful parents and an amazing family. My childhood was fairy tale-esque…until my dad died unexpectedly in a plane crash when I was a teenager, and the family I grew up in entered its unexpected life. It was another riches to rags story, in a way, but it prepared me better than I could have imagined for real life, especially for the the huge, terrible situation I would face as an adult.

My debate: was it right to disrupt someone else’s life just for a chance at obtaining a medical history for me?

But because if anything happens to me my four children will be orphaned until their other parent is released from his incarceration, I pushed the question of right or wrong out of my mind. I owed it to my children to at least try to find something out.

But how?

Although I was adopted in the 1960s, and adoptions were very private and secretive back then, I had an unusual situtation. Mine was private. And thanks to my mom, I had more information than most adopted children at the time.

My parents had been married nearly five years and were unable to have children. They had checked into adoption and even had the chance to adopt a baby boy prior to my birth, but when they went to see the baby my mom didn’t have a good feeling about it. She felt that baby wasn’t her baby. So she walked away from the opportunity to get the baby she had dreamed of.

In the meantime, my dad graduated from dental school at Marquette University in Wisconsin, moved to Phoenix, AZ, and opened a dental practice–in the course of three weeks. And then, unexpectedly, they got a phone call about me. Some friends of theirs from dental school had graduated ahead of them and moved to Southern California to practice dentistry. They became acquainted with an obstetrician, and at a dinner party, the doctor told them of a good, talented, beautiful woman who was placing a baby for adoption–and of his quest to find a good family for the baby. The doctor said he and his wife thought so highly of the woman that they’d considered taking the baby themselves, but in the end, decided they were too close to the situation.

My parents’ friends said, “We know someone to adopt that baby!” and put my parents in touch with the doctor. And within that same three week time period of major life changes, unexpectedly my parents were in the car driving to California to pick me up from the hospital. My mom said she walked into the hospital, heard a baby cry, and knew instantly it was her baby. She asked a nurse if it was her baby crying, and the nurse confirmed it. (I had just been given my PKU test.)

While waiting for my discharge, my mom asked the nurses everything she could about my birth mother. They told her the woman’s name, where she attended college, a general description of her appearance, and what they knew of her talents (that she was smart, athletic, and a dancer.) My mom committed it all to memory and I grew up knowing all of the information my mom had been able to uncover.

My parents took me home from the hospital when I was two days old–with a day at Disneyland before driving back to Arizona!

I grew up feeling very special because I had been adopted. In fact, I felt bad for children who hadn’t had that opportunity and privilege. I was happy, whole and complete. I had amazing parents and four siblings (all adopted after me). So although my mom always offered to help me find my birth mother if I had the need, I didn’t really feel the need for that. I had everything, and more, that I needed. I was happy. And grateful every day for adoption and the family I was blessed with.

As the only tall, blonde member of my family however, (everyone else, including my parents, is short and dark haired) if I had any unfulfilled desire relating to my adoption it was simply a curiosity about who, if anyone, I looked like. But seeing if I resembled another person on the planet wasn’t worth the risk of rejection OR disrupting someone else’s life to satisfy a question like that. So that’s as far as I ever went in the quest for a birth mother.

I looked so different from the rest of my immediate family, though, that in college when they came to visit me, a boy friend met them and said, “I bet you forgot to tell Andrea she’s adopted, didn’t you?” My mom replied, “No, I’m pretty sure I told her!” and he blushed like college men usually don’t–never dreaming I actually had been adopted. We all had a good laugh over that one!

Thanks to my mom’s detective skills at the hospital prior to taking me home, we had quite a bit of information about my birth mother. My mom discovered she and my parents had attended the same university in Utah, so one year, while visiting my dad’s younger sister in Salt Lake City, we took a peek at my aunt’s college yearbooks and found my birth mother. I then knew what she looked like.

Later, when I was married, I met a friend who was very curious about the whole process of adoption. She asked me about my story and, small world, found out her parents had gone to college with my birth mother! Her parents cut up their yearbooks and sent me every picture they had of my birth mother so not only had I seen what she looked like, I had pictures too.

The university produced an alumni directory listing names, addresses and brief bios of its graduates. Thanks to that, my mom and I knew my birth mother’s address too! NOT very typical of a private adoption situation that took place in the 1960s, for sure.

And then “suddenly” I felt the need to obtain my medical history for the sake of my children.

I decided that if I’d given a child up for adoption and if I wanted to be found (or was open to being found) I would put my name out there everywhere I could think of. Impulsively, I typed the name of my birth mother into Facebook. It was the only directory I knew of to begin the search. Up she popped. Full name, picture and everything. There was no mistaking it was her.

I wasn’t expecting it to be that easy or to happen that fast.

Now what?

What would you do?