Introduce Yourself

I remember writing in this forum years ago but I said I would introduce myself again as things have dramatically changed in the last year or so.

I'm 25 years old and adopted. I always knew I was adopted as my adopted parents were very open about this and had no shame in telling me. Growing up during my childhood and teenage years there was contact by letters between myself and my adopted father to my birth mum. Again, my adopted father was very supportive in this whole situation and always encouraged me to pursue a relationship with this woman if I so wished. I guess the main reason for this was because my adopted mother passed away when I was about 8 years old.

Throughout my late teenage years and early twenties I didn't really keep in contact with my birth mother and I had sort of lost interest. However, last year I got a call from the social worker asking whether I wanted to get the ball rolling on a potential meet up with my birth mother. I decided to go with it considering that it might as well just happen now instead of going down the route of sending letters back and forth for another couple of years. So in August 2013 I met my birth mother face to face for the first time. It was an incredible experience and we clicked straight away. Again, my adopted father was delighted for me and was looking forward to meeting her someday too.

Unfortunately my adopted father, who was everything to me, passed away about 4 months ago after a short and completely unexpected illness. To say my world came crashing down would be an understatement and I don't think it has truly sunk in that he has gone.

Thankfully, my relationship with my birth mother continues to grow and she has been a great support to me through these difficult times. Her sisters all know about me and in the coming weeks she will be telling her mother, who is a very old fashioned rural woman, about me and also telling her two children (my half brother and half sister) about me. Im incredibly excited/nervous/frightened about how this will all go. So far it has been great and the cynic in me says that somewhere down the line it can't continue to be as good as it has been. I've always wanted a younger sibling (I have on older brother who is also adopted) so i am just hoping to god that the next step will go well.

Anyway, sorry about the long post but I just thought people would be interested in hearing what I had to say and it feels good to tell it too!

I hope everyone who is in the process of finding their biological siblings/parents etc will have a happy outcome like I have had in my experience.

LD.