Category: Adoption

 I’ve been waiting to know who my biological father is for 54
years. It shouldn’t be this way for anyone on the planet. It’s simply absurd that any human being would not know where they come from. But for some of us,
it’s reality. And, as wonderful as your current life may be, you still want to know where it all originated.   I’ve had some sad days in the journey of waiting to
know my bio father, or know about him if he’s no longer living or rejects me. But long ago I decided I wasn’t going to let it
steal my joy.   Ziplining with my family in Mexico.Life is never problem free. So, we’ve got learn to enjoy our life even
though we have troubles. Doing my Titanic pose in Guatemala last year.I’ve been waiting so long to know who my bio father is, it’s hard to imagine not being in the circumstance anymore of not knowing who I come from. But that day is coming.

As I wait for it,  I’m going to enjoy the heck out of life. I make it a point to celebrate everything from the mundane to the
miraculous. 

I savor my first cup of coffee in the morning and actually
start thinking about it the night before. (Yes, seriously. Sometimes I break down and make a cup at night even though I know the caffeine isn’t a good idea.) I never get tired of the coffee bar my husband surprised me with a few years ago when I came home from Africa. It’s never lost on me what an amazing man he is to do this for me. Speaking of my husband, he’s been mine for 33 years of marriage and two years of dating. We still enjoy each other. Plenty of people complained during the pandemic that their partner was driving them crazy and they couldn’t wait to get out of the house. Not us. We found out, we still like each other.  From an itty bitty studio apartment our first year of marriage where we didn’t have two nickels to rub together…to now when we are blessed beyond belief…  We are still happy. This was my face when he surprised me on my birthday two years ago with an upgrade to a suite on our cruise. I was happy during the early days of marriage when I was figuring out how to make a package of four pieces of chicken last an entire week.  I would mix it with a few potatoes, onions and a can of  tomatoes and stew it. It got us through and we were loving life. I’m just as happy now when he’s surprising me with crazy nice stuff but if it all went away tomorrow, I would still be happy. It’s not about material things, but I’m thankful for everything.  I treasure every moment with my family. I can’t wait to do the
next thing with them.Family Cruise to Alaska 2019Jordan, Tori and Mila Livvy and Brody I adore our sweet puppy. Manchester Shrodes

Manny is my unofficial support animal, my official snuggle buddy and nap partner.I take time to really celebrate every success at work before
moving on to the next project.   Thrive 2019 at the Ocean Center Arena, Daytona Beach I am mindful with every class I take at SEU what a blessing it is to have the opportunity to further my education . I am
appreciative of every moment with my classmates, knowing that we won’t always have
these times together as a group. We will graduate in May 2022 and our lives
will go on.   

As much as I love to travel and explore, I take joy in being at home relaxing on a rainy day, reading books from another special space Larry created for me.   Books have ALWAYS made me happy…Yes, this is really me, taking every opportunity to read.Walking outdoors and bike riding always makes me feel on top of the world. Like I could do anything, and solve the world’s problems.  Bike riding in Alaska –  2019.Bath bombs,
body butter, and the coziness of candlelight make me really happy. Actually, ridiculously happy. I light candles every day at our home.I am fond of creating meals for our family or going out to dinner. I get excited just to set the table. Taking photos is a regular thing, like with the eggplant this past week that I made for us to celebrate Lexi’s homeschooling accomplishments with the kids. 

I don’t have to wait until I have found my bio father and paternal
family to enjoy life to the fullest. But that doesn’t mean I don’t really want to find them. There is always that longing no matter how happy I am. I’ve spoken to hundreds of adoptees about this, and find a lot of agreement on this.  Speaking of finding my paternal family…

There are more leads right now.

We are getting closer.

We never give up.Ever.

I have the best friends who join me in working on the search.
They have been faithful for years, especially Gayle Lechner, my favorite minion. She is still not done overturning every stone in Richmond, Virginia and I love that she won’t ever stop.  Gayle

We ask the questions and believe for answers. We pray to find kind, helpful people who understand. Most of
the time we do.  When we don’t, I remind
myself that nothing worth it is every easy.

If you are an adoptee and you are searching, I
encourage you to enjoy your life while you
are waiting. Our family jumping for joy, back when the kids were in high school.If you have already finished your search and experience
secondary rejection (been there, done that) you can also enjoy your life
despite that terrible reality you face. There is life after secondary
rejection. That’s another post for another day. 

No matter what circumstance you face, delight in the sweet
parts of your life. You’ve already lost enough. Hold on to happiness like a hair on a grilled cheese sandwich!!Fun moment with the Guatemala missions team last year. Favorite day! 

“The odds are that everyone sitting in this classroom today
will not make it through this course. Some of you will drop out because it will
become  uncomfortable to deal with the issues that will be brought up in
this class.” 

This was said by my professor this past semester in a
Christian counseling course I took as part of my bridge work toward my
doctorate.

The professor was right. I recall three people who dropped out
mid-way through the course. And among those who didn’t, it became emotional
at times. I cried during two of the lectures and I remember glancing over at my
colleague who is another minister about my age – a big strong man. There he sat
at his desk with his head in his hands, handkerchief up to his eyes, weeping.

What was going on? A considerable amount of processing our past.   

It isn’t always easy for adoptees to come to a place of peace regarding our past, or even our present, when it comes to our adoption. For some adoptees, they can’t imagine it. Until recently I would have been among that number.  I experienced what is known among adoptees as “coming out of the fog” in 2012.  Thanks to a lot of counseling and support I’ve come a long way since then. I would characterize myself as having peace in my life in general, but as far as having peace regarding my life circumstances surrounding my adoption, not so much. Recently though, things have shifted and I’m ready to share. Warning: this is going to be a long post. 🙂

In times past, I couldn’t imagine myself getting to the fifth
step of what is known as the Adoption-Reconstruction Phase Theory. Here is a
graphic created by Amanda at the Declassified Adoptee that helps to understand
what it is:

I remember first glancing at this theory years ago and thinking,
“Yeah…right.” I spent a lot of time the past seven years between steps three and four, teetering toward five but never getting there. As much
as I wanted to believe I would someday be at peace regarding my adoption
journey it did seem elusive. I couldn’t reconcile the actions of some people and where God was in all of it. Going there in mind at all would take me to a very dark place. 

I now find myself on the fifth step, most days. I say most
days because I believe there are times, taking triggers into
consideration, that it’s common to flux between the steps on occasion.

There are three things in addition to the eight months of Christian counseling I initially underwent that helped me in getting from
step three to step five. The first thing that helped was two Christian counseling classes I took this summer. Adoption was never mentioned in the classes. But I gleaned a lot that I applied to my struggles. 

I
realize a lot of people have no interest in taking
continuing education courses or they may not be able to afford it. That
is
understandable. I
anticipated receiving knowledge but was surprised at coming to a place
of peace regarding adoption. Being a student in the Christian Counseling class and gleaning insight on helping others, helped me too in my own personal life. 

The second thing that was beneficial was a theology class where the
professor asked all of us what theological concept we struggled with the most.
We were permitted to choose our own topic for a final research paper and I
purposely based mine on my greatest theological struggle.  Working on that for a few months helped me
wrestle with a lot of the “whys” I never thought I would be able to fully reconcile. Questions like, “Where was God in all this?” “Did He feel pain?” and “Was he sad too, over my losses?” 

I consoled myself many times with what I thought were the answers to these questions, but honestly I had never drilled down to answer the questions theologically once and for all. I told myself what I wanted to hear a lot of the time, to stay sane. Believing that God could have “planned this for me from the very foundations of the world” as I had been told more than once, and that he may have no feelings for my losses in the matter was unthinkable to me. I set out to find out the truth. My final paper was on The Doctrine of the  Impassibility of God: God Can Have Feelings Without Freaking Out. (I didn’t write the title until I completed my research.)  My faith was greatly bolstered, in what I discovered.  

As I studied, I was reminded: God is not a human being. He is spirit. (John 4:24) Almighty
God is not limited in his attributes as mankind is. The fact that God can feel
grief or sadness does not mean he is also subject to emotional instability.
First, not every human being becomes emotionally unstable when he or she is sad
or grieved. Surely the God of the universe can feel without becoming unstable.
Second, God is not limited in his attributes as humans are. We are not measured
on the same scale. Scripture says of God: “For my thoughts are not your
thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are
higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than
your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9 KJV)

God is a spirit and yet he has thoughts. It is not required
for him to have a physical body to have a thought. This lends itself to the
notion that a spirit who can have a thought would also have capability to have
a feeling. God has ability to do anything but contradict his own laws. It is no
contradiction of his laws that he possesses the ability to feel.   God’s capability to feel does not mean that
he is subject to out-of-control mood swings. God has the capacity to be sad but
not shaken. People sometimes have a difficult time picturing one who is sad but
not shaken, but God is beyond what our minds cannot conceive and can do what we
could never do.

Scripture reveals that he is touched when observing our
sufferings, yet still holds the power to redeem all. “In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence
saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and
carried them all the days of old.” (Isaiah 63:9 KJV)

I have come to terms that God allows things in our broken, fallen world that sometimes make Him very sad. And all along, He carries us.  I learned so much in my counseling courses as well as in writing my theology paper about the love of God — a new level than what I had known before. 

Pastor Linda & Me

The third thing that helped me was having some talks with my
friend, Pastor Linda Klippenstein, who is one of the pastors at our church. 

From time to time we meet for coffee and talk things over about life and ministry. One day I was processing some things with her about seeing the very dark side of leadership and how to move through that and she gave me thoughts on coming face to face with the dark side of humanity in general. Our talks were not about adoption, but as she spoke wisdom into my life about the topic of the dark side of humanity, I began to consider it regarding my own family
both biological and adopted and my situation as a whole and it gave me some new perspective. 

I don’t write here to just share what’s swirling around in my mind
but to encourage others. So, here’s the takeaway…

Don’t be afraid to wrestle. Go to the hard places and share your feelings, thoughts, fears, questions with God. Purposely go to the challenging area
sand grapple with the most distressing parts of your life and beliefs. Staying in
the fog is so much easier in the short-run and that’s why millions of adoptees do it. It’s
harder to force yourself to examine every angle there is and come to grips with what you really believe.

It helps to stay connected and open. Neither my professor
or my pastor-friend are adopted or have any close connections to adoption. But
they have both impacted my thinking about walking through the most troublesome
parts of life and arriving at a place of peace. 

This post is not a how-to. We all have our own journey. My encouragement today is simply to keep your heart open and press on.

So, with all of this…long-term readers may wonder — do I still long to discover the paternal side of my family?
Yes, of course. But it is no longer robbing my peace.   

Adoptees often face proverbial brick walls within their birth or adoptive family. These walls are fortified by misplaced
loyalty, secrets, lies, (many of  being lies by omission) and the like.  Many times well-meaning people will take up the cause of those who are committed to live in secrets and lies. Sometimes they are even loyal to the dead, which is the most bizarre of all. 

If you keep secrets, you don’t love.   

If you lie, you don’t love.

If you build a wall with people who have done nothing but seek
the truth and are committed to live in truth, that’s not love.

Why don’t we go where the light is…where the love is? It’ because we may not think we deserve it. That’s how I felt until very recently. 

I am determined to a fault. Giving up is not my strong suit. And, for so long I did not want to
let go of toxic people just because  I
went through hell and back to find them. 

My walking path yesterday

Sometimes we have spent so much time walking
in the wrong direction, we keep doing it just because we are so committed to
it. We started out on this road, and by God we’re gonna finish on it! We feel like we have to keep walking down that same path because we’ve
invested so much.  Do we really expect the wrong direction to suddenly become right?  I did. For a long time, I did. I’m also a believer in miracles, and in people’s ability to change. God knows I’ve changed. I believe other people can too. But sometimes, they don’t. And there we are on the same broken down God-forsaken path that we are hoping beyond hope will change. The difficult truth is that everyone is not committed to truth, change and growth.

Life with toxic people is a one-way street. It won’t lead you back to where you belong. And
it prevents you from spending all the time you can with the people who really care about you.
If they lie to you, keep secrets from you or expect you to play along in any kind of
make-believe world, that is NOT OKAY. 

It’s not normal.

It’s not healthy.

It’s not love.

Through some close
friends who have walked with me on this journey, I finally have it through to
my head that people who treat me this way do not deserve me. Life is too short to pursue people
who don’t have enough respect to tell you the truth and to live in the truth.

Someone who has to hide
their relationship with you doesn’t deserve you. Someone who tells people you
are a “friend” when you are really their son or daughter doesn’t deserve you.
Someone who tells people they have two children when they really have three
doesn’t deserve you. Someone who says they have one sibling and not two doesn’t
deserve you. Someone who takes up for their secretive lying family member to preserve their “dignity” pride doesn’t
deserve you. Someone who lies to you about who your father is, they do not love
you. Someone who gives you false clues about who your father is to throw you off track and preserve your mother’s secret doesn’t love you. If someone says they do not know who your father is, but they really do,
they do not love you. If they say they know absolutely nothing about him or the situation but they know even a shred of truth, they do not deserve the blessing of you.

Life is too short to
live in their fantasy world!!!  This is not as complicated as some people make it out to be. If they
do not speak the truth and if they do not support you knowing the truth, they are
not kind. They do not love you.  They are not a nice person. They are not a good person. It’s as
simple as that. God has more for you than this. You do not have to be a
suffering saint on behalf of your birth family, your adoptive family, or anyone in this world!! No
one has been given the destiny of a doormat and you were not created to be
anyone’s dirty little secret!   

I have finally realized that there are pure-hearted people who actually care, who
love me or have the potential to truly love me (and vice versa) who have been
begging me to meet for coffee and the like but I just haven’t made the time
yet. Guess what, I’m making time!!

I’m so sorry to all the friends who
told me, “you deserve more than this” while I kept banging my head against the
proverbial wall trying to keep a connection with toxic people. 

Welcome to 2019 and a gal who finally knows her value.

My friends and I are still hard at work on my father-search. I go into any potential paternal reunion a different person. This search WILL ultimately result in success
at some point. The DNA databases are exploding. They say it’s only a matter of
time before everyone on the planet has a first or second cousin on both sides. And more people are testing
internationally every day. More Greek matches are coming for me, for sure. I am going
into my paternal reunion in a different head space. My father may be dead by
that time my case is solved, but the rules will apply for any family member I meet. I will go into
this future reunion knowing my value. That will make for a very different
scenario than it did with my maternal reunion. I’m entering this from a place
of strength, not weakness.

Join me, my friend. Let go of what is toxic in 2019. Live in truth and love and make room for all the goodness God has for
you. Wonderful people will line up to meet you for coffee, I promise.        

  My possible new Greek
family member who for now here on the blog I will call Angela, has completed
her DNA test and mailed it in.  Angela has fallen in
love with me as a possible family member. I feel a pull in the exact same
direction but I am fearful. I am scared of my heart being broken and just as
much, I don’t want to disappoint her. And then in the midst of all these
feelings I stop to think, “Someone is this excited about ME???”  

The Greek Orthodox
church is the center of this family’s life. It runs very deep and just how deep
I cannot disclose here yet because it would give the identities away…  but I will
just say it’s everything to them. When I talked to Mr. Spin the other night on the phone for an hour, the majority of it was about the church. And he doesn’t even know I’m a Christian.  Angela wants me to come for Greek Easter
there. It’s not the same Sunday as American Easter. It is always a month later.
That makes it so great for me, as if I went to share Easter with them, I wouldn’t have to miss what is the biggest
Sunday of the year for our church here, to go there. Greek Easter (Pascha) is
also their biggest week of the year, and a time of great commemoration and
feasting. Angela was literally in tears telling me about it and wanting me to
experience it with them.

So I’m hearing all this
on the phone and my heart is saying, “Yeeeeeeeeesssssss!” and at the same time
there’s a part of me that realizes if we are not a match, it is going to change
all of this.

Angela says we can
always be friends and do all this even if we are not a match.I know all this. I’m grateful for all this. But it’s still going to kill me emotionally. Angela is already
texting, “I love you,” and I reciprocate and at the same time I feel afraid.
Then I tell myself, “At least I am not temporarily wrecking someone’s life this
time…”

In times past there
have been people who I thought may be my bio family and they have have DNA tested for me and if we were a match, it would have
confirmed their family member’s affair or something that at least one person in
the family would be devastated by. This time there is not that factor. There is
no one, at least alive, who would be hurt by a match on the DNA test. I am grateful
for that.

A friend of mine posted
this meme this morning on our leadership page, that failure is part of the
process and people who avoid failure also avoid success. It was right on time
for me.  I can’t ever find out who my bio
father is if I avoid approaching people, connecting with them, getting them to
DNA test, and facing possible failures to get a match. This will never happen without
me putting my heart out there once again.

It’s hard to put into
words the emotional toll this takes on an adoptee. Last night I called Regina
(who has done literally thousands of hours of research on my behalf and is the
one who found this family) and talked through my feelings. I said, “give me the list again of all the circumstantial evidence as to why we believe Mr. Spin is my father?” She did. And then, she could tell I was
really on edge and offered to pray for me, which was so
appreciated.

Last night I had a
nightmare that I didn’t have enough vacation time to go see my bio father, and
Angela if we were a match. (Which is not the case, I have plenty of time.) I
had this overwhelming depressive cloud over me this morning of wanting to stay
in bed and not get out, concerned about a non-match and disappointing Angela. And me.  My
husband talked me through that and I got out of bed and started my day.My mind is in a zillion
different directions today, but at the end of the day I’m realizing it’s
probably best for me to just fall hard for Angela and her family and embrace
them for all it’s worth. If it’s the real thing, I have given myself the full
experience of celebrating my paternal family in a worthy way and enjoying what should be wildly celebrated. If I allow myself the full experience of following my heart and loving them, I will have avoided cheating
myself of this experience due to the fear of “what if.”  On the flip side, if we are not a match, I will have to go
through the process of healing from yet another disappointment and starting
back again at square one. (I hate square one!!!) I guess it’s not actually square
one when you think about the fact that if it’s not a match we have ruled out
yet another Greek family in Richmond and have learned something in the process,
but for me if sure feels like square one.

So, my thought today
is, I’m going to allow myself to fall in love with this Greek family even
though there’s a chance I might need a case of Kleenex, a Razzleberry pie,
therapy and a week’s vacation to get on my feet again when the test results
come back.    Last night I started watching the services of their Greek Orthodox church on Facebook. I want to learn as much as I can about their customs and way of worship before I visit in person.

I love you too, Angela,
I love you too.

 Mr. Spin has the beginnings of dementia. This explains the merry-go-round of a conversation we had earlier this week. How do I know this? I called one of his
relatives that would be my cousin. (He has no bio children that we know of). I explained my situation and
made a plea for her to help me by taking a DNA test to reveal whether I am part of their family or not. 

I hit the jackpot! She is nothing short of amazing!!  She was overjoyed to help me. Before I told her anything about me personally, she mentioned something about feeling like, “this is the Lord.” I said, “Oh you’re a Christian? Well, so am I…” and things just took off from there. When I say we hit it off I mean like…we
already have plans to visit each other in person! She explained to me that although Mr. Spin has not been officially diagnosed with dementia, it is understood among the family that he has it. She had total compassion on my situation and welcomed me with open arms as a friend, and hopefully as family. As I sit here and update this blog at 11:00 PM, she is still texting me telling me how excited she is about this. It’s so great to have someone actually EXCITED about DNA testing for me, wanting this to be a match.

So, moments after our initial phone conversation I ordered a DNA
test through Amazon and she will have it Tuesday. I am pinching myself. If this is my paternal family, I already have at least one person who wants a relationship with me and has welcomed me with open arms.We’ve  been sitting here on what has seemed like a
dead end for a few years. Although it’s seemed hopeless, Gayle Lechner and Regina Zimberlin have never given up and have worked the DNA, the trees and the circumstantial evidence relentlessly. Even when I felt overwhelmed like I couldn’t go another step they kept working it. And now suddenly, there’s a breakthrough and a possible definitive
answer. In a few weeks, I will know whether Mr. Spin and I are a match.

And now we wait.      There is no suspense like waiting for a DNA test result. I hope I never have to know what it’s like again after this.  

I haven’t written here in a while. There wasn’t a lot to
report on my bio father search for a long span of time, and I wasn’t up to writing anything
about adoption. When reading some other adoptee writers, I discover that many
of them take  hiatuses from time to time for their well being. I totally understand and have been at this place for a while now.There has been some progress on the search for my bio father. It is necessary for me to be careful how I write about it, as part of it is someone else’s story to tell,
someone I have grown to care about very much. She is another adoptee who is also part of my maternal family. We are first cousins and we connected because we were a DNA
match. (Thank God for DNA testing!)  We have been in contact for a few years now, but this coming month we will meet in person for the first time. I am so excited! I am not sure if she will be comfortable with me using her real name, so for now, here on the blog I’ll call her Meg.  Although Meg is part of my maternal family, her birth situation gives clues as to possible whereabouts of my bio mother and bio father in 1965, and friendships,
connections, etc. that may identify who my bio father is. We have been pursuing
those leads.   The clues have brought us to a man I have been trying
to reach who we believe may be my father…There is a lot of circumstantial evidence pointing to him. But then again, we have been at this place before with circumstantial evidence. Nothing is definite until it’s DNA tested. I have been trying to reach him for a few months now, and he answered the phone last
night and we talked. He says he did not know my mother. I don’t know whether I
believe him. We had an hour-long conversation that just went round and round. He
is in his mid-eighties, highly educated and well spoken. When I asked
questions, he would often spin off into another topic. (Therefore, my nickname for him on the blog hereafter — Mr. Spin.)  I tried to keep
the conversation on task but he would quickly spin off into a what sounded like a
history lesson on the Greeks and the Turks. I already knew everything he
shared about the Greeks and Turks. A few years ago when I was studying for my masters, there was an
assignment that we were given where we could choose certain people groups to
study. I chose the Turks being that I know I have Turkish DNA. I often select
things to study that help me greater understand my roots. Since there is so
much I don’t know about my roots, I grab knowledge wherever I can.He also did several spin offs after my questions, talking about his Greek Orthodox church. He doesn’t even know I go to church much less serve as a ministry leader, so this was interesting. He spoke several times about various individuals in his church being adopted… “There’s this fellow at my church who is adopted…maybe you could talk to him..” I wasn’t sure what this had to do with my search. My thoughts kept fluctuating from, “Are you trying to deflect my question?” to “Do you have the beginnings of dementia?”  Mr. Spin also has an adopted daughter and midway
through the conversation he remarked, “I have an adopted daughter and being adopted
doesn’t seem to bother her at all.” Sigh. Sigh. Sigh. A million sighs. A plethora of adoptive parents seem to go to the same school and read the same script. I didn’t talk about being adopted other than once to reference that
I am. I never said I mind being adopted. I never said I don’t mind being adopted. I just said that I’m
searching for my biological father.Why does everything have to circle back to whether an adoptee is happy about adoption?  It is like their go-to touchstone every time an adoptee has questions. Me: I want to know who my biological father is. Adoptive parents of the world: Why? Do you not love adoption?  It gets exhausting. He said I could call again sometime if I have any other questions.I asked everything I could think of that would help drill down on things, so I’m not sure what to ask next. I did however want to say: “Have you ever watched the show This is Us? I really recommend it.”  Today I’m feeling a little wiped out after last night’s conversation. I feel like I just got thrown off a verbal merry-go-round. I’m going to sit on the couch with my dog Manny and finish writing
my research paper that is due, finishing out this semester.  (I have one more
year until I graduate with my doctorate – April 29, 2022 to be exact!!) School work among other thing help me to keep moving forward with other areas of my life even when this
feels like it’s at a hopeless standstill. I know it’s not hopeless. That is a lie I am
sometimes tempted to believe, but ultimately refuse to accept. I realize God is working
behind the scenes even when I don’t realize it.    My hope is that if Mr. Spin is my biological father, he will
keep thinking about our conversation and will not be able to let it go. I pray it keeps him up at night. I pray if it’s him, he does the right thing in the end. In the meantime, I will keep writing papers, doing my job, loving my family, and getting all the joy out of life that I possibly can.  I know that if Mr. Spin is my biological father and he ultimately rejects me, it does not define me.   

 I got this text today from Angela. (The person who DNA tested for me that I hope is my cousin.) As you can see, DNA results can come in at literally any second
now. I am a mix of excited and apprehensive. In my experience as an adoptee, this moment in time where you are waiting on a DNA result is so unique. In
one sense, I love this moment because hope is alive. Never do I have as much hope as when I’m waiting for those results. When results come back as not a match as has happened to me numerous times, I
do get the feeling for a while that hope is dashed on the rocks into a million
pieces. It’s that, “oh my God, we are back to square one…” sinking feeling.  In my experience when that happens, hope is slowly regained through the
encouragement of others.   

I am in a really good headspace right now regarding the
results. I can’t say that things have always been that way. There have been
times I have hoped against hope and known that if it wasn’t a match I was going
to be rather emotional about it for a while.  I am not sure why, but I am not
feeling that this time. Perhaps it’s because I’ve gone through this so many
times. Maybe it’s because I’ve gotten stronger emotionally. This isn’t to say
that it isn’t excruciating mentally or that adoptees shouldn’t take it hard when that happens. I
realize this is totally subjective as well. People handle things differently.

I’ve developed even more of the attitude that relinquishment,
adoption, sealed records, secondary rejection, failed reunion, and everything
surrounding it has already taken so much from my life and I don’t want it to
take any more from me.     

I want this to be a match more than I could ever
express. But if it’s not, it will not slay me. I’m done with being knocked down
and I am going to win. I don’t know exactly when I will win, but I know I will.