I'm adopted and about 3 years ago I found my birth mom.

12 years or so ago, when I got married and was thinking about having kids, I did some research, got additional records from the adoption agency and found my mom's name (unusual name and given to me by "accident" in not very well redacted copies of reports from the adoption agency - they're not supposed to give the name out but apparently these sorts of "accidents" happen all the time). So I sent out letters to anyone of that name that I could find. One of the letters found its way to my mom, but she didn't do anything about it. Since I was thinking of having a baby at the time I was very interested in the whole health history aspect of it.

Then 3 years ago I got a call from this woman who apparently searches through adoption registries and does research all on her own to try to find peoples' birth parents. She does this as a hobby because her own husband found his parents late in life and she finds the work rewarding (she asks for NO money). So she called me and said she'd found my mom and she made the initial call to her. My mom had SO much guilt about giving me up that she had a hard time with the intial contact - but in the long run she has been really grateful for it and this has given her some peace about a decision she made a long time ago when her options were not great.

After our initial contact, we talked on and off for about a year and then my daughter and I drove down and met her 2 years ago. I have since met a half sister and her family, which has been fun. She and I are a lot alike. The three of us (mom, sister and me) all have the same hands - large, well defined.

It's been really interesting.

I have talked about it with my adopted mom and she is a little "cool" about it, but she and I have a somewhat difficult relationship anyway.

I did learn some things about health history. But I still have half of my biological background missing - have not located my (loser) father. Not trying too hard either!

For me just having more background information from the adoption agency was really helpful.