I was born in 1963 and adopted six weeks later. At the age of six, I was told I was adopted and to me it didn’t really matter at the time as I was so young. As I went through school and other kids found out I was adopted I suffered deep humiliation and embarrassment and started to feel different to other kids.
When I was 23 my daughter was born and the natural feeling of being a parent prompted me to look for my birth mother so I approached VANISH a few years later to look for her. I received lots of information about my birth mother but over the next 6 months had no luck in finding her so I stopped looking. When my son was born 6 years later I reactivated my search with VANISH but with similar results.
I went through the next 16 years still wondering every day, albeit most of the time subconsciously, about my birth mother. I contacted VANISH again in 2008 and after several months there were some negatives and positives but this time I was very determined. I did my own research through electoral rolls and cemetery searches while the support worker at VANISH did searching through The Registries of Births, Deaths and Marriages. She was very encouraging and I felt positive throughout this process. Finally I had a name, wrote a letter and was given contact details for my birth mother’s sister. She told me my birth mother had passed away three years earlier but she and I decided to meet anyway.
It is the most fulfilling thing I have ever done to finally meet blood relatives apart from my own children and it closed a void in my life after 45 years.
This is my brief story and I encourage anyone in my position to never give up looking as it is fulfilling to know where you come from.