The Wishing Tree: An Adoptee's Journey of Ancestry

My birth mother. The woman who gave me birth.  As an adoptee, it's the strangest thing to know that this person actually exists.  There is a real woman, somewhere, and before I was born, I was a part of her.  If you're not adopted, this is probably not so weird to you.  To me, it's the most amazing thing.  I envied my friends who were carbon copies of their mother.  They could ask their mother what it was like being pregnant with them.  She can tell them stories of their birth. That's a huge gift. So if you have this, cherish it. Now that I've found my birth family, that unfortunately doesn't mean I've found my birth mother . She unfortunately died the day after my birthday almost ten years ago.  I do get to learn about her from the people who knew her best: my half-sister, and my aunt and uncle, and other family members I'll meet along my journey. Now that I've seen photographs of her, I can put a face to what I've imagined. ...

Sad. Angry. Embarrassed. Rejected. Fear.  Isolated.  Self-Doubt.  Identity Issues. Inadequacy. Jealousy.  Envy. These are all emotions that all Adoptees face at one time or another.  They can experience several or all of them from childhood to adulthood.  I experienced all of these at one time or another.  I thought I was alone, but just about every Adoptee website and/or book I’ve looked at states these types of emotions are not just normal, but expected. Any information that I read out there cautioned potential adoptive parents that they may need to deal with these feelings with their adopted child at one time or another, which I totally applaud, by the way. The concept of Adoption comes from having the best of intentions.  The goal of adoption is to put a wanted baby in the arms of a couple who are unable to naturally.  That family can shower the child with anything and everything.  They give all the love to their adopted chil...

There is an answer to this question, but so far nobody knows.  While my aunt, uncle and sister knew that my mother had a baby in 1969, she conveniently told absolutely no one ! Thanks a bunch, Mom! From 1965-1967, my mother spent time in Oklahoma City and Missouri, attending colleges, and I was informed that she returned to California in 1967, but no one seems to have a clue what she was doing in between the time she returned to California in '67 until I was born in '69.  I don't know if there was something that drew her to San Francisco - then again, it was the 60's and Frisco was quite the happening place for young people. Since most of our ancestors settled in Oklahoma, both my mother and her brother, only a year apart, were born in Tulsa, then moved to Blythe, California when they were toddlers.  I've been told that Blythe is a small town in Southern California.  After high school, my uncle went off to college at UCSB, where he met his wife.  So in 196...

I began this blog shortly after connecting with my birth family.  Unfortunately, my birth mother passed away in 2008, but I have connected with the two people closest to her: her older brother and his wife, and my biological half-sister. The connection was because of AncestryDNA. I've been married since 2006 to a wonderful and supportive man.  I gave birth to fraternal twin boys in 2009, who were the very first biological family members I ever knew. I currently live outside of Boston, Massachusetts. I have always known about my adoption.  I was born in the summer of 1969, and it was a closed adoption.  I grew up in Northern California, in a small farming community called Lodi, and the closest city was Sacramento.  In the early 1970's, it was not very common to find mixed-race children, but that's what I am.  My mother, according to my Adoption papers, was listed as Irish.  My father was listed as Korean.  I was adopted by a Japanese-American...