Early Morning Caller

After three weeks of waiting, wondering, and worrying, the call finally came.

It was 8:00AM on a Saturday morning, the second weekend in September 2007. I was sound asleep, the dogs miraculously having refrained from awakening me at six as they do every other morning of my life. The rings were incorporated into my dream and I only fully realized it was the phone as the noise stopped. I checked the number. It was a 518 number, the area code I expected my birth mother would call from, and it was not a number I was familiar with.

There was no message.

Waiting

As the days turned into weeks, I waited for a response from my birth mother or an update from my "emissary." My greatest fear was that she would never call, followed closely by an intense belief that she might call and say "thanks, but no thanks." It was entirely possible that I would only have one chance to ask the questions I longed to hear answered. I had promised that I would honor whatever decision she made. To do that, it was imperative that I be ready if that call came in order to maximize the opportunity in the event that it was the only chance I ever had.

What to Do Next When You're Not in Control

I had found out that one of the people I had been searching for most of my adult life was not actually biologically related to me. I had also found out that he knew who my birth mother was and where she currently resided. I suspected that she would not be happy to be contacted by him, simply based on his characterizations of their relationship which did not sound as if it had been a happy one. He would not reveal her name to me so that I could contact her directly.

This was a control freak's nightmare.

Science Does What It Does Best

Once in Cancun, the test results were never far from my mind. Truth be told, they overshadowed the entire vacation. The first couple of days, I was able to push the impending phone call to the back of my mind because I knew it was too early to expect a call. I focused on catching up with Amy & John and Ellen & Bobby, having a wonderful time in the sun with Eric, and relaxing.

Science Enters In

I had spoken with the mystery man and he was no longer a shadowy figure--he was an animated, gregarious, concerned, relevant figure in my story and he just might be my actual biological father. I was convinced he was the man identified as my "alleged" biological father but only science could determine if my genes truly were related to his bloodline.

No Matter What, I'm Part of the Story

Lisa Blinn? Hello! This is XXXX XXXXXXX, I received your letter and would like to first ask you a couple of questions so that we can be sure we are both talking about the same event, ok?

Waiting for Contact

From the moment I handed off my letter to the Fedex man, the clock was ticking. I tracked the envelope obsessively, waiting for the moment that it was signed for at the mystery man's door. As soon as the signature appeared on my screen, I expected a call. Every hour that went by, I became more and more convinced that he would not call. Nevermind that it was delivered at 11AM on a Tuesday and it was possible he was at work, or shopping, or visiting friends, or doing any of the myriad of things that a person does in the course of a normal day when they are not expecting a life-changing package to arrive at their home.

Letter to the Great Unknown

After the shock of a credible response from my shot-in-the-dark classified ad, I spent the weekend crafting a letter to the man that could be my alleged birth father. What were the odds that this Cuban golf pro Lothario had been right near Bard all along? If he wasn't "the guy", would he cooperate and name names?

Below is the letter that I Fedex'd off on Monday morning with huge, flapping, crazed butterflies in my stomach:

Turns Out Someone Actually Reads Those Things

In the end, it turns out that all the research in the world can't take the place of pure dumb luck. In the end, what eventually enabled me to find my birth family was a fluke, a joke, a serendipitous chain of events that yielded me results I might have otherwise never reached.

In the end, it didn't matter how I found them but that I did find them, those mysterious shadow people, those biological parents, MY birth parents.

How Times Change

Probably the single greatest source of information for me when searching over the years came from the wonderful people on the NY Adoptees Yahoo group. They share their stories, answer questions, support each other and generally provide insight based on best practices and their own personal experiences. It was because of that group that I decided to write Catholic Charities again in summer of 2007 and ask for an updated non-identifying information report.