[Uli]

I am so grateful for all the people who have posted here.

Chad, I'm so glad that you have been able to process your reunion experience into a feeling of gratitude. While my birth mother is lovely, I, too, feel lucky to have been adopted by my family. She was 17 when I was born, and while I know plenty of women have kept babies at that age and done a great job, there is no question that life with my adopted family was easier than the life she could have made for me at such a young age.

theoddz: I really do hope the laws change soon - the laws here in Michigan are similar to those in Florida, and the idea that a grown person does not have the right to access their own paperwork is beyond ridiculous. I never could stomach going through the "official" search process, which starts with me sending a check for $60 to get information ABOUT MYSELF. I am not angry that I was adopted, but I do have some anger at the adoption system, both as an adoptee and as someone who worked in child welfare for many years.

Femmewench: I can totally relate to the paradigm shift you talk about, While I have never consistently framed my adoption as 'not good enough to keep" (I always knew that she was only 17, and it's real easy to make an argument against trying to raise a baby at that age), there was still a major paradigm shift when she told me that she never forgot me and had always hoped I would find her (she didnt feel like she had the right to try to find me) - like "oh, i have always existed for her, i came from her" because my lingering frame for being adopted was always "I'm an alien, no one is like me and I don't come from anywhere that anyone else I know came from."
It's also affirming for me to hear that your mom wigged the hell out, though I am sorry you had to go through that. I made the decision, with input from my therapist, wife, and close friends, not to tell my parents that I had found my biological family. My mom would occassionally ask me if I was interested in searching when I was younger, and I really think her intent and belief was that she could help and support me if I ever said yes, but even when I was little, I had a sense that 'no' was the 'right' answer if I wanted her to know that I loved her, which I very much did and which I'm pretty sure she remains somewhat insecure about to this day.

My brother is my parents' biological child who just barely survived after being born 2 months early in 1974, and that was after two other super traumatic late term miscarriages. And then the adoption process is time consuming and an emotional roller coaster for adoptive parents, on top of that. My brother is VERY similar to my parents in both looks and personality, and I am just by nature quite different than all of them. So, between the multiple traumas only a few years before they got me, and the constant obviousness of my differences, and then I had what looked like very severe motor delays through toddlerhood (I turned out a little clumsy but fine, it's still a mystery), she just never really got fully settled and confident in our relationship. It caused a lot of problems between us for a long time, but as I've gotten older and better at empathy, it is absolutely clear to me that she was doing the very best she could the whole time. And when I finally gave up the desire for her to be able to process all of that with me, our relationship has gotten much better. I know that she would be hurt if she found out that I found my biological relatives and didn't tell her, but I also don't think she has the coping skills necessary to deal well with knowing that I found them. There is no replacing her, I have one mother, but I do not think she is anywhere near as sure of that as I am.

Finally: the meeting went really well. She's a lovely person, very down to earth, warm, thoughtful, we have nearly the exact same face which is so weird! But, she's not my mother and never will be and thankfully, there is no indication that she hopes to be. I'm open to a continued relationship but not attached to the idea, if she disappeared from my life I would be fine and the concrete, somatic knowledge that I came from somewhere and there are other people who came from the same place is really all I wanted/needed.