Any Other Adoptees Here? (Posts from non-adoptees also welcome)

[Uli]

I was adopted when I was 3 months old. I am 41 now. My wife got me a DNA test for my birthday in January. We weren't expecting or intending to find my biological family, I just wanted to know my heritage and we planned to make a date day out of the results (which ended up being full Irish breakfast at a pub a couple towns away, and a binge of movies that took place in Ireland).

But, it turned out my half-sister had used the same DNA site and once I had that info, I couldn't resist the urge to search out more info. So, long story short(ish), I found my birth mother in the spring, we have been chatting over FB messenger pretty regularly since then and we are meeting face-to-face for the first time on Sunday.

The experience has been mostly positive, she's lovely, said a bunch of the stuff that lots of adopted people hope to hear one day. Early on I was positively high off how much we had in common - from what I can gather, feeling sort of alien is pretty universal among adoptees, and a relief from that feeling, a concrete sense that I and my quirks, etc. came from somewhere/someone was very fulfilling. It has also at times been very overwhelming, lots of coexisting but opposing thoughts/feelings/truths, moments of absolutely spilling over with grief, anger, gratitude for my life, and a bunch of other stuff that I don't even have words for.

Being in the same room as anyone with whom I share DNA for the very first time in my 41 years (and I really do mean first time-she didn't hold me or anything when I was born, I was whisked away to the nursery immediately upon, um, exit. She peeked at me through the nursery window once very briefly) is a big deal. I'm kinda spun out. Sleep and calm have been somewhat elusive this week as the day approaches.

Anyway, if there are any other adoptees here, I would love to hear about your experiences, particularly if you have met anyone in your biological family. A general discussion around adoption or, heck, even other stories of big deal things that made you feel spun out and overwhelmed and how those experiences turned out, is also welcome.

Note: My lens for adoption is specifically trauma-informed, so i would like to request that anyone who has not considered and/or rejects the notion of adoption as trauma to please post thoughtfully/carefully. It isn't that I believe that adoption is bad, I am vehemently pro-choice in all ways, meaning that I think the more choices a pregnant person has access to, the better. It's just complicated and I wholly reject the over simplification of complicated things.