Introduction

"Me." That's how I signed all of my letters to my biological father. He never knew my name. And yet he gave me life. I was adopted. Some might say, "given up" for adoption. As a kid, I faced tough questions from other children like, "Didn't your parents want you?" Or, "Why did they give you up?" Fortunately, my parents (the ones who adopted me) taught me to view adoption as a positive thing. "Your birth-parents loved you so much, that they gave you to people who could better care for you," they'd say.

Oh, sure, there were times when I daydreamed that perhaps I was the illegitimate child of Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy. But, sometime in my teenage years, I looked it up--turns out I wasn't even born when Monroe died. And, since my parents got me when I was only six-weeks-old, it was clear nobody was fudging the records on my actual birth date. Still, it was fun as a kid to imagine that my biological parents were really significant people, and that some day we'd be reunited. As I grew older, I learned that they were significant people, but not because they were rich or famous. For a more important reason--because they did the most self-less, loving thing anyone can do for another. They gave that teeny, tiny baby--a baby they’d made out of love--to parents who could care for her. I am now a mom, myself. I get it. Once you have created life, it's hard to imagine ever letting it go, and yet they did. It was the ultimate act of parental love. They knew they couldn't give me the life they wanted to, so they gave me away, to give me a better one.

I have often wondered what the circumstances were. How grave their situation was, that they actually thought giving me to a couple of strangers would be the best thing for me. As an adult, I imagined more realistic scenarios. Perhaps they were homeless. maybe my birth-father never knew about me. or, worst of all, maybe I was the result of a horrible sex crime. Most children want to believe they were born out of love. I held on to that wish. Then just before my 25th birthday, I got a phone call. My wish was about to be realized in a way that I had never imagined. My biological father was searching for me. He wanted to meet me. The secrets surrounding how I came to be, were about to be revealed.