How I Found My Birth Family Through a Live Video on Facebook

On January 22, 2017 my life changed forever. I’m adopted I’ve always known I was adopted my birthparents told me at a very young age so I don’t ever remember not knowing. It was always something that I carried so much shame about. The fact that I wasn’t from my parents hurt me so bad I felt like an outsider like I was different like I didn’t belong even though my parents and my family are the most loving and warm people. I have had an amazing life with so much love and joy but the problem has always been inside of me. I’ve been blocking joy for all of my 42 years. Something good would happen in my life and then I would immediately flash to feelings of inadequacy and not belonging. I didn’t talk about being adopted very often just in the last few years I really started to speak up more.

I remember when I was in high school a family friend was also adopted she wrote an article that was published in our local paper and I thought oh my gosh I could never EVER do that. I was afraid of being judged. I was afraid of being more isolated and I couldn’t imagine everyone knowing the true me.

On January 22 on my 42nd birthday at about 830 in the morning I did a Facebook live video asking for help in finding my birth mother and what happened after that has been completely breathtaking.

Doing a live video seemed to happen overnight but it was actually years in the making. The night before my birthday I was laying in bed nursing Autumn and I thought to myself – I’m going to do it other people have done it so why not me!? When she fell back to sleep I sprang out of bed went to my office got some of my three-year-old’s markers and made a sign that said “on January 22, 1975 42 years ago today are young woman gave birth to me in Greenville Pennsylvania. I need to think her for this beautiful life! Please help me find her”

I said this through tears the video was just a little bit over a minute.
Then I packed up the girls and went to church. I’m not a churchgoer however I’ve been wanting to go to this particular church with my friend Catie for the past few months. I had planned on today being the day. As I drove to church I called my mother who for clarification purposes I’ll call my sunshine mother my mother who adopted me and gave me life, taught me how to be smart strong resilient bold and never give up. She started laughing a little bit and said take a picture I don’t want the church to fall down. Hilarious!

The service was awesome and it seemed as if Pastor Eddie was speaking directly to me. I told my friend Catie what I had done and we embraced cried held hands and held each other as the service went on and he continued to speak directly to me talking about opening your heart to love! I couldn’t believe it.

When the service ended Catie asked if I wanted to meet Pastor Eddie and his wife and asked if it would be OK if we shared what I if we shared about my video! Yes of course- I told her! Pastor Eddie and his wife are very excited and we all held hands and prayed Pastor Eddie as he held my hand said prayed and I pray that you will find your birth mother “with a quickness.” I thought…yeah right…

I kind of chuckled to myself yeah how quick can you be I think them I think them for a beautiful service and knew that I will be back soon when I got to my car that’s when I looked at my phone and saw a message from David he said I think you are my sister Marie’s daughter we need to talk and he left his phone number and said to call him.

I was so excited I put my headphones in and they called right away and he said are you driving I said yes I am but it’s OK the girls are in their car seats all strapped in so I can talk!! hHe said –I think you better not be driving when we talk about Marie –and that’s when I knew that she had died.

When I got home I got the girls all set up with the show and fed and I told my husband Al and I asked David if he would like to talk on video chat and he said that he did and he asked if I could record it so we could share it with the rest of his family.

My heart was beating out of my chest I was sweating I could NOT believe this was about to happen so I got everything ready and I gave them I think to my Zoom website where I have my video meetings with my clients and team and then all of a sudden there he was my uncle the only person besides my two girls that I had ever met with my same blood. There he was. Right there on my computer screen.

It was surreal. I just couldn’t believe it was happening and so fast David told me that my birth mother had died in a car accident 26 years ago. My heart sank for a minute I felt defeated like I was too late. I was lost again, buried in sorrow, back to isolation but THEN he told me that she also had 10 brothers and sisters and that I had 26 first cousins and they all look like me. Oh my heart.

Instantly the sadness turned to joy that I had never experienced. Finally the authentic me was starting to take form.

Standby...there is more to the story...check back in a few days for an update :)  

Thank you for reading and for being with me on this journey.