I only replied to his message the following day because I just really needed a second, not only did I find my mom but I just found out I had a brother, and he knew about me!
Happy Monday Britzies, I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and that you feel recharged and ready to take on the week. Today's post is a little different but I hope you still enjoy it. Happy reading my loves!
As an adopted child you can't help but wonder about your birth parents. For some, it's just about wanting to know who you look like or what your family history is, and for others, it's more about closure. Unfortunately for most of us we can't help but feel unwanted and unloved and this can sometimes be amplified by the lives that we have with our adopted families. For me, it was all these things and I knew I just needed to try and find my birth mother, I needed closure, I needed to know that I was given away out of love and not for the lack of it and so my search began.
For years I had asked my adopted parents for help finding my birth mom but it always led to a dead-end or me just feeling guilty about wanting to know where or who I came from so when I was old enough I decided to just do it all on my own. To start did not have much, all I had was my birth name and original ID number, and the address of my birth mother. It wasn't much and I had no idea where to even start looking but I was determined so I googled adoptions in South Africa and that was when I found out that all adoptions have to go through the registrar or adoptions in Pretoria, and since I only had a very little amount of information to start with this was the best way for me to get the information that I needed.
So my next step was to call the registrar of adoptions, this was a rather grueling process for me because they were so busy and it was really difficult to just find someone to help. They did however explain that they could start processing my query but that they do not just hand over information and that I would have to do it through a counselor ( This step is really important as it helps you prepare for unforeseen situations that might arise. If you are interested in finding out more details on this you can find it all on https://www.ancestors.co.za/adoption-records-in-south-africa ), they also sent me documentation that I had to fill out to start the process. I was really lucky because at the time that I was going through this entire process the company that I worked for had an employee wellness program that also included free counseling sessions.
After about a month of counseling, the registrar of adoptions finally released my paperwork. To my dismay there was not a lot of information in my file, what I did find out was my birth mothers full name and date of birth, it didn't have much about her circumstances at the time of giving me up for adoption just that her family had no idea that she was pregnant and the last thing in the report was my race which was coloured and not Indian as I always thought I was but that was it. The registrar of adoptions does offer a service of helping you track down your parents but they tell you upfront that this process can take years. At first, I did consider it but then I thought I'd rather try on my own, like I said before I was pretty determined and so the next phase of my search began.
I decided to make the most of social media. Since I had my counseling sessions I also knew that I had to be very careful in the way that I approached the situation as well. I know this will sound weird but I also wanted to protect my personal information so instead of using my accounts for my search I just created new ones on all platforms. Since I only had my birth mothers date of birth and full name I just decided to start searching for people with the same surname, I then proceeded to send them all a message, I knew that if anyone replied I needed a way to verify the information that I was given so in my message I just said, " Hi, I am looking for someone by the name of .... if you know this person please do reach out to me, thank you." I did not add the surname or any other information as I was going to use this to verify that I found the right person. About 4 months had passed and I finally received a reply.
The person that replied was a boy who had the same surname. I then replied and said to him that I was sorry for sounding like a weirdo but could he please give me this person's full name and date of birth and I asked him what was his relation to her. He then sent me all the information that I asked for and it checked out, he also said to me that she was his mother and he asked me if I wanted to know because I think his mom is my birth mom. It took me a while to process that I had found her, If I remember correctly I only replied to his message the following day because I just really needed a second, not only did I find my mom but I just found out I had a brother, and he knew about me! It was a lot. I thought I was prepared after all those counseling sessions but it was still a shock to my system.
Once I did reply he took my number and I was contacted by my birth mother. 23 years and 8 months later and I finally got to speak to my birth mother for the first time, all I can say is that, that conversation had so many emotions running wild.
We spoke for a few months and then we stopped speaking for many reasons which I will share with you in another storytime. I never regretted finding my birth mom even though I didn't get the answers I went looking for in the first place. On the bright side, I did find out that I had not 1 but 3 siblings and one of my sisters looks so much like me I also have 8 aunts and uncles and 1 grandfather who was still alive. I don't know how to describe what it's like just knowing that I have this whole family out there that I don't know much about but I do hope that someday I can meet them all but we'll see what the future holds.
Much love my Britzie’s XOXO
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