Typically in a closed adoption the adoptive parents have no idea who the birth mother is. You get some general information about her like...age, race, height, weight, marital status, level of education, and medical history. You never...well almost never...get her name or a photo.
By complete accident...I know her name. I've known her name for a while.
I find myself looking for her online. I don't spend hours doing this, but on the rare occasion I will type her name into Google. It just so happened; today I decided to look on Facebook. I've looked on Facebook before, but not for a very long time.
Today...I think I may have found her.
The little bit of information I know about her, matches what I saw today on Facebook. When I found her, it was a little bit of a cross between exhilaration and disbelief. I have to tell you, I also felt just a wee bit criminal. In my defense, I really didn't expect to find her and she did not have her Facebook blocked. It was if the stars somehow aligned in my favor...the name was accidently given to me years ago and she didn't block her Facebook account.
The woman in the Facebook photos smiling back at me was very young, and quite beautiful. It was strange looking in her face...looking for some sort of resemblance of my daughter...wondering if she ever thinks about the baby she gave up for adoption.
You may be wondering...Ok, now what are you going to do with this information? Nothing. I am not going to do anything with it. I really just wanted to see what she looks like. I wanted to know if she was ok. I wanted to know if she had any other children.
One day, my daughter will ask me questions. "Mama, who do I look like?" "Mama, do I have any brothers or sisters?" "Mama, why did my birth mother give me away?" As a parent, I would like to be able to answer those questions for her. Obviously, knowing just her name and seeing her photo doesn't help me answer all of those questions, but it is a start.
One day, my daughter will ask me questions. "Mama, who do I look like?" "Mama, do I have any brothers or sisters?" "Mama, why did my birth mother give me away?" As a parent, I would like to be able to answer those questions for her. Obviously, knowing just her name and seeing her photo doesn't help me answer all of those questions, but it is a start.
I have no plans to pass this information on to my daughter anytime soon. In fact, I won't even mention it to her unless she asks me. For now, I am satisfied in knowing that I have a small piece of the puzzle tucked away for the time my daughter is ready put the pieces together.
