Welcome, Lori! Welcome, Lori! Welcome, Lori! Welcome, Lori! Welcome, Lori!
Saturday my little 8 year old guy had his first Catholic communion. My in-laws and husband are Catholic, and they came from Green Bay to watch him. He looked very hansome in his suit and tie, and he acted like a very big boy. I couldn't help crying a little.
That night, my in-laws were sleeping over, I thought I'd check my email on my laptop before going to bed. There was an email from my younger sister. I'm the oldest of 7. She's the fifth. Or so I always thought. Her email said that our mom had placed a baby for adoption, before she married our dad, and that our older half-sister had investigated after all these years and found our mom!
I'm not the oldest of 7. I'm the second of 8!
Because my sister is obsessed with animals and birds, her email only said that our new, older half-sister owns a concour bird, so my sister was happy about that. I replied to ask for her email and went to bed, and laid a wake, wondering about all the details.
I used to have a recurring dream, although I haven't had it for a while, that I went back to visit my parents and found that I had a younger pre-school aged brother, who I had never noticed. And I always regret that I must have completely ignored him as a baby and paid attention to him. I've always believed it was an anxiety dream about keeping them all straight, and a guilt dream about moving so far away. I checked my email Sunday morning to see my sister's email again and make sure I hadn't just had a variation on that same dream again. My sister replied with our new, half-sister's email address and I wrote her right away, so she could know us kids have heard the good news and to ask her if since she wrote asking for medical information if she was OK.
Lori has some kind of food dye allergy, and her doctor had asked her to ask relatives what they do for theirs, since it's hereditary, and which she couldn't do because she knew she was adopted. Unfortunately for her, we're of no help because none of us have it. All that research, and we don't even know anything about her illness.
But it's been exciting to read her emails. It looks like she and I were born in the same college campus hospital only 17 months apart, grew up in beautiful Western Washington, and lived for a long time in my dad's home town of Tacoma, although she's only related to him through his marriage to mom. And it sounds like she is doing great. It sounds like she's been in contact with mom for "weeks," but she did not tell us. In fact she still hasn't told us. Dad told my younger sister who still lives with our parents. He knew mom in college and knew her when she was pregnant, before he was dating her, so he'd always known she'd placed a baby for adoption in the past. It wasn't suprise to him. And my younger sister told me about her bird in an email. And she must have been the one who told one of my younger brothers, because she mentioned she'd received an email from my brother, John. Sad how almost all our communication is with her, and almost none of it is with our actual mom, except for an Instant Message I got from mom saying, "I heard you have sent an email to Lori Lynn."
Well all these years of paying close attention to adoption literature trying to figure out why my mom, as an adopted child, has some of the behaviors that she has. And I never knew all along she was also a birth parent as well!
Well, Happy First Communion , baby; and Welcome, Lori!
Saturday my little 8 year old guy had his first Catholic communion. My in-laws and husband are Catholic, and they came from Green Bay to watch him. He looked very hansome in his suit and tie, and he acted like a very big boy. I couldn't help crying a little.
That night, my in-laws were sleeping over, I thought I'd check my email on my laptop before going to bed. There was an email from my younger sister. I'm the oldest of 7. She's the fifth. Or so I always thought. Her email said that our mom had placed a baby for adoption, before she married our dad, and that our older half-sister had investigated after all these years and found our mom!
I'm not the oldest of 7. I'm the second of 8!
Because my sister is obsessed with animals and birds, her email only said that our new, older half-sister owns a concour bird, so my sister was happy about that. I replied to ask for her email and went to bed, and laid a wake, wondering about all the details.
I used to have a recurring dream, although I haven't had it for a while, that I went back to visit my parents and found that I had a younger pre-school aged brother, who I had never noticed. And I always regret that I must have completely ignored him as a baby and paid attention to him. I've always believed it was an anxiety dream about keeping them all straight, and a guilt dream about moving so far away. I checked my email Sunday morning to see my sister's email again and make sure I hadn't just had a variation on that same dream again. My sister replied with our new, half-sister's email address and I wrote her right away, so she could know us kids have heard the good news and to ask her if since she wrote asking for medical information if she was OK.
Lori has some kind of food dye allergy, and her doctor had asked her to ask relatives what they do for theirs, since it's hereditary, and which she couldn't do because she knew she was adopted. Unfortunately for her, we're of no help because none of us have it. All that research, and we don't even know anything about her illness.
But it's been exciting to read her emails. It looks like she and I were born in the same college campus hospital only 17 months apart, grew up in beautiful Western Washington, and lived for a long time in my dad's home town of Tacoma, although she's only related to him through his marriage to mom. And it sounds like she is doing great. It sounds like she's been in contact with mom for "weeks," but she did not tell us. In fact she still hasn't told us. Dad told my younger sister who still lives with our parents. He knew mom in college and knew her when she was pregnant, before he was dating her, so he'd always known she'd placed a baby for adoption in the past. It wasn't suprise to him. And my younger sister told me about her bird in an email. And she must have been the one who told one of my younger brothers, because she mentioned she'd received an email from my brother, John. Sad how almost all our communication is with her, and almost none of it is with our actual mom, except for an Instant Message I got from mom saying, "I heard you have sent an email to Lori Lynn."
Well all these years of paying close attention to adoption literature trying to figure out why my mom, as an adopted child, has some of the behaviors that she has. And I never knew all along she was also a birth parent as well!
Well, Happy First Communion , baby; and Welcome, Lori!
