My Birthday/Adoption Thoughts

34 years ago, a lady who I will probably never meet, gave birth to me. Most years, this makes me sad. Even as I type that, it makes me a little bit sad. But this year, I feel gratefulness, peace, perhaps even joy.

For 28 years, I never thought of myself as being born. I was just "adopted". I didn't really mind being adopted, other than the occasional teasing that had pretty much ended by middle school. And aside from thinking about it, generally around my birthday and when filling out doctor's forms (and wondering about my birth mother's physical characteristics from time to time), I didn't give it much other thought.

After my first were born ("were" because I had twins), my perspective completely changed. For the first time, I realized that I had been "born". Now that seems silly, perhaps even made up, but I had never, ever thought of myself being in someone's womb...the way I had carried my girls. I had come to my family, via airplane and bam...instant family at the airport. After I had the girls, I yearned to know how my "carrier's" pregnancy went; did she have extreme nausea like I did, did she have pelvic separation, did she carry so low, everyone thought she was having a boy? And these were just the start of my questions.

Lately, people have come into my life that have caused me to start looking into the adoption process/Korea/my own adoption. What I have found is amazing! Blog after blog of Korean adoptees...writing about the same things I feel. It makes me feel like I am justified in my feelings, and I feel less alone; I want to be more involved in this special network of people. I want to visit Korea, even if it's not to reconnect with biological family, but just to walk on the streets where I was born, left, and raised for 6 months by a foster family.

I've recently read a book, I Wish for you a Beautiful Life, and this brings me to my feelings on this birthday. I feel glad. I feel like I was given the opportunity to come to America, to join the Kroeck family, to become a musician/swimmer/fanatic for Scrabble :) and then to join and help create our own Hearn family. I feel like someone loved me so much, she wanted a better life for me, and was willing to put aside all of her own pain and sadness, so that I could become the person I am today. I am a daughter, a sister, a wife, and a mom; it's ironic that it took becoming a mother to stir up all these feelings, but it's by that same token that I can only fully understand the sacrifice she made and the gift that I've been given .