Wheeee!

I'm going to have to give a little back story on this for those who are new or don't remember every detail of my life (as if I expect anyone to -- I can't keep up with my own stuff, much less anyone else's! LOL).

Many of you know that I was adopted as an infant. I always knew I was adopted. My parents never hid the fact from me.

Growing up, my friends would ask me, "Aren't you curious?" or "Don't you want to know your biological mother?" In my mind, I had parents and so, I didn't have a strong desire to seek out any more information. My parents were the ones who raised me, loved me, supported me, etc.

My adoption was a closed adoption, meaning that there was very little information exchanged. According to my parents, they were told that my biological family had no history of medical issues (at the time, which was 1968).

After Buddy was born, I became more curious about my biological background, mainly just to find out medical info. The Evil Twin was adopted by his father, so we only had one biological parent (his mother) to look to for genetic history, ethnic history, etc.

The summer before my dad passed away, he had told me about a box in his closet that had files I would "be interested in." I told him that I would look at them eventually. Well, fast forward a little over year later and my mom was sick and in the hospital. When I went to their house to retrieve something for her, I decided to look in that box.

No one else was at the house at that point.

When I looked, there were files related to my adoption. Imagine my surprise when I saw documentation on a name change. I had been given a first, middle and last name at birth, which was later changed by my parents (they only gave me a first and last name, because they are both long).

Also included was a form to send away to the state of Alabama requesting an original birth certificate and other forms in a closed adoption file, since Alabama had changed their regulations on obtaining that information in 2000 or 2002... I filled out the form and sent a check for $20.

I got my original birth certificate and now I had the name of my biological mother. So, I started searching in earnest and put information on several adoption sites that help reunite families.

Long story short: a friend of my biological mother found my info on one of the sites and my biological sister contacted me last July. For a year, we've all corresponded by phone and email. I've seen pictures of everyone and my sister and I could be twins.

Tomorrow, we head South to see the Evil Twin's brother and his wife and our two nieces. My biological mother lives an hour South of them, so we are going to meet her for lunch on Friday!

I've never met her, so this will be very interesting. I plan on taking old photo albums, so she can "fill in the blanks" and see how I was raised and see how loved I had been by my parents.

Unfortunately, my biological sister (who lives in Georgia) won't be able to make it up, but I will get together with her soon, I'm sure. She wants to come visit me here - and we've got plenty of room, so I would love that.

So, I'll be out of town for a couple of days. I'll take my laptop and the hotel we're staying does have internet access, so I'll try to keep up with y'all there, but I can't promise any updates from me. I will try.

Until then, have a great weekend!!! I'll bring back pictures. :-)