A huge development in my search for my birth mother!

Well friends, I may not need my application to Find My Family at all. I have been in contact with an Adoption Search Angel. This angel is a kind person named Betsi who volunteers her time searching to bring birth mothers and their children back together. Betsi helped me find one Lana Carol Williams who was living in Texas and near Houston at the time of my birth. This Lana still lives in the same area today. I found her picture on a class reunion website. Since I don't know how to post pictures to this blog, you can check out her picture on my Facebook page, or you can see it here on her class reunion page. You will want to scroll to the bottom (look for Lana Williams) I would love to hear if folks see a resemblance.

Anyway, I have sent her an email proposing the question "Are you my birth mother?" What a strange and bizarre letter to write. I had imagined writing this letter hundreds of times. As I sat down to write it last night, I realized the power the words carried. I tried to be gracious and careful and not too direct. Here it is:

Dear Mrs. Reedy,
I apologize if this email catches you off guard. I am following up on research I am doing in a search for my birth mother. I believe her name was Lana C. Williams. I am aware that is your maiden name. I found it through searching marriage records and that is how I found you - ( I saw that a Lana C. Williams married a man named Reedy. I searched on your married name and found that you did live in the Houston area at the time of my birth and that you still do today. It is amazing what you can find online.

I was born in early Jan of 1970 in Harris County - the name Lana Carol Williams is listed as the mother of only one female infant of born at the time and place of my birth. I found your high school picture from MB Smiley HighSchool and many of my friends and family believe we share a very strong resemblance. The high school reunion page is also how I got this email address.

I have more exact details about my birth, that we can use to confirm a match, but I will withhold them for now until it turns out that in contacting you I have possibly contacted my birth mother.

If you do believe you are my birth mother, I want you to know that I have always understood that your choice was for the best (regardless of the reason). Please know I have always wished you to be at peace with your decision. I am who I am today because of your choice, and I love who I am; so all is as it should be! I have thought of you on every birthday and with every joyous moment in my life.

If we are a match, I hope you would want to reconnect and will contact me as soon as possible. If for some reason you would not. Please just let me know the truth so that I can stop searching.

Sincerely and anxiously awaiting your response, please feel free to call anytime day or night.

Patricia Ann Meyer-McDonald
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I am of course waiting on pins and needles. I will mail her the letter her as well. I actually have her phone number, but I don't want to take her that much by surprise. She may need to sit with it for a while before responding.

Now on the other hand, if this lead turns out a dud, I am still working on my application for Find My Family and have reworked the About Me section. I have an ex-network producer friend who instructed me that my story needs more intrigue and less of me spelling out every little detail. The goal is to peak producers' interest. So here is the revised About Me section, just in case I need to send in my application:

This past January 5, 2010 marks 40 years of life lived with a piece missing. This piece resides with my birth mother. I was told I was adopted before I could even understand it, and I lived 12 years with no questions, no concerns, accepting of my happy life and good fortune. Then at 12, when I needed a social security number for a school event, I was met by my birth mother with a dark and difficult secret. “We never received your birth certificate,” my adoptive mother explained carefully. “You don’t exist, you have lived 12 years belonging to no one,” is what I heard.

In the years since, I’ve learned my story began over a shampoo at a tiny Texas beauty salon. Kay the shampoo girl heard all about the unwed-mothers-to-be from Mrs. Howell who just loved to chat her way through a good wash and rinse. Mrs. Howell was the wife of Attorney William (Bill Howell) who represented these young ladies and helped place their babies in good quality homes. In was in 1969 that it occurred to Kay to tell the good Mrs. Howell about Cousin Jacqui (my mother). “My cousin Jacqui, is looking to adopt!” And from there over a head of bubbles, my fate was rinsed, wrapped and set to dry!

When I asked my mother why I didn’t have a birth certificate, she explained “The attorney said if we did not pay him more, we would not receive the papers.” “Why not call the police?” I asked. “By the time we had you home, we could not imagine losing you,” she answered. “So we dropped it and the problem and attorney went away.”

But the problem was back. I was not legal and my birth name was just a name pulled out of thin air, no legal document existed to make me real. But there was more. “We also,” she spoke carefully, “well we are not sure if you were born on the 5th or the 6th of January.” The confession twisted my gut and distorted my fragile 12- year-old sense of self. The question“Where did I come from, and what is my story?” seemed to take on a whole new level of mystery.

At 18 and legal age to look into things myself, I learned even more troubling news. Not only did my adoptive parents not receive a birth certificate, their names did not connect to any adoption, nor did my own. It was a though no adoption ever took place. It seems I was a cash deal!