Made a trip to the adoption agency yesterday afternoon to start my F-4 visa process. I needed to get my adoption certificate as well as my family registry from the district office. While I was at Eastern Social Welfare Society I also looked through my adoption folder and got information on my birth mother search. You already know that I did a search back when I was in high school and they had found my birth mother, but she was married to a man who was not my birth father, have three kids, and living with her in-laws. So, she did not want to tell them that she had a child from a previous relationship, so did not want contact at the time. That was something I was OK with. Now that I am here I decided to do another search to see if she may have changed her mind. Long story short, they found her and Ms. Oh, my new best friend, talked to my birth mother on Wed. At first she had no desire to have any contact with me because of her situation, which is still the same as before. But, with much persuading by Ms. Oh, my birth mother is thinking about the possibility of meeting me, even for just 10 min. Ms. Oh told me that my birth mother is scared for a number of different reasons.
1. That her family will find out about her past. In the states it’s not such a big deal to have had a child from a previous relationship. But here in Korea, people think differently. She asked Ms. Oh to ask me if I would not go on TV to look for her. There is a TV show here in Korea that a lot of adoptees go on to try to find their birth families. Apparently, she’s been very frightened that she will see me on that show one day because her in-laws watch that show. I assured Ms. Oh that I would do no such thing. It hadn’t even crossed my mind to do that. Ms. Oh told me that in exchange for that, she would see if my birth mother would meet me. Haha She said, she’s doing something for you, so will you do this one thing for her. I hope she doesn’t say it like that because it could all end in disaster.
2. She is still very angry at my birth father. Apparently she was very much in love with him and wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, but apparently she was the only one that felt that way. They lived together for three months, but there was a lot of arguing and when I was born my birth father was the one that decided they would give me up for adoption. My birth mother said she had no choice.
3. She’s afraid that if she meets me she will want to keep in touch with me and in turn having her family find out. Upsetting her family is not something I am set out to do. So, I understand her situation. All I want is to see her face, to hear her voice, even if for just 10 min. and then go our separate ways.
Next, they have information on my birth father. This is the first time I’m even hearing most of this. Because the last time they said they didn’t really have any information on him. But, I told Ms. Oh I would like to try and contact him as well. But, after hearing what went on between him and my birth mother I’m not expecting much.
I did find out a little more about my biological half-siblings. There are three of them. Two girls and one boy. The girls are 24 and 21 (in Korean age…so 22 or 23 and 19 or 20 depending on when they were born.) And the boy is 16 (so 14 or 15). I don’t think that I’ll ever get to meet them, but just know their ages is enough.
At this point my mind is just all over the place. Do I think a meeting will happen? Who the heck knows! But, it’s one step close than I was before. I also found out what my birth parents were hoping for as far as the kind of family I would be placed with. They wanted a caring family who was rich….so my birth parents and I are definitely on the same page!! Hahaha Just kidding mom and dad! You’ve definitely given me everything I’ve wanted and more!
Oh a happy note, I think I'm going to start volunteering at the agency playing with the babies while I'm on vacation. Since I'm not going anywhere and will probably be extremely bored, I might as well so hold some adorable Korean babies, no? haha I got to see them yesterday and they were all just soooooooooo cute!!!!! So, I knew I just had to go back!
Well that about sums up everything. I’ll try to keep you posted when I find out new info!!!
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