[Sea_Turtle]

After much consideration and many, many drafts, my husband decided that we should send the following letter to his possible birth mother, but I wanted to get some other opinions. So, what do you guys think?



Dear Ms. ________,

Hello. My name is Loretta ________. You do not know me, but I have reason to believe that you may have once known my husband, Patrick (Pat). He is adopted, and I have been helping him in searching for his birth mother. This search has led me to you.

Let me begin by giving you the process by which I have come to believe that you are possibly my husband’s birth mother along with some of the information that we have received from Catholic Charities concerning my husband’s birth family. This is considered non-identifying information that an adoptee is allowed to have. It does not contain any names, only information that cannot be used specifically to identify someone. My husband was born February 23, 1973 in Cleveland. I did a search of the birth index in Columbus, which is public record. We were told by Catholic Charities that my husband was not named at birth so I knew to look for a child without a given name that was born to an unwed mother. There was only one that I was able to find as I was only able to get through the G’s during my search appointment. G________ is the name that I found. Various on-line sources helped me in locating information pertaining to the G_________family. You are the only person that we have found that matches Pat’s birth mother’s age and physical appearance as given to us from Catholic Charities.

This is some of the pertinent information that we received from Catholic Charities:
“INFORMATION ON BIRTH MOTHER: added info from non-id here
INFORMATION ON MATERNAL RELATIVES: added info from non-id here”

I know from your driver’s license description that your physical traits are very similar to the above, and that your maiden name is G_________. I have also located some other members of the G_________ family who closely match the ages given for Pat’s birthmother’s siblings and maternal grandparents. Another detail of importance is that Pat’s birthmother was living in the DePaul Maternity Home when he was born.

Are you the person that we are looking for?

If you are, please don’t be alarmed as we have no intention of intruding on your present life, and we are very sorry for any stress that this letter may cause you. We would just like to get some information from you for the sake of our daughter. When I was pregnant with her, the obstetrician asked us questions about both of our families’ health histories and we were not able to answer for his side of the family. This has concerned me as I don’t know what the future may hold for her or any other children that we may have. I understand that this may be a sensitive subject for you, so please take your time in sending correspondence, but please at least return the enclosed post card so that we know you have received our letter and that you may indeed be the person that we are searching for. This way we will know whether or not we need to continue our search.

We will honor your decision should you decide to have no contact with us; however, we would be grateful if you could send along an updated family medical history. We would also love to have a photo of you, but we understand if you’d rather not send one.

Pat wants you to know that he is happy and has had a good life. He is thankful to you for making the decision that you thought was best for him and he has no hard feelings towards you. He is open to future correspondence with you.

Thank you for your time and we look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Loretta ________

I included our mailing and email addresses along with a blank self-adressed, stamped post card.