[lizardco]

My name is Elizabeth and I am 35...I am happy & healthy mother of 2 but there is a piece missing from my life and that is the parents that produced me. I have always looked at myself as being special and not because I was adopted but have always felt a sense of uniqueness. (Fortunately my adoptive parents gave me love, amazing opportunity and took care of my needs!) This feeling has always kept me content with who I was. For many years I decided NOT to look for my birth mom & dad because I never wanted to meddle with my level of being content nor I did not want to ROCK anyone elses' world or ADD to the 10 months of despair that she must've felt when she found out that she had conceived me and vice versa to my birth father. I am content in knowing that she gave me the BEST gift anyone could have ever given me and that was the unconditional gift of life and allowing me to BE and if I am never to find either of them...the contentness is a gift within itself.

Last year I decided it was TIME to embark upon this search because I felt mature enough to handle all its consequences and and more so because I now have children of my own. It sparked also because I actually could physically identify with my offspring for the FIRST time in my life...the first time someone WHO actually looked, talked and acted like me! So, who am I anyway???? I felt it important to begin searching last March so that when questions started arising from my children, they knew a little bit about their blood lineage

I have to believe down deep inside that my birth parents have not repressed their thoughts of me and they too, may be looking for me as their curiosity may be piquing.

According to the paperwork NJ Catholic Charities offered, I do know this...My birth mother was housed at St. Elizabeth's Shelter for Unwed Mom's in Yardville, NJ in August-November 1968 under her mother's urging. I was delivered a month prematurely on November the 26th 1968 at St. Francis Hospital in Trenton, NJ. The unidentifyling paperwork also states that she named me Patricia Anne at birth. My birth father's name is Francis. Her name was Mary (Ann). She was one of nine siblings between the ages of 21 and 4. She was 19 when she delivered me...so I have an aunt or an uncle out there that is 4 years older than me and she could not keep me because their family was too big and Mary had educational and professional aspirations of her own.

I often wonder if she became very active professionally and held off on having a family of her own because of her experience with me...OR did she eventually get married and currently has kids of her own and is living her life as a parent (with holes in her heart in regards to me!) I want to help release her feelings whether it be guilt or a sense of a let-down being her first born...She needs to know that I turned out wonderful and again if it was not for her unconditional LOVE I would not be here today to merely want to thank her personally! Again, I do not believe that you can produce something and not think about it especially when your life dramatically changes because of it.

I do not hold any ill will or begrudge my birth mother or her family one bit I just would like to tap into my roots for my own curiosity and give my kids a sense of their heritage.

If you know of anything or any of this jives please contact me at: lizardco AT gwu.edu

E!