[sspete]

Dawn--Thanks for sharing your story!!! Don't give up yet---try to keep in communication with your bdaughter every now and then and she very well may come around. Sometimes after the intial communication it takes a while to work things out. It is not you or anything you have done----this just goes with the reunion process!!! Good Luck and Blessings!!!

S Pete

[Seeking_Answers]

I am in reunion with my birthfather. I contacted him 3 months ago, he phoned me as soon as he got my message and i met him the next day. It left very little time to think but what did that matter..... i had thought about making contact for years. In the end it was spur of the moment. I had met his mother the month before. Unknown to him that i had already contacted his family.

The reunion went fine. There was nerves and apprehension but it wasn't awkward and all the worries about do i shake his hand or hug him, what will we talk about etc were all a waste of time. It happened naturally.

The emotions really started after we met. I thought that would be the end of my emotions and questions. How wrong I was. It really has been a roller coaster and sometimes i do wish these feelings would go away but i would not exchange the reunion for anything. It means a great deal to wake in the morning and know he is alive and where he is. Contact has been frequent (a few times a week) but i get scared when a DAY passes i don't hear from him. I keep thinking he is going to break contact. That fear of he left me once, he could do it again? I don't know why i keep thinking like that as he assures me this has been the best thing that had happened to him and he had been hoping i would get in contact with years.

I contacted Couisins via e-mail. The two i've contacted have really wanted contact. which has been the icing on the cake.

I have met an aunt and uncles and 2 other cousins also. Everyone has been lovely and they have been "checking up" on me frequently via phone. Wanting to know if i'm ok, how my reunion with my birthfather is going, if there's anything they can do to help, that they are always there for me, and when are we going to see you again.

When they contact me it gives me the reassurance i need. As i made the initial contact i didn't have the luxury they did.... They KNEW without a shadow of a doubt i wanted contact.

The only negative is my birthfather's wife. I think she hates me. I do not have any ill feelings regarding her and would like to have at least a polite relationship with her but i think she resents my appearance in their lives. They have no children and i think she may be frightened that she will be forgot about or something.

Telling my family about the contact was the hardest thing i ever had to do (much harder than facing my birthfather). I felt like i was disappointing them, hurting them, being ungrateful. My mother was upset but understood. In theory she was supporting me but in reality she wasn't. She was putting pressure on me at a time i had enough pressure. She was scared of me leaving to live with him. She was resentful that "after all these years he is coming back NOW when all the hard work has been done) (i was not adopted). I understood this and tried reassuring her that no one could take her place but i needed her support. Now i THINK i've got it but who knows. MY brothers and sisters have been great. My father does not know about the reunion. I don't have the heart to tell him.

I'm in my early 20's and wish i had contacted them at 18. I feel so much negative emotions consumed my teens. On the other hand if i had made contact then or they had contacted me i may have been so consumed in my anger and disappointment that the reunion might not have worked.

The reunion is a success. I do wonder will it continue to be. Only time will tell.