Double your Mother's Day

This weekend I was able to spend a day with my biological half-sister and her dad.

For those of you who don't know, I was adopted when I was an infant. My bio mom was that unfortunate (for her, not me) health class story of "All it takes is one time!" and got pregnant with me the first time she had sex during the fall of her senior year with a guy she was somewhat seeing. 40 weeks later, a couple of months before she was to start her freshman year of college, I arrived. I was given up for adoption and adopted by the mom and dad you often hear of in this blog.

When I was 30 years old, I finally mustered the courage to look for her. I just always had this intuitive feeling that we were alike. As an adult, I was finally ready to take the risk and to try to find her. I was scared of initial rejection (in closed case adoptions the birth parent has the power to keep the records closed), scared she would find me unacceptable if she met me, and just plain scared of the myriad variables that go into this process.

But what happened was extraordinary. She is amazing. We are so much alike it's uncanny and we look a great deal alike, too, which, for someone who was adopted and has never had the experience of resembling a family member...that's pretty astounding. She came to visit us last June, then her and my 15 year old half-sister came for a week this past March, and this weekend I was able to hang out with my half-sister for a day with her dad, bio mom's ex-husband.

Bio mom and I are very cautious around each other, still. I do see her more as an older friend, an aunt, etc, than as a mom-figure. Periodically I am struck by the fact that I'm even sitting in the same room with her--Oh my god! That woman carried me in her womb and gave birth to me! Oh my god!--but for the most part we jokingly or awkwardly refer to our biological connection. Finding a parent when you're past 30 makes that "parenting" role almost impossible...it's hard to explain, but those years lost are when you really cultivate your relationship (good, bad, or both) with your parents. Nothing has been more clear to me after finding bio mom that my mom who raised me is my Mom with a capital "M" and bio mom is...well...bio mom. She's my friend, and we have a pretty curious back story.

But having her ex-husband here was an interesting angle. He kept exclaiming how much I looked like bio mom and her sister, how much I was "my mother's daughter," how much I was a carbon copy of her...it was like everything that I did or said was an echo-ing of her. And, while I was taken aback by these statements, they made me really happy. Because I have felt this, and bio mom and I have acknowledged this, but to have him say these comments with such conviction...well, it made them even more true.

I feel really lucky this mother's day. I have two great moms in my life--the one who raised me and the one who just joined me in this journey--both come with baggage and issues and love and they're totally worth it.