My 2nd Birthday

I was going to post this yesterday but I was still thinking about it. Then I read Melissa's post at All Buttoned Up about preparing to pick up the newest addition to their family and it made me want to say something.

38 years ago yesterday (November 19) my parents picked me up at the hospital. I was 4 days old and my birth mother had given me up for adoption.

There are stories I was told when I was growing up about that day, I loved hearing them. When I was little my dad used to tease me by telling me that they had picked out a little red-haired girl, but when they went back the next day she was gone already. (In my imagination as a kid, the baby hospital was much like a store where you pick out what you want from shelf after shelf of options) Dad would tell me that I was in the crib where she had been and they thought I looked cute so they took me home. It's probably not surprising that when I was small I did NOT like kids with red hair. I think I was afraid my parents would try to switch me.

I don't know if Mom ever heard Dad telling me this, but when I was in my late teens or early twenties, Mom was telling someone about when they were going through the adoption process before they got me. She was saying that they had been approved and were literally on their way out the door to drive 6 hours to go pick up a baby in Regina when they got a phone call telling them that the birth mother had changed her mind. They then found out about me a month or two later (I may have that part wrong). I stopped Mom and said "It was TRUE???" She asked what I was talking about and I told her the story Dad had been telling me all those years. "Daniel!! How could you tease Lori like that?" was her immediate response.

When I was little, I thought I should get 2 birthdays... The day I was born and the day I was adopted. That didn't really work out too well. But, still, in my mind, I always want to mark the day I became a member of the family.

I've met my birth mother and 2 half brothers, about a dozen years ago now. I've lost touch with her, but hear from one of the half brothers from time to time. I'm glad for that knowledge of where i came from, but my family, the ones who know me, raised me, teased me, love me... my family is the one I was adopted into.

I can't ever say thank you enough for that.