Like many adoptees, I always wanted to know about my family of origin, but for many reasons, the facts were withheld from me. Finally, at the age of forty-three, without blame and with incredible fortitude, I went on a quest to discover the truth. The result, is Searching For Jane, Finding Myself (An Adoption Memoir), a story that will be familiar to many members of the adoption triad, but with its own twists and turns.
Although there are no accurate statistics regarding the number of adoptees living in the United States, it is estimated the number has reached 5 million. This means almost everyone knows someone who is adopted, or who is in the process of adopting, or who has relinquished a child.
The concept of open adoption was unheard of when I was born, and even today, many adoptees know nothing about their family of origin. We don’t know if we have Aunt Jenny’s eyes or Grandpa Joe’s nose. We don’t know if we would have been Catholic or Jewish. We have no family or medical history. As a result, many of us want to know, and so we search. Sometimes we find what we are looking for, and often we find something completely different and unexpected. Always our efforts result in quite a tale! I hope you enjoy mine.
Searching for Jane, Finding Myself 