Isn’t it funny how sometimes there are dates or certain times of year that tend to hold coincidental significance? Like the 25th – for me it’s my birthday, it was the birthday of two of the girls I babysat for, and the anniversary date of their parents! Or the 1st, it’s both of my girls birthdays. Or the 19th, which is my dad and two of my siblings birthdays.
Or Easter time….Not only is it the day Jesus rose from the grave, but in our house, it also commemorates the weekend we got engaged and it’s around the same time we got the New Family.
Since November is National Adoption Month, I figured this would be a great time to share my husbands story.
I was just thinking about this the other day as we planned a day home to Fort Wayne with three stops. My parents, Mike’s parents, and the new family. Yes, I say ‘new’ because that’s how I refer to the NEW 16 family members we have welcomed into our lives and who have so graciously welcomed us into theirs.
ADOPTED
We’ve always known my husband was adopted. He’s known since forever. I’ve known since I met him. It’s always been front of mind.
I’ve also known that he has always wanted to try to find his birth parents. Mostly to know if he had any siblings.
And I’ve always been on board with him taking on this search.
He was adopted in the 1970s through Catholic Social Services. He was born prematurely. He had clubbed feet. And he found a forever home with Mike & Darla. Darla couldn’t have children so they looked to adopt. I think they would have adopted more if they could, but they took Kevin (his name at the time) in, gave him a new name – Michael Oliver, and in true Mike & Darla fashion, spoiled him rotten and treated him like he was their blood.
They were the parents I was introduced to.
They are our children’s grandparents.
They will always be Nonna and Grandpa to my girls.
They are Mike’s parents and nothing will change that…
And I know that all these things were taken into consideration when considering seeking out information on his biological parents because he didn’t want to offend or upset or ruffle any feathers of those who have given him so much…
ANCESTRY DNA
But I knew something was calling Mike to take on this search…
It did seem like a daunting task that could take forever and possibly never result in anything or even end up not so happy…
So while I was 100% on board, I was also 100% leery of what might be ahead.
But with that being said, when he turned 40, I got him a surprise that he’d been asking for for a very long time. Along with a very fun compilation of videos from his friends and family across the united states that I organized via Tribute, I surprised him with an Ancestry.com DNA kit. As soon as he opened it, I swear it was back in the mailbox to be sent out for processing. It only took four weeks to receive the results and once they come back, you can sign into Ancestry to see your connections. For Mike, this included around 300 matches which included first and second cousins.
He had matches for two family names in particular (which I won’t share just for privacy purposes). He kept looking at names and where people were born and/or died. He’d stay up super late night after night. After just a few weeks of long nights of searching and building family trees, he noticed that someone was born in West Virginia but had died in Indiana (specifically the town he was adopted from) and that, he says, was finding the needle in the haystack because it was too coincidental.
SEARCHING FOR TIES
One of the first people he reached out to was a lady managing a family tree for someone else. This was a tree for one of the two names he was related to. He sent something like “Hi, This may be a long shot, but I saw we had quite a few identifiers on ancestry. I looked a little deeper into your family tree and saw that the {Insert Family Name} were from small-town Indiana. I was born there and adopted in Fort Wayne. It would be interesting if we were related…”
He kept looking and noticed the other family name. He also noticed that this was another case where someone died in the small Indiana town. For that person, he found an obituary that had listed two grandchildren as descendants. So in the fashion of the day, he started looking them up on social media. He was basically a true Facebook stalker but after a few late nights and lots of diligence, he found the female grandchild and reached out via facebook messenger.
In November 2017, he sent this off into the world…
“Hi,
My name is Mike K. and I was born in XXX Indiana and was adopted. I was linked to the {Insert Family Name} by an Ancestry DNA test. If you have any information, it would be greatly appreciated.”
He didn’t hear anything back for four months.
Then in March of 2018, he received a message back…
“Hi Brother,
I think I can answer a few questions you might have…”
NEW FAMILY
And the rest is history…
*There’s more we’ve found out over the last almost two years… And I’ll continue to share about our New Family as they are a huge part of our life now!
Adoption has left us with a lot of things…
Family, Memories, Love, More Family, New Adventures