Jen was in for the shock of her life when she was just 7-years-old.
That’s the year she found out that she was adopted.
She learned that she lived with foster parents for the first three years of her life before being adopted into her permanent family.
For years she wondered who her biological parents were. She wanted to know where she came from.
“It always felt like I was never born- like I just dropped out of the sky,” Jen wrote on her blog. “Any genetic relatives seemed like they were just ghosts that I made up in my head.”
“I found out that I was adopted at age 7 and I wondered EVERY SINGLE DAY of my life. I had to fantasize because I didn’t know anything. What was my mother like? What does she look like? Did she love me? Do I have siblings? What do they look like? That is a lot for a7-year-oldd and that burden (for me) got heavier with age.”
She started her search for her biological parents in her early 20s by signing up for adoption search registries.
She hoped that her parents would be searching the registries to find her.
Eventually, she learned that she had three siblings that were born before her. But she was unable, at that time, to find out who they were. This just intensified her obsession with discovering her roots.
She ended up finding some success with genealogical DNA testing companies like Ancenstry.com, FamilyTreeDNA, and 23andMe. But those efforts didn’t really lead to anything concrete at first.
Though it was totally out of her comfort zone, she worked with the local news to share her story in an effort to help find her parents and spread awareness about the plight of adopted children.
“After completely putting myself out there with no response, I was convinced that no one was looking for me,” Jen explains.
“I mean, if someone wanted to find me, it would be pretty easy to do it. All you would have to do is Google a few things and I would come up. I was absolutely convinced they wanted nothing to do with me.”
Jen had a DNA expert help her and eventually found someone that she believed was her mother.
Jen then wrote this woman a letter and sent it. But that letter was returned to the recipient’s mailbox.
She sent a second letter to a different address and the same thing happened.
Then she got a Facebook message. It was from one of her sisters.
“I saw her name pop up and I immediately thought ‘OMG here we go, she’s going to tell me to leave them alone!'” Jen wrote.
She mentally prepared herself for the worse and to just be happy with the fact that she would have closure.
But that’s not what happened. The message she got read: “We have been hoping this day would come.”
It also said that giving Jen up for adoption was the hardest decision of her mom’s life.
“She loves you and has always loved you,” the letter read.
It wasn’t long before she spoke to her mother on the phone who told her that she was sorry and that she was in a bad time in her life and she did what she thought was best. Her mother was told that there was no way she would be able to find Jen and she didn’t know about all the adoption search websites.
“If she realized that life would improve, she never would have done it. All of my life I assumed I was just a mistake that needed to be gotten rid of. I’m glad I was wrong, but I wish I knew that a long time ago. Damn closed adoptions,” Jen wrote.
Jen learned where she came from and that she has five sisters and two brothers.
Their reunion was a happy and emotional one. You can learn more about Jen’s story on her blog here and in the video below.
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