Adoption Diary
"Those who reduce the adoptee's compelling need for his true identity to be a mere 'curiosity', or a search for another or better mother, are cruelly unaware of this basic human need to be attached to one's true place in history."
A.D. Sorosky, The Adoption Triangle: The Effect of Sealed Records
I was born in New Zealand on 10th April 1973 and adopted by English parents when I was a month old. I had a wonderful childhood and my parents could not have been greater. However, I have always felt the need to find my birth parents (b-parents), partly out of natural curiosity, but also to discover my own roots and thus help understand who I am as a person. The following is my diary of the search and the mental, emotional and possibly physical journey that it may take me on....
Sunday, 20 October 2002
Feel left in the lurch?
Apologies, apologies and more profuse apologies to all those of you who have followed this diary and feel left in the lurch. As you may well imagine, a lot has happened in the year since my last entry and it is a bit hard to know exactly where to begin. Let's start with an explanation - well an excuse for the long silence ...
My wonderful job was transferred to another part of the company and as a contractor, my future employment with the company looked decidedly uncertain - they
Friday, 21 September 2001
It starts to sink in ...
Had a few beers, had a good chat with Leila and Aidan, and it has now all sunk in after a good night's sleep. I decided to send an email suggesting we should meet and talk as I really did not want to have a whole conversation via email. However, I was to find out that I should have read Malcolm's email more carefully and not jumped to conclusions. Reading his email, he says Robyn moved to the UK in 1975, both his kids are in England and Robyn has not lived in NZ since. Reading into it,
Thursday, 20 September 2001
Contact!
I don't really know how to introduce the next email, suffice it to say, I was just checking my mail towards the end of the day, now that work had gone quiet. This was sitting in my inbox...
From : "John & Robyn Smart"
Subject : Your Mother
I'm sitting here, not knowing what to say to you other than "I LOVE YOU" and have always thought of you and I am going to be entirely honest... I can't believe you have found me. I searched for you and managed to track you as far as your father's
Thursday, 20 September 2001
Lucky strike!
Came into work today and opened up my mail to find the following...
Subject : Luckystrike!
Dear David
We received your letter tonight, and it is one which my wife and I have been expecting for years, we being the only means of contact.
Robyn is my younger sister and is, obviously, your natural mother. Our mother died when I was 10 years old and Robyn only 2 years old, so as her elder brother I had some responsibility in her upbringing whilst our father continued working to keep us.
Thursday, 30 August 2001
The letter
There were too many coincidences in that mail, not to be on the right track. The surname was the same, the father was English and called Bill (short for William) and they had lived near Hamilton. Hamilton would have probably had the nearest hospital where Robyn would have been born. I couldn't thank Ngaire enough for what she had done and for the next email :
Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 04:20:22 GMT
Subject: Robyn Pitkeathly
Dear David
Maybe getting
Adoption
