It is weird to tell students "...and at the end of the year I will..." when I know darn well I won't be there at the end of the year.

On the other hand, I only have to plan a semester or so of 8th grade American History. Which can be seen as a plus.

Another teacher I work with adopted a family of children many moons ago from Korea. Her son has returned to Korea to teach English as a Second Language and Math in English at a Korean school. While there he plans to seek out his birth mother, as the agency has tracked her down. I had an interesting talk with her about adopting internationally, birth mothers, and myself as an adoptee versus myself as an adoptive mom, and the emotional pitfalls therein.

I think the desire to seek out birthparents is so individualized - coworker said her son was the last one she thought would actually make the effort to find them. I was thinking about this on a drive this weekend and talking with Doug. The spiral effect:

Yeah, it would be kind of neat to have a copy of my original birth certificate. But would I be tempted to go further?

If I had names, would I want to know where they are living now?

If I knew where they were living now, would it satisfy me? Or would I want to SEE where they are living now?

If I saw where they were living, would I want to knock on the door?

I am against "surprise" reunions. I have always been able to see it from the other side of the coin: here a birthparent is, going about their day to day business, a knock on the door or the telephone rings: "Hello! I'm the child you parented 29 years ago!" Can you imagine how upsetting that might be?

A friend of mine has sought out his birthfather and has established a wonderful relationship with him. His birthmother, upon contact through birthfather, wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. What is the motivation to contact and form relationships? I had enough "growing pains" with the parents who raised me.

On the other hand.... someone who looks like me? I know I carry my birthmother's features. Her asthma (yay). Supposedly she enjoys gardening. I know I have half-siblings somewhere. And there's Native American blood in me (Choctaw nation). How the heck does that fit in?

Medical history, medical history. Would be nice. It's rare to have a gallbladder out at the age of 23, "it's genetic" I was told by my doctor. Oh. Didn't know that. Probably would have gone in sooner had I known.
Lump on my hand? Precancerous. Is it because I never used sunscreen? Or is there predisposition?

But do I need to have personal contact? Depends on the day and the mood.
What motivated my thinking was talking with Doug about birth certificates - how I had to mark on my request from the state for copies that I was adopted. Which makes me wonder, is there a special room of files for adoptees? Is there one manila folder that has all my paperwork in it - and I do mean ALL? Doug points out that my records are sealed. Does that mean, literally, in an envelope and sealed shut? Or just means I can't get at them? When some state clerk is making copies of my birth certificate, what other paperwork is in there?

When we adopt from Russia, we will get a copy of ALL paperwork, both in Russian and translated into English. So at least our child will not have to wonder about that.