I have been debating when or even how to write about this. The last week or so has put me into a zombie-like state. My children’s dad said I have “pregnancy brain”. For the life of me I cannot get words out of my mouth, I forget what things or called or even how to speak. If you know me, you know this is typically not the problem. No, I am not pregnant. The emotional roller coaster I have been on and continue to be on isn’t anything short of a miracle.

For those that have been following my journey, I lost my father in October 2017. Since then and prior too then, I had an ever growing rift primarily with members of my family.

A couple of years ago, I start searching for my biological family. I began searching for my birth mom (omma) since it seemed the easiest place to start. My adoption paperwork from Korea has bits and pieces of her story. According to my paperwork I have where she grew up and part of her childhood, mirrored some of mine. Eventually when she was 20, she gave birth to me and I was immediately relinquished for adoption. That’s it. No mention of who my birth father (appa) at all.

Fast forward to March of this year, after contacting an organization I finally had a lead on my omma. This lead seemed very creditable because she was the only woman in the country with a matching name and birthday as the woman on my paperwork. However upon meeting her, my hopes were dashed and I find out that as much as she wanted too, she was not my omma. She wished me well, told me I grew up beautifully and that my omma should be proud.

I thought my journey ended there. After that there wasn’t much more to do than to leave my DNA as a “missing” person in Korea, and hope there eventually would be a match. This has to guarantee. Because my paperwork had so many details, the retired police officer, current professor said he was willing to go to where she grew up and ask the elders if they knew her name/location.

Although I left Korea with unanswered questions, I knew emotionally I may not have been able to handle a blunt rejection. After much time and therapy, I had to walk away from the search. It was emotionally tolling and the amount of unanswered questions and different scenarios could drive a person mad. During the summer a lot of adoptees go back to Korea, it is usually when the organizations that help adoptees is bombarded by requests. It was at this time I decided to take a step back. I stopped following up and being diligent on searching for omma.

I emailed my contact a couple of times, and didn’t learn anything new. Slowly I was coming to terms that this would be the end of the search and I was working through accepting that my questions may remain unanswered.

A couple of days after my launch party I receive an email from my contact. Something that I never thought I would ever read. It said that a man was found who is presumed to be my birth father and this professor/retired cop wanted to bring me to meet him. I screamed in the middle of the email. I scared my kids so much they started consoling me as if I was tragically hurt. Of course o couldn’t hold back my emotions and tears ran down my cheeks. This didn’t help, my poor children were convinced I was hurting. I told them it was happy thoughts, that they had most likely found my biological father.

I became numb. I didn’t know how to react. This mystery man had a name and location. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think the possibility of finding him would happen. Since I have zero documentation regarding my birth father I either assumed my omma didn’t know or there was another legitimate reason why he was kept off of my birth certificate. The number of questions that ran through my head were endless. I wanted to know every little detail nothing too big or too small was insignificant at this point. My mind needed every single question answered. Of course I immediately wrote back stating I wasn’t sure when I would be back but that I will be back to Korea as soon as I am able.

Upon asking how this man was found, the response was “trade secret” and that was the end of that. I will admit I was a little disappointed but for the first time my appa had a name and a location. This is still mind blowing.

Some of my best friends have graciously started a GoFundMe to help get me to Korea as soon as possible. The money I had to go was used on my last trip and I was most likely planning to go back at the end of next summer but those plans were not set in stone.

After hearing all of this new information, I need to get to Korea ASAP. It is unbelievable that this miracle has happened. There is no other way to explain this, especially a couple of weeks before Christmas. I have included the link here if you feel led to donate, please do. Thoughts and prayers for this part of my journey are just as appreciated. Thank you. I will be keeping everyone posted on the start of this journey.

Always,

J