An Answer: A Simple Email Can Mean the Whole World

When I least expected it, the following email arrived just two weeks before my 31st birthday.  It had been so long since I had sent my request that I had very nearly forgotten I had sent an inquiry for non-identifying information. Its sudden appearance - ONE YEAR LATER - left me shocked and breathless:  

Dear Wild Orchid.

I'm very sorry for my delayed response.

Ever since I've got your e-mail, I found your adoption file and reviewed it.

According to your adoption record, your birth mother was an unmarried single when she relinquished you through Holt.

Your birth mother was a fruit costermonger in Ulsan city when she met your birth father who was a sales man. She and your birth father lived together for several months until you were born. However your birth father drunk often and was (sic) a violent temper so they argued each other a lot.

One day, just a few days after you were born, they argued as well and he left home. Your birth mother had been waiting for him but hadn't come back and more over she couldn't find any one who could help her; she was an unmarried single and it's a real taboo for the Korean society at that times.

She worried a lot and finally moved to Busan and worked as a housemaid. She stayed there with you but she thought your adoption might be the best way for your better future, so she relinqushied you through Holt. I found that you were not an abandonee but was asked by your birth mother to be adopted.

It was written that your birth date was Oct. 21. 1977. 6:30am. Your birth mother's name was Suh, 19 years old, and your birth father's name was Park, 27 years old, so your name was from your birth fathers.

Your birth mother hasn't contacted Holt after she relinquished you through Holt. Therefore, we don't have her current information; actually there's no identifying information about her on your adoption record. However you can send us your letter and some photos then I will keep them in your adoption file until your birth family visits Holt to ask about you.

Please understand my delayed response and if anything you want to know more about your adoption, please contact me at any time.

I will look forward to your letter and photos.

warm regards,
Holt Korea social worker

It was only a few paragraphs long, but for an adoptee like myself, who had never possessed any information regarding my origins beyond the empty paperwork my adoptive parents had been given by Holt, it was as if someone had handed a tremendous piece of my life back.

From beyond the void, my birth parents began to take shape from the mysterious non-entities I had known all my life.  They were no longer ghosts from an inaccessible dimension.  They become instantly Real.  Human.  Flawed.  Visceral. 

Reading about my birth mother's life, the years of childish anger and resentment melted away to the core of my heart where compassion for my biological parents was found.  And finally, from my stunned reverie and silence, came a flood of tears.  

They were tears of gratitude: Gratitude for a partial filling of the emptiness I had grown to live with in my heart; an emptiness that had become a part of me.  At that moment, I was instantly flooded with a sense of fullness and recognition of being human and most importantly, of having been loved from the very beginning.       

Opening Pandora's Box: This is How it Begins

For the past decade or so, I have been quietly taunted by the unshakeable sense of having permanently fallen behind the "rest of the world". Although I was labeled "gifted", possessed a myriad of trivial talents and was more or less a high-achiever (part of my adoptee perfectionism?), I was late in everything everyone else seemed to perform so naturally. I was late in dating, late in deciding which college I wished to attend, late in deciding what it was that I wanted to major in, somewhat late in graduating, late in falling in love, late in leaving the country I studied abroad in, late in leaving successive emotionally and physically abusive relationships..

And, approximately two months shy of thirty, I am late in almost all anticipated and expected achievements that nearly all acquaintances and friends in my age-category have already - seemingly effortlessly - attained.

What is it that holds me back? A lifelong procrastination caused by endless indecision? Is it this black hole, this yawning emptiness inside me that swallows my confidence and capacity for clear-thinking?

With my adoption search, I feel it is the same: so many other adoptees seem to have been there, done that. They did the heritage camps, the KAD meetings, the outward searches, the soul-searches, appear to have moved on as much as one possibly can... For better or for worse.

But here I am, unmarried, childless, not feeling especially outwardly (or inwardly, for that matter) accomplished... Still disowning the same nagging questions and attempting to remind myself to be kinder, gentler, and more compassionate to myself. I am not on "everyone else's" timeframe - Just my own. And that timeframe is a part of the Universe, whose plans for my life I cannot possibly begin to fathom.

Today, at the juncture of yet another relationship gone awry, to my surprise, I found myself posting my adoption information and pictures at http://www.goal.or.kr/ and calling Holt International's Post Adoption office in order to inquire about my file, which is presently at my parents' house. Thanks to bits and pieces of useful information gleaned from KAD sites such as Korean Adoptees Worldwide I was wary of Holt International's post-adoption service fees ranging from $50-$400 for inquiries into one's history and simply asked them for my case number.

The woman who answered the phone seemed wary and prodding: "What are you going to use it for?" She asked twice. To myself, I thought, "I don't trust you, thanks to many of the stories I've heard - And it's really none of your business." I never answered her question directly, but instead diverted her attention by asking other questions about my file and whether or not I could attain a copy of it, and for what fee?

When I inquired about the fees associated with obtaining available file docs (which amount to zero information, anyway, from what I've been told), the woman again hesitated, saying that adoptees were not charged fees for everything - that it depended what they were requesting. "Why does she sound so anxious?" I thought to myself. Her apparent anxiety only served to further cement my decision to be as aloof as possible.

One thing I did discover was the true nature of my so-called "Korean Birth Certificate". What it really is, is a document which officially denies the fact that I belonged to a bloodline and to a real family tree. Apparently, when a child is abandoned or relinquished, the Korean government takes it upon itself to sever the child from all familial ties and create a document with a new family tree, starting only from the child. Officially, then, the child has no REAL HISTORY, from that day forward.

Having received confirmation of my case number from the woman at Holt International, I went on to do as I had been directed by others who are experienced in searching and have learned the hard way: I contacted Holt Korea, formerly part of Holt International Children's Services until they parted ways in 1976 (just two years before I was adopted in August of 1978), and wrote the following letter:

Hello:

I was adopted through Holt International Children's Services/Holt Korea in August 1978. The file that was given to my adoptive parents at the time of adoption indicates that, at three months of age, I was abandoned at a police box in Wool San, was later transferred to a "baby home/orphanage", and then lived with a Korean foster family in Seoul before being adopted to the United States at nine months. Other than this, my file includes very little additional information.

I am not currently in search of my birth parents, but rather, am seeking any additional information surrounding the circumstances of my birth and/or my family history. I understand that the summer months are a very busy time for you, but I would very much appreciate it if you could look into my file to see whether or not there may be anything more available other than the scant amount of information I have received (name, dob).

Of particular interest to me is any pertinent health information, my real birth date, my real Korean name, the ages of my birth parents at the time of my relinquishment, information regarding the occupations and personalities of my birth parents, and the reasons/circumstances behind my relinquishment.

Also, I would like to know if it is possible to place a letter and pictures in my file to give to anyone who may be searching for me and reassure them that I am well.

Here is a bit of information that may help you:

Adoptive Name:
Korean Name:
Case #:
Date of Birth:
City of Birth:

Thank you very much for your assistance - I hope to hear from you soon. If there is anything that I can do to help you in expediting this process, please let me know.

At the moment, I am not quite certain what I am looking for, other than a few answers to fill that gaping void that seems to forever erode and inhibit my self-esteem and ability to form and maintain close, trusting relationships with others.

What I say in my letter is true: I do not wish to meet my birth family at this time and I am ill-prepared for such a possibility, having been through a series of traumatic experiences in succession in recent times. I just want some basic answers: My real birth date, for example, not just an estimate that the Korean Social Workers made when they found me (if that is actually the case). Is that too much to ask for?

I have also discovered that, in many cases, this is another half-truth or untruth: Many, if not most babies who were supposedly "abandoned" or "orphaned", in fact had families. Their true stories were altered in order to make these pseudo-orphans appear more "adoptable" and appealing to prospective adoptive parents.

What would my adoptive parents, who had adopted me as a perceived act of charity, thought, had they known the Truth?

And what a vast difference it makes in the psyche of an adoptee to know the truth that she was not in fact "abandoned by a police box", as her adoption papers claim, but rather, taken to an orphanage and relinquished by a relative?

In any case, this has all been a long time coming. And, although it would seem that the ultimate decision to do it was impulsive, it has been in-process for almost thirty years.

We will what this brings. I have no expectations. Only an aching need to act... Finally.