To have figured out who my birthmother was, was one of those joyous experiences. I was so eager to learn more about her as it only meant I was learning more about me.
Let's travel back to that time in 2014. On Wednesday, July 23rd, I had found my birth siblings and had my first contact with my biological mom, Carol. If you have not read that part of the story, you can find it here. It is now the following day. Thursday, July 24. So many questions were being asked that day and I found some of the answers to be very interesting and some to be an eery coincidence.
Carol grew up in Findlay, Ohio. (I found this pretty ironic since my maiden name was Finley.) Her dad was a farmer and had a meat processing business. Her mom was a bookkeeper at the Kirk Milling Company. The man she worked for was one of the richest men in town. Carol's parents adopted her when she was a couple of months old. Like me, she grew up in a conservative home and attended a Baptist church. She was involved at church playing the piano and organ. While I never played the organ, I had played the piano since I was a little girl. She also played the flute, which I had played for a couple of years during high school and college.
The paper I had from the adoption agency said she had attended a Christian college for one quarter. When I asked her what college it was, she replied Cedarville. I could not believe it. That is the same college that I graduated from. And not only that, it is the same college that both of my parents have degrees from as well. It isn't like Cedarville is a huge university like UNC or Ohio State. It is a small, Christian College in the middle of a cornfield in Ohio.
Carol had grown up in Ohio and lived there for a while after she married. Then she lived in Florida for a while and for a bit in North Carolina. Currently she was living in Tennessee. Her husband, Ron, was a truck driver. They had a chihuahua named Bentley that she said she spoiled all the time. Multiple times she said she hoped that they would be able to come for a visit soon.
It seemed as things were going really well, but then something happened that confused me terribly. I wasn't really sure how to handle it. I am not blaming her for what happened. I am sure it is a fairly common response in this situation. I just didn't know what to do with it.
We had been texting all day and Carol said she was going to hit the bed and talk to me tomorrow.
Then she said it...."sweet dreams, my daughter."
I understood that this was an emotional time in both of our lives. I did not feel any type of mother-daughter connection with Carol. While I was excited that I had found her and now knew where I had come from, that was as far as our relationship went. I did not feel anything deeper so I decided to just ignore that comment.
The next day, Friday the 25th, began with a quick text from Carol telling me that she had gone to McDonalds for breakfast and was planning to pull weeds and put down mulch that day. She ended it with "luv u."
I did not respond. I knew that she may love me because she had carried me for those 9 months and had chosen to give me life. But this is someone that I had just met through text and for me, those kind of feelings had not yet developed. I wasn't about to say something that wasn't true.
We texted a few times during the day, but nothing too deep. I decided I probably needed to take things a bit slower.
The day ended with her sending me an 'xoxoxoxoxo' text.
I definitely had some thinking to do about how to handle this.
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