The idea of searching for my birth family, an impulse buried for years, was reborn in a fluorescent-lit exam room in North Carolina’s only freestanding birth center. In an antiseptic-scented space just large enough for two chairs, an exam table, a wash station, and a padded swivel stool, my husband and I sat and talked with one of the midwives in the practice. I watched her check boxes and scribble notes, posing questions in a low, tired voice — she had been up all night, she explained, with a laboring mother. At first her questions were straightforward, easy to answer. How old was I? Was this my first pregnancy? How far along did I think I was?

But when she asked how many brothers and sisters I had, I couldn’t supply an answer. “I’m adopted,” I said. “I don’t know much about my birth family.”

Whether their families are good, bad or middling, supportive or dysfunctional, most people know certain things about where and who they came from; they know they have someone’s nose, someone else’s eyes, one person’s love of words and another person’s quick temper. All my life, I’d been explaining why I didn’t know any of those things. Growing up an adopted Korean girl in a white town, what I wanted more than anything else was to be like everyone else; to feel as though I truly belonged in the place where I was planted. I convinced myself that I didn’t mind not knowing where or who I came from, that normal people didn’t have a secret family out there, that my birth parents ought to mean no more to me than any other strangers. I echoed the usual clichés about how having a baby was “the easy part”; the true commitment was in raising and loving a child forever. When I was asked whether I ever intended to look for my birth family — and I was asked many, many times — my reply was always the same: I just don’t feel the need .

Sitting across from me in the exam room, our midwife asked if I knew how old my mother was when I was born. I shook my head. How about the birth itself? Did I have any record of how it went? I didn’t, I just knew that I had been born severely premature. I didn’t know if any pregnancy complications or illnesses ran in my family, didn’t even know what might have caused my mother to go into labor early.

Maybe it was something in my voice — maybe it was the look on my face — but the midwife lowered her clipboard and offered me a gentle smile. When it comes to pregnancy and labor, she said, some things can run in the family. Knowing how it went for my mother might help us guess how it would go for me. “But if you don’t have that information,” she added, “we’ll make do without it.”

Her voice was even, confident. Reassuring. The sort of voice anyone would find calming in the throes of labor; a voice you couldn’t help but believe. Still, I felt more and more uneasy as I watched her skim and then skip the rest of the questions on the medical history form. In the long years I had spent trying to imagine my birth mother, my thoughts had rarely turned to unknown facts about her health. I wondered about her name, her face, her voice, whether she had loved me, whether she missed me. I was young; I hadn’t yet begun to worry about aging, illness, genetics catching up with me. But now that I was pregnant, those mysterious months, the months my mother had spent carrying me, suddenly seemed far more important — not something to be tossed aside with a cavalier catchphrase like love is thicker than blood. What had pregnancy been like for my mother? Why had she gone into labor so early? What if the same thing happened to me? Until now, it had never occurred to me that my natural mother’s birth history might have any real bearing on my own pregnancy.

Almost everything I knew of my life began on the day I was adopted. It was as if I hadn’t existed before; as if I had simply sprung into being as the chubby-cheeked newborn-sized two-and-a-half-month-old my adoptive parents had brought home. A part of me still found it impossible to believe that I had ever been a baby inside my birth mother’s womb, entirely dependent on her. Now I was going to be a mother — someone would depend on me. I knew I wouldn’t be able to imagine that relationship ever ending. Yet that was exactly what had happened to my bond (if there had ever been a bond) with my first mother. It had been broken, and we had both survived it. I found myself wondering how.

The midwife had pulled out a new batch of forms and turned to my husband, Dan, who didn’t disappoint; his answers about his parents, siblings, and family medical history were all matter-of-fact. I felt a prickle of envy. Then our midwife set down her clipboard and asked if we were ready to listen to the heartbeat.

This was the moment I had been waiting for. The paper stretching over the table rustled as I settled myself. At first all we could hear was the low, rhythmic hum of the Doppler, and I rememer feeling a prickle of fear — what if there was no heartbeat? What if something was wrong?

All of a sudden we heard it, the sound blooming in the hushed exam room. Whumpwhumpwhumpwhump.

“Sounds perfect!” the midwife beamed. Seeing the amazed look on my face, she added, “It’s real, I promise. It’s really there.”

She turned up the volume. For several moments the three of us were silent, listening to that strong, steady heartbeat. The joy I felt hearing it for the first time was something I knew I shared with countless excited parents-to-be. But unlike many of them, I would soon meet the first biological relative I would ever know. When our child was born, I wouldn’t be alone anymore — there would be someone else on this little island with me, someone who was connected to me in a way no one else had ever been.

As I climbed down from the exam bed, my eyes were drawn to the bright print hanging on the opposite wall. A dark-haired pregnant woman cradled her belly, gazing down at it with an expression of wonder and love — an artist’s colorful rendering of the strong physical link, the primal, unbroken bond between mother and child. That bond had always been such a mystery to me; despite being pregnant, I couldn’t yet understand it.

I had spent so many years telling myself that I knew who my family was. That one family ought to be enough for anyone. A search for my birth family had always seemed too risky, too frightening to contemplate. Later , I had told myself, y ou can always search for them later. Deep down, I always believed later was likely to be never.

Now I wondered if that was the right course after all. This appointment had opened up a new channel of worry and doubt I had never anticipated when we decided to start a family. I couldn’t shake the sudden, overwhelming feeling that our child was going to inherit a lifetime’s worth of mysteries and unanswered questions. How could I help them understand and feel connected to their history, their heritage, when it was still completely unknown to me? What did I really have to pass on? Was that good enough for them? Was it good enough for me?

* * *

When I was growing up, my adoptive parents and I rarely talked about the possibility of a reunion with my birth family. They always said it was something I could pursue on my own, if I chose to, when I was an adult. I didn’t begin researching what an actual search might involve until my mid-twenties, and at first I told myself it was strictly an academic exercise: if I was going to take issue with people who felt the need to ask me whether I ever intended to find my “real family,” perhaps I ought to know just how other adoptees went about it. I also told myself that, since I wasn’t actually going to find my birth family, there was no need to tell my adoptive parents about my research.

I knew why I didn’t want to. The few reunion stories they knew were more like cautionary tales. Elizabeth’s birth mother was completely broke and only wanted her money. Jason’s biological family manipulated him and he became estranged from his adoptive parents. I think my parents told me these stories in part so I would remember who my “real family” was. But I was in no danger of forgetting, I thought as I Googled my way to the King County Adoption Services website. I just wanted to know a little bit more.

I was intrigued to learn that a brief social history of an adopted person’s biological parents, as much as they wanted to share at the time of placement, could be acquired for a small fee. My adoption records and all the social worker’s notes were sealed, and my birth parents’ names, addresses, and other sensitive information would remain confidential, but the basic profile was mine for the asking. A neutral and uninvolved party would respond. My birth family would not be contacted directly; they would never even know I had requested the information.

It all sounded so benign, so utterly unthreatening. As I signed the request letter, enclosing a self-addressed stamped envelope where the county clerk could mail the information, I felt grateful for the opportunity to take this step — little more than a baby step, really — without stirring up anyone’s secrets or intruding in anyone’s life.

The reply appeared inside of three weeks, far sooner than I had expected. When I saw the creased legal envelope addressed to me in my own handwriting, stamped in green with the county seal, I snatched it from the pile of mail, closeted myself in the study, and tore it open. Inside the envelope were two pieces of paper. The first was the profile of my parents, a spare account covering only the front side of the page. Someone had transcribed what seemed like bullet points of information into short, choppy sentences. There was very little information ( why was there so little? ), but much of it did prove new to me. I learned that my birth mother was born in 1947, and my birth father was born in 1938. She was 5’2” and he was 5’7”. She had her high school degree; he had been to graduate school. They were both Christian. They both lived in Seoul before moving to the United States. They had other children, but the exact number was missing, as were names and ages.

I held the paper in my hands, reading it over and over. It was more than I had ever known about my birth family. But the brisk list of facts left me feeling incomplete, wondering, wanting more.

Enclosed with it, I saw, was a list of confidential intermediaries and an explanation of their role. In the state of Washington, additional information about any party to a closed adoption could be requested through an “impartial and confidential third party.” For a fee — and not a small one — an intermediary could make contact with my birth parents on my behalf, deliver a letter, and request additional information. If I did want more information about my birth family, this was the only way to proceed. I would have to ask them for it. I could never do that , I thought.

So this was it. The end of the road. It was one thing to petition some nameless, faceless county employee to spend a few minutes mining long-forgotten facts from a file drawer. It was quite another to address my birth parents themselves, remind them of an event — a child — they might not have talked of in years. Even if I sent them a letter through an intermediary, it would be my words they read, my request in their hands. They knew nothing about me; I was a stranger to them. How could I ask them for anything now?

I had listened to over two decades’ worth of questions and unsolicited advice, from friends, relatives, total strangers, about my adoption. I had been asked countless times when, not if, I would hire a private detective or, better yet, enlist a talk show to help me find my biological family. You mean you don’t know anything about them? I don’t think I could deal with that. Don’t you want to know who you are?

I was blessed, wasn’t I? And thankful? I had always had a home, a family who loved me — well, I had for as long as I could remember. At twenty-four, a young twenty-four, with a short catalogue of facts and a list of intermediaries in my grasp, I still wasn’t ready to say that I needed more than I had already been given.

Later that evening, after dinner, I showed Dan the letter. “Do you feel better knowing a little more about them?” he asked after he read it.

I had to admit that I did not. “There’s not much there.”

“But it’s more than you’ve ever had before. And if you want to find out more, now you know how.”

“No. I don’t want to write to them. I don’t even know what I would say.”

He looked surprised, and he even pushed back a bit, suggesting that I think about it. I feel a little guilty now when I remember how quickly I dismissed his words, though I did appreciate his support. It wasn’t that I wanted to set myself apart from my husband, or my adoptive parents, or anyone else. But long after the papers are signed and the original bonds severed, adoption has a way of isolating the adoptee. It had always been this way; families like my husband’s were tapestries, whole and neatly stitched together, while I was more of a hanging thread. I didn’t think he, or anyone else who wasn’t adopted, could fully comprehend just how much adoption had given me, how much it had taken away.

That night I resolved to put the whole thing from my mind. I would not obsess over how much there still was to learn. I would be content with what I had. Dan was applying to graduate school; within the year we would be moving to another state. This was not the time to turn my life upside-down by launching a search for my birth family. I told myself not to think about them anymore, and I succeeded. Mostly.

I also kept the letter.

* * *

Three years later, that letter, that list of intermediaries, was all I could think of in the days following our prenatal appointment. The timing for a search was certainly no better; in many ways, it was worse: I was beset by the bone-deep exhaustion of early pregnancy, unused to it all since it was my first. Maybe I was just being emotional , maybe I wasn’t in the right place to consider this, think it through. I could almost hear my adoptive mother’s voice in my head, though she knew nothing about the decision I was weighing: Do you really think now is the best time?

It probably wasn’t. But my mind had been hijacked by this tantalizing, terrifying possibility. All the questions I had tamped down time and again surged once more to the surface, pushing my prior reservations aside. I had no idea if it would even be possible to find my birth family, to regain any connections or relationships. I didn’t know how these discoveries might change me or the new family we were building. And I knew there were risks: my parents might not want to talk to me. I might not like what I found. Despite the sudden urgency I felt, I didn’t want to make demands of them; necessity had demanded they move on with their lives after the adoption, and being in touch with me might prove too difficult for them. If they didn’t want to talk to me, I would respect their wishes — but it would be terrible to be given up all over again, this time when I was old enough to remember the rejection.

Yet all of these risks suddenly seemed small and unimportant compared to all that I had to gain. And I had someone else to think about now. Someone else to fight for. I needed a richer and more complete story to share with my child — one that would acknowledge the full truth of our history, and the ways in which it had shaped our family’s present and future.

I didn’t even have to think about where the King County Adoption letter was; I knew: shoved in the back of our filing cabinet, in the spare room that would soon be turned into a nursery. Though I had long since memorized everything on the paper, I went upstairs to retrieve it, and read it again. For the first time, I forced myself to acknowledge just how straightforward a search could be. My birth parents weren’t in hiding, they probably weren’t deceased — I didn’t know who they were, but someone did. Reconnecting us would be a matter of pushing paper around. One letter, one phone call, that was all it might take.

This realization welled up deep inside of me, overflowing in another discovery: I had nothing to prove any longer. I didn’t need to defend my family to anyone. My family was growing, it was changing, and maybe it was time it changed in more ways than one. I didn’t need my life to be a statement about the inherent goodness of adoption. It was just my life , and the time had come to lay down those burdens. The most important question now, the one I was finally ready to ask, the only one over which I had any control, hung as if suspended in the air before me.

What do I really want?

The answer was already there, like the heartbeat you only become aware of as a room falls silent — low but steady, insistent, undeniable. I did not have to strain to hear it. I didn’t have to ask myself again. I just knew.

I want to find them. I want to write to them. I want to know everything I’ve never known before.

Maybe this hadn’t always been my answer. I wasn’t sure, even now, if it was the best or smartest one. But it was what I wanted. I wanted the truth, finally, for me and for my child.

I unfolded the list of intermediaries and read the short list of names. The next day, I would begin calling them, one by one, asking them to explain the search process and tell me exactly how much one reunited family would cost me. The phone interviews would not go well; it would take me weeks to settle on an intermediary I trusted, even a little bit, and I wouldn’t have if I’d had any other choice. It would be months before I had any of the answers I sought.

But I didn’t know any of that yet. I gave into hope, to possibility, and let myself imagine my birth parents. I tried to picture their faces with absolutely nothing to go on except for age and (absurdly) height, and began to wonder, as I often had, what sort of internal struggles they had experienced when making the decision to give me up. I wondered how often they talked about me — if they ever prayed for me, or wished for some way to know that I was all right. I wondered how much I might resemble my sisters.

They were still strangers to me, yet suddenly there seemed to be so very little separating us. As my thoughts reached out to them, all at once I could envision hundreds of thin, whispering threads of history and hope, love and curiosity, built up slowly across time between me and my birth family: a web of fragile connections too delicate to be seen or touched, too strong to be completely severed.

Tags: adoption , family , nicole s. chung , pregnancy , writing