I just returned from visiting my birth family for a week, which is why you haven't heard from me. Everytime my family and I get together, it gets a little easier, a little more natural and comfortable. We all open up a little more and learn more about each other. My siblings and I catch up on all the stuff we missed out on like teasing each other and fighting in the back seat of the car and yelling, "Dad, she hit me!" It sounds silly, but it's healing for all of us.

We've generally stayed away from talking about the adoption itself, what was going on when they gave me up, how did they feel, how do I feel about it, etc. Just before I headed for the airport, my sister and my birth father were sitting around talking about just that sort of thing, and we realized that my father had one of my brothers births (he was also given up for adoption) mixed up with mine (as I'm older than my brother, I only look much younger ). (My birth parents had a boy and girl they gave up for adoption and a boy and girl that they kept. Are you, like, totally confused? I know I was for awhile.)

Anyway, that led into the whole discussion of when I did a search 26 years ago and my birth mother wouldn't communicate with me and how that felt like rejection all over again. When my birth mother did tell my siblings she had given up a child, she told them about my brother, not me. They didn't hear about me until a couple years later. My sister asked if I resented that. I hadn't really realized it until then, but yeah, a little, not to the point that I feel angry or want to punish anyone. It's more like a hurt feeling. But most of the time, I just enjoy what we have now.

As for your son and daughter, it seems like more girls than boys want to find their birth parents. I think it's one of those gender differences. My brother had no interest in finding our parents. They found him, and for awhile, the whole thing freaked him out and he didn't want anything to do with any of them. My brother in my adopted family also didn't want to find his birth parents. Unfortunately, he had a lot of anger issues over being born at all and died from alcoholism at age 39.

As for my Korean friend, she was raised in a very small town where her sister and she were the only Koreans she ever saw. Her book is called "The Language of Blood" by Jane Jeong Trenka and can be bought at Barnes and Noble or online at Amazon.com

Anyway, I had a nice week with my family and came back dreaming of buying a trailer home or casita in Arizona to live in during the winter . We're expecting a big winter storm Sunday night here in Minnesota. Brrrr!