Limited Medical History: An Adoption Story

I have always known that I was adopted. Growing up, our closest family friend’s children were also adopted. As an adult, and a parent, I was a bit more aware of how not having family history could be a problem. And at the age of 51, I was diagnosed with colon cancer. Through many doctor and hospital visits I was asked repeatedly for my family health history. Thankfully, I had surgery, then chemotherapy, and am now five years cancer-free.

Throughout my life, I have wanted to know more about myself, where I came from, what were the circumstances surrounding my being placed for adoption, and if I belonged to a family somewhere. In my mid-twenties, my adopted brother was contacted by his birth mother and to say that I was envious would be an understatement. He met with her one time and then broke off all contact with her as he seemed to not need, as I did, to know more about himself. With the advent of computers and internet searches, I began digging into adoption sites. I wrote letters to be put in a file in case my birth mother was looking for me. Nothing was ever found this way. I contacted my adoption agency and they were not very helpful either. It seemed there were two options—I could do a full search that would cost nearly $1000 but it carried no guarantees or I could pay $250 for non-identifying background information which may include health history that my birth mother may have given at the time of my birth. No guarantees here either but it was a much more affordable gamble.

What I expected to receive was a synopsis of my birth family’s health history and maybe some information that would tell me more about the people I came from. What I did receive was information on personality, hobbies, interests and social make up of my birth-mother and birth-father but no real health history. My birth-mother stated that her father, my grandfather, had had a heart attack at age 52. While I was disappointed with the amount of health information I received, I was overjoyed to read the two pages that told me that my birth mother had many of the same interests and talents as I did! I was surprised to learn that three of my four birth-grandparents were teachers as I have a degree in education and that my birth father was in the ministry as that has been my vocation for the past 20 years! I was shocked to learn that rather than having a teen-age birth-mother who decided she was too young to raise a baby, she was a 27-year-old divorcee raising a six year old daughter alone. My birth-father was five years younger and has no idea that I exist as she never told him she was pregnant. My joy at learning I have a half-sister is shadowed with frustration as I don’t know more.

Just a few years after receiving my background information, I began noticing changes in my health; extreme fatigue after climbing stairs, shortness of breath and my color was not quite right, I called my doctor and made an appointment thinking I was having heart problems due solely to what I read in my non-identifying background information. All heart screenings came back normal. My blood work, though, told a different story. My hemoglobin was 5.5. I was bleeding from somewhere even though I had no indications of that. During a colonoscopy and endoscopy, my tumor was found. I was somewhat shocked as you never expect that to happen to yourself. My husband and children took the news very well and began cheering me on. It was more difficult to tell my friends about my diagnosis as they would often go to an attitude of fear and worry and I found myself assuring them that I would be okay. This was exhausting. After a few days of that I transitioned into “well, let’s fix this mode” and began calling doctor friends for...