At one point in every adopted child's life, questions come up that eventually cannot be ignored. The questions that have nagged at me are probably fairly typical. What was the determining factor that made my mother decide to give me up for adoption? What would my life be like if I hadn't been adopted? Do I have cancer in my family history or in my future?

After my 20th birthday, I began to think more about my birth mother. Although I didn't think about my birth mother on my birthday, it seems likely that she thought of me. Over the years, I haven't given my birth parents too much thought; I have a set of parents who are actively in my life. But if I was her first daughter, I assume it would be hard to forget the day I was born. Somehow I don't think carrying a little person in one's stomach for nine months is something that could easily be forgotten.

I am not interested in finding another family. However, there is a lot of curiosity about the people who conceived me. Do I have my mother's personality and my father's mouth? Do they like to read and write like I do? Or am I only who I am because of the way I was raised?

I also believe that I owe it to myself to at least try to find out more about where I came from—the culture, the lifestyle, and the family. Perhaps, more than anything, I want to show my birth mother that she made the right choice when she let me go. I belong here. I'm happy here. And if I was a mother, that's all I'd want to know.