Strength and Courage - The experience and discovery of my birth parents and familyStrength and Courage - The experience and discovery of my birth parents and family

A blog to share the incredible search process and new family connections

January 2018

Family meetings and Sharing history Jan 16-30, 2018

by Mary Lynne on category

Tuesday night, January 16th was the next time we spoke.  I asked my youngest son, Kevin if he wanted to be introduced to my birth mom? He said ‘of course!’ so we texted Sherry to see if she was ready.  We spoke for a good two hours, first speaking of the tournament and then speaking with Kevin about school, friends and his thoughts on being the only ‘kid’ at home.  We also introduced our labradoodle named Sage who was trying to get our attention by moving across our laps to get in the best position for constant petting.  See her picture below!

As we talked about our family with Sherry – we also met Gary, her husband for the first time.  He was the first person she told about me and it was he who really encouraged her to start searching.  Kevin decided we should walk up our stairwell and by holding the computer, we could show them both all the pictures of our family on the wall.  It was certainly just a snapshot of our lives, but another way to share more about the family.  I also shared that I haven’t had a relationship with my adopted parents in almost 20 years which as one would expect would leave a significant gap in my personal life.  Quite honestly I have had such incredible support from my husband, children, my brother David and his parents that I didn’t recognize there even was a gap.  Sherry’s first words were ‘I am so sorry’ and that family means everything to her.  Of course I responded that it was clearly not her fault emphasizing the support that I have had over the 20 years.

We started speaking every 2-3 days using FaceTime as often as possible concentrating our conversations on different aspects of our lives and inevitably for at least 2 hours.  One evening Sherry spent some time discussing her medical background in more detail.  We had learned earlier in the month that in 2012 both of us had hip replacements – mine was my left hip and hers was the right hip.  High blood pressure runs in the family and I just learned that I needed to start a diuretic even though my weight and exercise regiment told the doctor differently.  This is where family history can certainly help!  Another interest of mine was this incredible vocal ability that several of my children have.  Unfortunately this does not come from my mother’s side so something to investigate more from my father’s family.

Also during this month of January we decided on a date to meet face to face which was going to be President’s Day weekend.  So we started planning what this would look like, where to meet, etc.

Family connections were important to both of us.  For me it began with meeting my new brother Tony and for Sherry I introduced her to my husband Andy.   Snippets of our conversations including everything from learning that ‘the apple is still on the tree’ since both my birth mother and I enjoy shopping  🙂 and sharing our common interest in the company Best Buy.  My brother Tony has been working at Best Buy for several years, we knew one of Dick Schultz’ (founder of Best Buy) daughter whose son was a buddy of our son Kevin and we tend to buy most of our appliances there.  They found Andy quite humorous and enjoyed his stories of various aspects of our lives with his version a slight twist of my truth – haha!  Tony was equally fun, really open and seemed to be excited to discover he has another sister!  I also had a chance to share messages with my new sister Kristen who lives in Virginia but like me does a fair amount of travel for work so it has been more challenging to connect.  My older children asked that I share their phone numbers with Sherry so she could start to connect with them directly and I met Tony’s son Dylan on another FaceTime call.  I scheduled another time to speak with my younger sister, Angi and her children which I was really looking forward to!

At this point, I was pretty encouraged on my birth family discovery.  Questions still remained for me like; would they really like me? even love me? What does this new family means to me?  How will my family respond? How does a mother-daughter catch up on 52 years? How does a sister catch up with her new brother and sisters? Will I be nervous, excited, sad, or… ??

Speaking for the first time – Jan 12, 2018

by Mary Lynne on category

During the month of January, Sherry and I began to talk.  Her adorable Texas accent, spunky charm and excitement that we have connected came across right away.  We spoke about 45 minutes late Friday afternoon on January 12th where she let me know a little more about who my Dad was (which was confirmed based on the ancestry tree that Mary had put together), where she lived during her pregnancy and why she has been looking for me the past two years.   When she discovered she was pregnant, she told my father.  He was a young man she met and dated during the summer on the rebound from her first love break-up a couple months before.  He was heading to college so having a child was not in his plan.  Sherry’s parents decided the best place for her to continue schooling, protect her brother David Richey (my uncle) who was only ten years old at the time, and maintain her reputation, was to live with her Aunt Frances and Uncle Pete in Plano. Sherry would go to a local college where they taught high school classes for unwed mothers during the week while her aunt and uncle would go to work. On March 23, 1965  she went into labor. Sherry said she called her Aunt telling her she had horrible pains to which her Aunt replied “Oh my word you are going into labor!”  Aunt Frances was working this day so Sherry had to wait for her to come home and then take her to the hospital.  St Paul University hospital, which is now no longer having been torn down in 2015 and replaced by a new medical center under UT Southwestern, was where she went to have me.  When she started to give birth they gave her laughing gas to put her to sleep which was done to ensure the adoption was followed through.  When Sherry woke up she asked the nurse who came in to check on her what she had to which the nurse replied ‘a baby girl’ but she was not allowed to see me and know anything about me.  After a week in the hospital, Sherry went back home where the birth of her ‘baby girl Richey’ was never to be spoken of again until Sherry was much older.

In 2015 Sherry decided to tell her husband Gary about the baby girl born on March 23 and it was with his encouragement that she reached out to an agency to start searching.  Later in Sherry’s life, she asked her Mom if she knew what happened to me.  Her mom said she didn’t know, but wasn’t sure I even made it after birth.  Unclear why her Mom said this either because she just didn’t know or because she didn’t want Sherry to look for me, this statement made her even more determined to get some closure and find out if I was still alive or not. Very little progress was being made with the agency so Sherry was ready to call a woman who had helped someone locate her parents when she received my letter.

The next day, January 13th, we had our first FaceTime call while I was in between my son’s volleyball games at McCormick Center.  I found a quiet place on the 2nd floor to meet her via video chat and it was during this conversation that I learned she had reached out to all of her adult kids (Angi and Tony) who lived nearby and asked that they come over to her house that Saturday morning.  When Sherry called, they all asked ‘what is wrong, Mama’ because it was a little odd that she wanted them to come to the house together.  The one sister Kristen who is in Virginia, was told via the phone later that morning since she lives so far away.  When she told them all about having another sister, they were pretty excited, very supportive of their mom and were curious to learn more about me.  I was equally relieved how well they took the news.  The one question that they asked was why their mom never mentioned it before.   The main reason she explained was that she wasn’t sure if I was even alive and what would she say without knowing this?

We FaceTime’d for a good 1 1/2 hours and I knew I needed to get to the next volleyball game but we kept coming up with more questions about each other. Can you imagine having 52 years of catching up to do?  I made it to his next game leaving it that we would speak again in a couple days.

✕

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