When Kathleen was seven years old, her parents told her she was adopted. She always considered it an interesting fact about her life. Her parents gave her everything a child could need, and they had built a community for her. She knew other children who were adopted, including her sister.
By the time Kathleen gave birth to her son in 2007, she had grown curious. She couldn’t answer medical history questions with any certainty, and she wanted to know more. Legislation was passed in 2011 allowing adult adoptees from Rhode Island to request a copy of their original birth certificate. Kathleen decided to submit her request.
As she opened the envelope, she was most surprised to learn that she had a different name at birth. It didn’t fit the image of the woman she had become. Then the details of her entrance into this world started to come into focus.
She learned she was adopted through an agency called Children’s Friend. She learned about her biological parents. She learned she had a full biological brother. She also learned that four of the neighborhood kids she’d grown up with were actually relatives. These connections brought a new and deeper meaning to fond childhood memories.
One day she mustered the courage to call the work phone of her biological mother. She had decided to leave a message there so that she wasn’t disrupting anyone’s life, should her mother have family members who didn’t know this detail about her past.
Kathleen kept her expectations in check. She was pleasantly surprised to receive a call back. As she learned more about her biological family, and met a new cast of relatives, thanks to the ubiquity of social media and the internet, her appreciation for her adoptive parents and their love grew, too.
She gained a new perspective on the opportunities her parents – both biological and adoptive – had given her.
Children’s Friend is a small but essential part of Kathleen’s story. It brought her to her parents, who raised her with the opportunities every child deserves, and her life as she knows it.