Search:10 Questions to Ask... (Continued)
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Question #6: Are you prepared to meet strangers?
I do not like to use the word "reunion" because at least for me, meeting my birth family was not a reunion. I did not remember them. It was a getting-to-know-you. People ask, "So, how was it? What was it like to meet your birth parents?" Sometimes it is good, sometimes it is bad. Sometimes it is very, very bad. I have heard of adoptees who searched for years only to find out that their birth parents do not want to meet them. Others realized that they are still the family secret. Even those who do remember their birth families realize how much they have changed since they last were with their birth families.

I will never forget waiting with the Director of my orphanage for my birth father to arrive. First my paternal birth grandmother walked in the door, a short and stocky woman. She gave me a crushing hug while she sobbed and spoke to me in words I could not understand. But I did not feel anything. I saw her and felt her arms around me but my mind could barely comprehend that she was a real person, not a grainy photograph. Then my birth father walked in and I suddenly felt shy and could not look at his face. I wanted to look but it was like confronting my own face. When the Director of my orphanage told me that my grandmother wanted me to stay with them that night (I thought I was going to stay at his home), my first reaction was, "I'm not going to go with those strangers!" And as I walked out into the coolness of the night and clamored into my birth father's car, I smiled remembering my mom warning me as a child about getting into cars with strangers.

Question #7: Are you ready to meet possible extended family and integrate new members as your family?
As I stood on the subway traveling from Seoul to Inchon where I was to meet my birth father, I broke down and started to sob. My friend Trilika, a mixed black and Korean adoptee, looked at me and said, "Hollee, you are making more room." And I realized that was what I had to do. When you meet your birth family, you are taking on more, not less. You open yourself up to a family that you may not remember and yet is yours by birth. It is up to you to decide how much you want to share your life with them.

I had been prepared to meet my birth father but when I met my grandmother I realized I had not even thought about meeting her. As we left the Director of my orphanage's home my birth father mentioned I would be meeting my half sister and brother. He had married a woman who had since passed away. In addition my birth mother had three children. Suddenly I had five half sisters and brothers I had never known before in addition to uncles and aunts and cousins.