Meeting the Birth Family

I met the birth family on Monday at 3pm. I arrived at Eastern Social Welfare Society (ESWS) just before 3pm and my birth family was not there because they had gotten there so early they left and decided to go and get some lunch. The first to show up was my 1st sister (the oldest of the 4 sisters) and her husband, my brother-in-law. We sat for only a few minutes until my birth mother, my 4th sister, my brother's best friend Byung-Ho, and a young girl (about 21yrs old) named Amy showed up. My birth mother grabbed me right away and started crying immediately, as did my 4th sister.

The second I saw my fourth sister, I said, "I look like you." The funny thing is my birth family thinks my 1st sister, 2nd sister, and 4th sisters all look more like my mother and my brother, 3rd sister and I look more like my father. During the meeting while my mother was crying and trying to explain what happened, they all just kind of stared at me. I think this was the one time where it was really difficult to not know Korean. I would have like to have heard her tell the story for myself without an interpreter, but thankfully Mike was there to translate her story.

Speaking of translation, Ms. Park at ESWS who was the social worker was very nice, but also softed almost everything that was being said. Ethically, I think the Koreans don't really understand what an interpreter is supposed to do. I wanted someone who literally spoke for my birth family and for myself in an unbiased way. I had heard from several other adoptees the interpretors at their meetings had done the same thing, the birth mothers would be talking for 30 minutes and the translation would come out, "She sorry." Well, it doesn't matter if you know a language or not, 30 minutes of straight talking does not equal two words.

The story seems to go something like this.

When I was born my birth mother hemorrhaged, and ended up being unconscious for a day. During that one day, my birth father gave me up for adoption, so my birth mother woke up and I was gone. Oddly, when she said "We tried to get you back" instantly all I could think was, "Thank God you didn't get me back." Not that the circumstance wasn't sad, but I wouldn't have had the awesome life I've had and I know that now with 100% certainty. Not that I didn't guess that before, but man...can you imagine if trying to get me back had actually worked? Yikes!

From what I understand from my siblings my birth mother was so distraught that she and my birth father went to ESWS a few days later to try and get me back. Sadly for them the agency told them the paperwork was already filled out and I had already been placed. Well, as far as that goes I hadn't been placed I was still in Korea, waiting for Novemember 11th, 1976 to be given to Joy and Fred Scott (phew for me, bad for them) I felt so incredibly bad for my birth mother though, she was so upset. I can't imagine giving birth and waking up to have my child missing. She kept saying things like "please forgive me, I committed a horrible crime", but it wasn't her fault. How horrible she must have felt, but I can only imagine it must have made her feel a little relieved to get that off her chest after all these years.

I have sense learned some not so nice things about the way adoption works in Korea. In the 1907s when a child was given up for adoption the agency earned $12,000 for an international placement. For a domestic placement the agency only earned $3,000. Sadly, I heard many similar stories to mine from others who attended the IKAA conference and it seems money was the motivating factor (like all industries) and this is why most of the agencies lied to birth families and told them that their children were already placed when in fact they were still in Korea waiting to be adopted. Sad.

During the first meeting, one of the things they said to me right away was I have a "bright personality". Different family members have said this to me several times now, and I think it gives them a lot of relief to know I grew up with such a good family and wonderful parents. During the meeting I showed my birth mother a picture of my mom and dad. As if she wasn't already crying enough, she started bawling and saying thank you to their picture over and over again. How relieved she must have felt!

 

We left the agency and they took me to a tower here in the city (think Seattle Space Needle) for a nice dinner. My friend Mike came along to translate for me. The dinner was very nice, and the food was great. At one point Amy and I got up to go to the bathroom and when we came back my 1st sister and mother were having a heated argument at the table. Amy and I sat down and they didn't really stop fighting for another 5 minutes. Later that evening when I asked Mike what the fight was about he thought he had heard something about in-laws, but later I found out it was a little bit different.

What I know for sure is my brother is the only one who actually went to high school. Unlike here in America, education in Korea is not free and since my birth family had no money they could not afford to send my sisters to school. My second sister Hye-Suk told me later on that my birth mother has apologized for not having the money to send them to high school and that she's felt guilty about it for years. Apparently my first sister has been letting out her resent over this for the past year or so and started yet another fight with my birth mother about it over dinner. Later on in the week my 1st sister did apologize for picking the fight which I think was the right thing to do. All families have drama, but I think she probably could have let that one go for one night.

Now that I've had a moment to think about the meeting, I think it went really well. As well as it possibly could have gone. This is one of those situations where you can't prepare, you just gotta go and hope for the best.

I'm really glad I did it, and big thank you to Mike and Carol for coming with me, I couldn't have done it without you two!