025 – I Feel So Lucky, I Got Way More Than I Bargained For

With extra time on her hands, Jennifer used a Search Angel to locate her biological relatives. She connected with her maternal Aunt over Facebook Messenger, simultaneously emailing her birth father using his contact info from LinkedIn. Hoping for a connection to her biological mother, the pendulum swung in the other direction after her mother rejected her. Jennifer recovered almost immediately with a loving connection to her biological father whom she has a natural bond with.

I hope you’ll remember David’s amazing story, in episode 15 “We Wish We Could Have Grown Up Together”. He remembered the day, when he was a boy, when his family brought home a baby girl. Jennifer is David’s lifetime sister.

The post 025 – I Feel So Lucky, I Got Way More Than I Bargained For appeared first on Who Am I...Really? Podcast.

Jennifer (00:00):

I feel so lucky to have formed this connection and you know, I didn't really go into it thinking that I was looking for a mother or a father. I was just looking for information to understand myself better and where I came from, but I got, you know, way more than I bargained for.

Voices (00:27):

Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?

Damon (00:38):

This is Who Am I Really, a podcast about adoptees that have located and connected with their biological family members. I'm Damon Davis and today you're about to meet Jennifer who lives outside of Los Angeles. I'm excited to bring you her story because it's the first time the Who Am I Really podcast brings you the sibling story of another guest. I hope you'll remember the journey of David in episode 15 he said that he remembered the day when he was a boy, when his family brought home a baby girl.

David (01:10):

My younger sister is Jennifer, and she was three and a half years younger than me and I actually remember going to pick her up. It was just kind of cool. Yeah. I just remember kind of getting out of the car in the parking lot and going somewhere. Next thing we know, I have a sister.

Damon (01:22):

Just like David. Jennifer used a search angel to get started on her journey. The search angels team quickly returned information about both of Jennifer's biological parents, so she sent them both introductory messages. Hoping for a connection to her biological mother, the pendulum swung completely in the other direction after her mother rejected her. However, she was able to recover almost immediately with a loving connection to her biological father who has been connected to her ever since. Jennifer's parents were divorced when she was seven years old. When her curiosity about her history first struck her parents weren't able to give her any concrete details. Her brother David's search wasn't going very well. So Jennifer kind of let it go for a while.

Jennifer (02:06):

I knew from the time I was really young that I was adopted, so when I was young I wasn't really interested in finding anything out. But like as you get older you want to know what the story was. And as my parents started to get older and then my parents kept forgetting or you know, whose story was what. And so as I became older, you know, I was more interested in, in finding that information out and I thought they would have some sort of backup, you know, but they didn't. Then I was kind of at a loss. At that time, my brother was looking, you know, before the internet and it seemed like he wasn't getting anywhere. So, you know, I just focused on finishing school, getting a job, you know, getting married.

Damon (02:46):

Jennifer had wanted to know more about her history for a long time. She had written in for her non-identifying information in 2007. She had her parents' ages at the time of her birth, their occupations, religious beliefs, and a few tidbits about some of their interests.

Jennifer (03:02):

So I knew back then that they were into sailing and my dad was a surfer, so I thought, okay, they must have met somewhere on the coast. And since I live near a Marina Del Ray and I was born in Granada Hills, which you know, is the Valley of LA, not too far. I figured maybe I'll run into him somewhere at the beach cause you know, I'm a coastal kid and grew up at the beach.

Damon (03:24):

Jennifer said she was always on the lookout for someone that could have been one of her parents. Her choice of career placed her in a position to meet a lot of folks whom she evaluated for both their professional capabilities and her own potentially personal connection to them. But it wasn't until she was unemployed that she had the time and opportunity to truly begin her search.

Jennifer (03:45):

And I went into HR as a career, so I did a lot of interviewing and it's kind of funny, I interview people almost seeing if I looked like anyone, you know what I'm saying?

Damon (03:54):

Really? You had like an investigative eye basically on everybody you tried to come across?

Jennifer (03:58):

Yeah. You know, because I knew, you know, they couldn't have been that much older than me, but it wasn't until, um, I was laid off from a job that I had time to go, okay, if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it now

Damon (04:11):

With extra time on her hands. She evaluated her possibilities for launching a search. David had already been on an internet search journey for a while that wasn't yielding any results. She figured if she was going to get any results, she would have to pay for them.

Jennifer (