Adoption Reunions (SA)Letters and E-mail

Received From Tossie Rautenbach 29/08/2007	Hi Jack, Is met groot dank, en waardering aan jou, dat ek vandag hierdie skrywe aan jou kan rig. My beker van geluk loop oor en met 'n lied in my hart, wil dit graag met jou deel, aangesien jy die hoofrolspeler in hierdie mooi verhaal is. En daarvoor is ek jou ewig dankbaar. Ons het vir laasweek net 2 dae aan mekaar gemail en Vrydag ontmoet. Ja, baie gou, maar danksy die berading wat ek ontvang, het ek gevoel die gewag was al lank genoeg. Ek het die Saterdag voorgestel, maar hy kon nie wag nie....was sommer daardie selfde Vrydagmiddag oor etenstyd by winkelsentrum. Kan jy glo, ek het hom dadelik tussen skare mense herken en in sy arms ingeloop. Wat 'n wonderlike gevoel was dit nie, onbeskryflik!!!!!!! Kan jy glo, van die begin af was daar geen ongemak tussen ons, spontaan met mekaar sit en gesels soos ou bekendes. Gisteraand het hy my genooi vir ete en is asof ons nie genoeg van mekaar kan kry nie. Is 'n seun op op trots te wees en hy is pragtig!!!! Daar is so baie van myself wat ek in hom sien en ek kan die Vader nie genoeg dank vir die groot eer wat aan my geskenk word nie. Na al die jare se pyn en verlange het ek nou uiteindelik berusting gevind en voel heel 'n ander mens. Is asof ek buite my eie liggaam staan en hierdie mooi verhaal voor my sien afspeel sonder om te besef dat ek een van die hoofrolspelers is. Weereens, baaaaaaaaaaaaaie, baie dankie. Is iemand soos jy wat my weer sonskyn laat sien het. Kaapse groete. Tossie.
Received From Jeff ( Martin) 17/08/2007	Here's how I feel, I'll let you know how it goes. I was given up for adoption at birth. From as far back as I can remember I was told the truth. My natural mother could not keep me, and my adoptive parents wanted me. It was simple. As a youngster, I didn’t know what an adoption home was. I believed it was a supermarket full of babies, so from an early age I believed that my mom and dad chose me, out of all the babies in the supermarket. That made me fell more special than any other child I knew. My brother was also adopted. I could not imagine why someone would not want a baby (me) and whenever the subject of looking for my biological mother came up, I rejected the idea saying that if she wanted me, she shouldn’t have given me away. I felt nothing for her just as I believed she felt nothing for me. Every time I speak about my birth mother, I get uneasy with calling her my mother in any form, even now. Years went by, the curiosity was still there. The feelings for my birth mother seemed to soften, my compassion seemed to return, as I grew in maturity, so my understanding grew and judgement seemed to vanish. I feel that the reasons she did give me up were experiences that I could not understand and had nothing to do with me. She would have to face them each day and get over it herself. I felt I was now ready to face my past, hopefully relieve my birthmother of some of the hurt she might be feeling and take away any guilt she may have been carrying for years. I wanted to find her to tell her I had a good home and was treated well. She needn’t carry on worrying as I have been told many birth mothers do. I started my search at the adoption home where I came from, I didn’t tell a soul about my search. I was put onto a previous employee, a fantastic lady (Kay Fermo) who found my file and gave me a copy. This had a lot of info, but no follow up details. I was adopted in 1964 and I was doing the search in 2000. Anyway, I believed my detective skills weren’t too bad and I would give it a go. I came up blank at a lot of places, there was a chance she had left the country, following the channels turned up nothing. My interest grew and stopped in drips and drabs. I was getting nowhere and loosing interest. Time passed. I decided just a week or two back to start the search again in earnest. I e-mailed Kay to help me, and was to set up an appointment to see her as it was years since we had last spoken. Before I could make the appointment however, I received a call from Jack to tell me SHE had made contact. WOW!! What a blast!!! I am now sitting at work, in a daze, not being able to sleep at night. Apart from my relationship with this new woman, what about my relationship with my mom? She knows nothing of the search. My brother has no interest in looking for his birth mother. I didn’t think of telling her in case nothing ever happened. The thoughts going through my mind are incredible, from another rejection to another life, I never imagined I would have such feelings, some excellent, some devastating. The last few years of my life, I’ve led a stable life, no extremes, so this is like a steam train running straight into me and I’m not sure if it has missed and I’m feeling the adrenaline flowing through, or if it hit me and I need to get up and do some recovery work. I’ve had to take a break from writing to gather my thoughts and get back to reality. I feel very lonely going through it all, although I want to shout out to the world what has just happened. I’m hoping I can make some sense of all these feelings I am going through by writing it all down. I’ve never really given any thought to having a long term relationship with her, or even a relationship with any other extended ‘family’. I never thought this would be a big deal and maybe all this thought is making it a lot bigger than it really is. Is all I plan on doing now, is taking one day at a time and telling my birthmother that she’s alright in my books. The way I see it, I could’ve been deposited into a bucket and flushed down the toilet. Now that would’ve been a crap experience………. Jeff (MARTIN)
Received From Charlene 02/02/2004	Hi, my name is Charlene, I am 27 years old and this is my adoption story! I have one sister who is married with two kids who lives 5 minutes from me and a brother who is single and lives in NJ. My parents are divorced, my dad lives here in Charlotte and my mom lives in Australia. I fell pregnant in October 1995, I was young and in college unfortunately I did not realize what I was doing at the time and went out got drunk and had sex for the first time. I do not know who the father of my daughter is and one day I am going to have a lot of explaining to do! I do regret my actions but I do not regret having Emma-jenny, she has bought so much happiness to my life and her parents. I ignored the fact that I was pregnant for seven months, I just thought if I ignored it, it would go away but obviously not! Then one day my mom and I were talking about our menstrual cycles and I said “I haven't had one in seven months”, she was shocked and insisted I go to the doctor immediately. At this moment in time I still did not say anything to anyone and nobody thought that I could possibly be pregnant, well obviously the doctor knew right away without doing any tests or anything. I decided there and then in the doctor's office that I was going to place my child up for adoption; I was 18 years of age and I knew that I was not responsible enough to have a child. My family supported my decision and the doctor arrange for me to meet with a social worker. She came around to our home and we discussed many issues about adoption but I still didn't think about how I would feel after the whole process. She gave me many choices of families and I had actually chosen one family but the day before she was going to tell them she said she had another family to show me. I am so glad she did as I knew in my heart the minute she showed me the new family they were meant to be Emma's parents. Her mom had, had two miscarriages, adopted a sick child who had died and was in the processes of adopting another child when the birthmom changed her mind, I knew that this was God's plan. I met with her parents a couple of times before the hospital and it all just felt so right, they are wonderful people! Well, I knew that the day was coming and I still didn't know how to feel. I went to work the day before I gave birth to her and even the day of her birth I was walking around grocery shopping, I didn't feel any different so eventually I went to the doctor and she induced me. An hour later I was in the hospital getting ready to give birth, it all was so quick I hardly remember any details of the birth; I know that I had a c-section and my mom was there with me but don't remember much else about the birth experience! I got to see her the day after she was born and held her for about an hour before I gave her to her parents, it was the most difficult thing I have ever done and I think will ever do. Her mom had hormones injected in her so she was able to breast feed; I think that was great of her because if I had to have done that I would have been too much of an attachment to her. I stayed in the hospital for a day and went home. When I got home they had sent me flowers to thank for the great gift I had given them, I just cried as the pain and emptiness in side my heart was unbearable, I didn’t realize something could hurt so much! I stayed off work for a week and then went back and acted as nothing had happened. It was a weird time for me as I had all these thoughts and emotions going on inside me and I didn't know what to do with any of it! They sent me photo's of her every second month through the social worker and after six months I decided I couldn't handle it so I went to Israel for seven months but I realized after being there I couldn't run away from it so I went back home and faced it. It was tough but I had to deal with the pain. I get photos' of her once a year on her birthday and I am so proud of how she has turned into a beautiful young girl. Her parents are doing a fantastic job of raising her. Her mom had twins two years ago, so she now has a brother and sister, and from what I can tell from the photo's she seems very, very happy which makes me happy! It has been a difficult seven years and it will continue being difficult but I have gone from thinking about her every minute of the day to only thinking about her once a day or every second day. I never thought the pain would go away but it has slowly and I am happy with my decision, I count the years they she will be able to come and find me! My family have also had to deal with it which was hard for them seeing what pain I went through but they now have now have comfort knowing that I am happy. Even though she is not with us she is in our hearts always and will be forever! She will always have a mom, a grandma, grandpa, an aunty and an uncle that are her for her and love her.
Received From Charlene 02/02/2004	Hi, my name is Charlene, I am 27 years old and this is my adoption story! I have one sister who is married with two kids who lives 5 minutes from me and a brother who is single and lives in NJ. My parents are divorced, my dad lives here in Charlotte and my mom lives in Australia. I fell pregnant in October 1995, I was young and in college unfortunately I did not realize what I was doing at the time and went out got drunk and had sex for the first time. I do not know who the father of my daughter is and one day I am going to have a lot of explaining to do! I do regret my actions but I do not regret having Emma-jenny, she has bought so much happiness to my life and her parents. I ignored the fact that I was pregnant for seven months, I just thought if I ignored it, it would go away but obviously not! Then one day my mom and I were talking about our menstrual cycles and I said “I haven't had one in seven months”, she was shocked and insisted I go to the doctor immediately. At this moment in time I still did not say anything to anyone and nobody thought that I could possibly be pregnant, well obviously the doctor knew right away without doing any tests or anything. I decided there and then in the doctor's office that I was going to place my child up for adoption; I was 18 years of age and I knew that I was not responsible enough to have a child. My family supported my decision and the doctor arrange for me to meet with a social worker. She came around to our home and we discussed many issues about adoption but I still didn't think about how I would feel after the whole process. She gave me many choices of families and I had actually chosen one family but the day before she was going to tell them she said she had another family to show me. I am so glad she did as I knew in my heart the minute she showed me the new family they were meant to be Emma's parents. Her mom had, had two miscarriages, adopted a sick child who had died and was in the processes of adopting another child when the birthmom changed her mind, I knew that this was God's plan. I met with her parents a couple of times before the hospital and it all just felt so right, they are wonderful people! Well, I knew that the day was coming and I still didn't know how to feel. I went to work the day before I gave birth to her and even the day of her birth I was walking around grocery shopping, I didn't feel any different so eventually I went to the doctor and she induced me. An hour later I was in the hospital getting ready to give birth, it all was so quick I hardly remember any details of the birth; I know that I had a c-section and my mom was there with me but don't remember much else about the birth experience! I got to see her the day after she was born and held her for about an hour before I gave her to her parents, it was the most difficult thing I have ever done and I think will ever do. Her mom had hormones injected in her so she was able to breast feed; I think that was great of her because if I had to have done that I would have been too much of an attachment to her. I stayed in the hospital for a day and went home. When I got home they had sent me flowers to thank for the great gift I had given them, I just cried as the pain and emptiness in side my heart was unbearable, I didn’t realize something could hurt so much! I stayed off work for a week and then went back and acted as nothing had happened. It was a weird time for me as I had all these thoughts and emotions going on inside me and I didn't know what to do with any of it! They sent me photo's of her every second month through the social worker and after six months I decided I couldn't handle it so I went to Israel for seven months but I realized after being there I couldn't run away from it so I went back home and faced it. It was tough but I had to deal with the pain. I get photos' of her once a year on her birthday and I am so proud of how she has turned into a beautiful young girl. Her parents are doing a fantastic job of raising her. Her mom had twins two years ago, so she now has a brother and sister, and from what I can tell from the photo's she seems very, very happy which makes me happy! It has been a difficult seven years and it will continue being difficult but I have gone from thinking about her every minute of the day to only thinking about her once a day or every second day. I never thought the pain would go away but it has slowly and I am happy with my decision, I count the years they she will be able to come and find me! My family have also had to deal with it which was hard for them seeing what pain I went through but they now have now have comfort knowing that I am happy. Even though she is not with us she is in our hearts always and will be forever! She will always have a mom, a grandma, grandpa, an aunty and an uncle that are her for her and love her.
Received From Jane Paulsen 16/12/2003	Dear Jack, This year has been one of the very best for me - and I'm sure you know why! I logged onto your website last week and noticed that you have updated Kelly's and my entry (05/11/1975) - well, there's more! We have had DNA tests done, and are a match! (As if there was any doubt in our minds, but we knew that others may have questions, so to set those to rest, we did it.) The tests were simple and painless - scrape the inside of your cheek with a new toothbrush, or send in hairs pulled from your head - with the roots attached. As I said, a perfect match. Kelly and I write regularly, and I have also had email "conversations" with her mother and father, and even been invited to visit them all in Australia - which I will do early next year. And its all thanks to you and your website. In fact, 'thanks' just doesn't cover what I feel, words are inadequate. Keep safe, Jane.
Received From Stefanie 10/12/2003	Dear Jack, To begin a letter like this is not a very easy thing to do. I have longed for so many years to actually get to the day that I will be able to find my brothers. Unfortunately life just didn't have that planed for me. I am 24 years old and my two brothers 22 & 26, and for most of my and my adoptive parents life's we have tried to find them. Just recently I have received a call from the authorities, which informed me that they were not able to find my older brother due to the fact that both his adoptive parent had past away (I so wish I could have been there for him). As for my younger brother we found that the family that adopted him had no information that he had a sister or brother and they felt that they did not want to put him through, heartbreak and confusion. (From this I could see that he is in a loving home). It just feels that my search had come to an end. A dead end, with no way out. I will do anything to finally meet them. I know to re-unite won't be easy for any of us, as we grew up in different families with different values and ways. Maybe it would be more difficult than I thought, but I would have liked the chance to be able to finally meet the 2 most important people in my life. I don't believe that anyone could understand the effect this search has on a person, until something like this happens to you. With this I end my letter, and wish all of you searching for someone the best of luck. Stefanie
Received From Carol Fenske 18/07/2003	Dear Jack Below I have a submission to your site but not sure where you would prefer to place it. August 2000 I first made written contact with Samantha my daughter placed in adoption born 5 November 1975. I have had a very heartbreaking time trying to get to know Samantha. She is withdrawn in her ways and most unforgiving of circumstances, although she will never admit it to me or others, and I hope that with time and understanding she will soften towards me. I fully understand the pain of rejection having been put there through no choice of my own. Sam remember that you have a very very special place in my heart, have always and will always have. This my other two understand without feeling in anyway leftout. All I seek is acceptance. I am also thankful to her biological dad and his wife on their acceptance of her into their lives and her bonding with them. "I wish you peace, contentment, love and trust you to the loving care of God, up above" till we meet again. Thank you Carol
Received From Mary Koster 16/07/2003	Mine is a very happy story! After tracing my son over 2 years ago, we have remained extremely close. I attended his wedding in September last year in Cape Town and am the very proud grandmother of his baby boy born on the 25th June this year. I have also met his adoptive mother, a lovely lady and we got on so well. We immediatley warmed to each other and was shown very many photographs and stories were realated to his childhood. He is exteremly close to his biological sister, they live in the same town, and all which I could have hoped and dreamt for has come true. We are whole again and that dreadful emptiness that I had for 28 years is now so filled with love and happiness. My life could'nt be more complete. With grateful thanksto all those special wonderful people who assisted me, for the devoted people who made this possible, God bless you all. Mary
Received From Paul Clifford 21/06/2003	Hi Jack I am writing to you from New Zealand to thank you for the service of your web site. It was the means by which my biological son, Niel, managed to trace me and his biological mother in May this year. He is living in the UK now and we are in the process of catching up on the last 26 years. I can’t begin to tell you how much it means to me to at last be in touch with him. As you can imagine we are taking it one step at a time and I feel that we are well on our way to establishing a life long friendship. Once again, many, many thanks and keep up the good work. Regards, Paul Clifford (Auckland)
Received From Godfrey Korb. Thursday 10th April 2003	Dear Jack Just to let you know that my wife Annamarie Korb {married name } nee { Duvenhage } and named at birth as Jackualine Rademeyer by her biological mother Judith Dorothea Rademeyer has with the assistance of your site and a Mr.Muller Rademeyer who specialises in the Rademeyer family history located her biological mother Judith who now resides in Gansbaai [ Western Cape } and married to a Mr.F.Barnard. After establishing what her biological mothers telephone number was she "mistakenly" phoned her and had the telephone slammed down on 2 occasions. At the third attempt her biological mother Judith told her that she had absolutely no interest in her and never wanted to hear from her ever again. I believe that we should have approached this differently - maybe through a third party and maybe she would have understood the "hell" that my wife had gone through in her quest to locate her biological mother. Many questions still remain unanswered. In conclusion may your God bless you and your family for your efforts and dedication. Many thanks Godfrey Wouter Korb.
Received from Mari-Lize Wednesday, February 19, 2003 6:11 PM	Dear Jack and Searching Adoptees Today the 19th February 2003, was the end of all my hearthache and frustration. Halfway through my babbling, the lady I was speaking to stopped me and asked me to call the CMR. I was quite put off, because I had just about had it with people sending me back and forth. What a surprise when the lady at the CMR told me to stop "yakking" and to listen to what she has to tell me. "We found your birthmother" Now as a smoker I have never come so close to a heart attack like this miserable rainy morning. SHE MADE MY DAY! She put the warmth and hope back into my heart, (which I by the way thought would never heal again). My good qualities : (just give me a moment, I am still recovering) MY bad qualities : I AM VERY IMPATIENT!!!!!!! I guess the point I am trying to make is to never give up on your hopes and dreams. Yes it might seem like an eternity, but hang in there. I have a huge problem waiting for what I want. I thought that no one in this world cares about my (our) feelings. THAT IS NOT TRUE! Just keep in mind that there are thousands of other adoptees and birthparents looking for each other. These things take time! Hang in there my friend. Now we haven't made contact yet, because they must arrange the meeting first, but I can promise you as soon as we talked I will tell you what happened. I am going to go down on my knees now, and thank the Lord for what He has done. Without Him and His support and love this would not have been possible. I believe that everything in life happens for a reason, maybe that is why He kept me waiting for two years. Maybe He wanted me to be more mature about it, and to understand it better. I do now! I made Jack a promise that I will give my help and support to everyone who is looking for their birthparents or children. I will keep my promise. I know what it feels like, to feel like giving up 'cause you don't get anywhere. I will keep you all posted on what happened next week. Again, Jack, the world needs more people like you. God Bless,