My Parents

September, 1986: Look at my mom's face. This photo makes my heart all glowy.

 Christmas 2013: Haven't changed a bit, right?

My parents have been really supportive of my birth search and my trip to Korea. 

When I was younger, we had a group called KAOS (Kids Adopted from Over Seas). We got together for pot lucks and holiday parties with other adoptee families. I also attended a day camp called Camp Chin Gu at a local college. It was a Korean culture day camp for adoptees and their siblings. We also had a foreign exchange student when I was 16 from Korea.

They've always been open with me about my adoption. There was no hiding that I was adopted obviously, but they told me everything right from the start. They told me my adoption story in the same way parents tell their kids their birth stories. 
"We wanted a baby. After trying to have our own and not being able to, we put in the paperwork to adopt and then you came to us. With hardly any notice, we raced down to New York City to pick you up and bring you home."
is similar:
"We wanted a baby. After being in mommy's tummy for 9 months, we welcomed you into the world."

If I wanted to see my paperwork, they showed it to me. If I showed interest in Korea, they nurtured it. If I seemed like I didn't want to explore my Korean heritage, they didn't push it. If I said, "I don't look like you." They said, "That's right. You don't, and that's ok."

We celebrated what we call "Airplane Day" as a second birthday, the day I came to America. We had a special dinner and I got a small gift. Other families call it "Gotcha Day" or "Adoption Day."
My favorite was when my 4th Grade teacher celebrated my airplane day by taking time during our school day for us to make paper airplanes. We went into the hallway. She put a hula hoop on the floor and marked a starting line. "Fly Corinne to America everyone!" and then we had a treat my mom sent with me to school.

I worried about my parents when I started the birth search. It wasn't that I didn't think that they would support me. I worried they'd fear I was ungrateful or secretly resentful. I worried they'd feel left out. I worried they'd fear I was somehow choosing Korea and my birth mom over them.
I went from never having any interest in Korea to talking about it often and frequently crying over the phone when I called home to tell my parents about what I was working through in therapy.
It's hard to hear your daughter cry over the phone and be 3,000 miles away.
It's also hard when your child is going through something new, good or bad, to not be there to support them or feel like you're not actively doing something to help the cause.

I talked it through with my mom to make sure she was feeling good. Not that I would have stopped the search or my own discovery if she was feeling sad, I just wanted to explain my motivations and my reasons for searching to the best of my ability to ease any fears she had. She assured me she knew I was hers and nothing was going to change that. She told me that if she were in the same shoes, she'd search too. 

As I said before, in the airport before my flight, I was crying on the phone to my parents as they told me how happy they were for me and that they understood to the best of their ability what I was going through.

I e-mailed them along the way. For a while, my gmail account was lagging in updates and I thought they weren't responding to my e-mails. I didn't think they weren't writing back, but I was afraid that either they weren't receiving my e-mails or they didn't want to bother me while I was on my trip.
While I was waiting for the social worker to photo copy some documents, all of my parents' e-mails came through on my phone. I cried out of relief and joy. It was the perfect timing to get those words of kindness and support from them.

Since being back, I have talked to my parents about my trip- they read the blog and saw photos along the way.
I didn't get them anything in Korea...All the gifts I saw were either not their style or too impersonal to send home. I am making them a Shutterfly photobook of the trip so they can see everything I did and share my experience as much as they can.

Another way I am incorporating my family into my experience is that I ordered my parents and myself a copy of I Wish for You a Beautiful Life: Letters from the Korean Birth Mothers of Ae Ran Won to Their Children, Editor Sara Dorow. It is a collection of letters from Korean birth mothers to their children they have given up for adoption. I hear it's a real heart wrencher but in a good way. I had heard about it before my trip but didn't feel like I could read it until now.
Link to Amazon.com: Letters from the Korean Birth Mothers of Ae Ran Won to Their Children
We are going to read it together and talk about it after. 

For me, it was never solely about finding my birth parents. It was about discovering my personal history and identity- to expand in every aspect.