If my experiences are any kind of common, then the answer is likely a big yes. Particularly now with the internet making connections so easy, sleuthing is a breeze.

This afternoon we had a birth sister, now 28, come into the lives of four of my children who are now 23, 26, 29 and 30. They’ve been my children for nearly eighteen years. Once they were four very frightened, disoriented children fresh from an adoption disruption meeting me in 1990 and moving a thousand miles east of their home then in Brownsville, Texas.

This beautiful young lady found my grown children on MySpace.Com. Not a difficult thing to do as their birth mom knew our last name since a caseworker had inadvertently given it to her many years ago.

She'd been the middle child of an original sibling group of five children and had been adopted as a baby. She'd moved to another border town, never to learn the existence of her other siblings until she was a teenager.

Three out of four of the grown children immediately came emotionally apart after learning that their long lost sister had found them. We’ve always known about her, knew where she lived, but I don’t encourage my children to search out their birth families before age 18.

Some of my children remain supremely uninterested in ever doing so, some of my children get blindsided by being found, and some of my children actively search.

This afternoon, knowing this event was going to take place, two of my frightened grown children drew a wall of sisters around them, knowing that these same sisters intuitively understood way more than mama did.

An equally frightened young lady entered our home, faced with thirty or so of us to meet at once and totally overcome by emotions when meeting her baby sister for the first time. Physical resemblances were strong and undeniable.

The rest of my family was overwhelmed as well. Little children hovering and watching reactions, somewhat stilted conversation at first and then it got easier.

Now I have two fairly shattered daughters, one denying it but literally unable to leave the side of another sister she’s particularly close to, the other one is clinging to her husband.

Continued in Part Two

Photo Credit Cindy Bodie