Searching with a Search Angel

Well I joined the FB group, and waited a few days before making my first post to ask for help. I was feeling nervous and scared. I guess with all the let downs I had in the past, I was a bit apprehensive. As soon as I made my post, someone commented immediately and offered to help me in my search! My search Angel had come to my rescue! And her name was Jackie. She PM'd me and I gave her whatever info I could that she requested. Which wasn't much besides my personal info, like DOB, adoptive family name etc. But with only that little information, she was able to discover something pretty interesting. Not too shocking to me, because it was something that came up before, but this was definitely a surprise. So what was it? My birth name. I was not born Krystale. Nope, my name at birth was actually Betty Elizebeth Giron. I also learned my birth mothers last name. The way to verify this information was with a sequence of numbers that could be found on my birth certificate. I was in the process of requesting a replacement since I had misplaced my copy some how. But for now this was the only info I could get for the time being. The next step was to request my non-identifying information from the adoptive agency. Non-id info tells you about the birth family and the circumstances of my birth and adoption. It does not give full names but can hold clues to help with the search. So I had to write a letter to the state to request this information. There were also forms I could fill out to allow any siblings or my bio parents to contact and reach out to me. I didn't want to fill those forms out yet. So I prepared my request letter and sent it off.

Another option was to also do a DNA testing. Which would help link me biologically to any relatives and hopefully maybe my bio parents. To be honest DNA test scared me. Why? Because mainly I feared the results for my ethnicity. What if I find I'm something other than Puerto Rican? Omg I didn't want to think about that, so I kept a positive mind, and tried not to let that bother me.

The first thing I received was my birth certificate. Which I quickly verified the numbers on it like Jackie had mentioned. And low and behold, they matched!! I was born a Betty!! wow, just wow and so interesting. So that means that my name was changed at the time of my adoption. Well that was an new discovery indeed! Next I would needed to get a DNA test. Even though it scared me, something told me I should just do it. The results wouldn't change who I am...right?

After a few weeks, I would receive a reply letter from LA, regarding my non-ID request. Apparently the agency I had written did not have my files, but they referred me to the agency that did. Not long after receiving that info, I would also receive my DNA kit. So I quickly did what I needed to do for that, and sent it off along with sending my non-id request to the correct agency.

I was very anxious for my DNA results to come in. My non-id info would more than likely take longer than my DNA results would, but I was hopeful it wouldn't take forever. I had heard stories of it taking not just months, but as long as 1 year! That didn't help my anxiety! I tried my best to not to worry about it and just wait it out the best I could. It was really all I could do.

About 1 month had passed and I received the email that the results of my DNA were finally in!! Oh, how nervous I was! What if it connected me to my parents?! What if I found out things I wasn't ready for? What kind of discoveries would I make. What if I didn't have any connections at all? So many what if's, were going through my head!! Time to log in, and discover something new! I had no idea how to prepare for it, all that was left was to see what the results said.

And here is what I discovered:

So at first glance of these results, I won't lie my heart sank a little. No sign of Puerto Rican ethnicity. I zoomed in all over the map to see just in case too. Puerto Rico was not included in these estimates. Deep breath. So all these years of proudly proclaiming myself as Puerto Rican, seemed like a lie. This was truly a hard thing to come to terms with. I really didn't know how to deal with this new info. All of my adult life I had thought I was Puerto Rican, and now it would seem I am not at all Puerto Rican, but probably Mexican, and European. It's not that, this was a bad discovery, not at all. Just, a bit overwhelming. I was just learning new things about myself, and discovering who I am. There was still much to learn.

These are estimates and I guess it's all I could go by for now. There was no need to keep sitting on it and letting it worry me too much. I would just need to embrace my new discovery. Now I needed to see if I had any DNA matches to family members!

Jackie was on the case for this part of the search, and would look into my DNA matches to see what came up and what my closes matches would be. I gave her access to my profile in order for her to do this, as she had more resources and knowledge on how the DNA matches worked. I could see some matches, but really wasn't sure how it all worked, and what it all meant. DNA can be kinda confusing! She was able to see that my closest connection was a second cousin, but she was much older than I was. Most of my matches were distant cousins, nothing closer it seemed. Not that something couldn't come up eventually, because new DNA test are turned in all the time, so who knows what could pop up. Jackie was great at her job, but unfortunately would need better clues to know more about my birth family, and those clues would be found in my non-id information. That request was still pending. I would call the agency monthly to follow up and see if there was any update. Sadly each time I called they only said it had not yet been assigned to a social worker and could take a few months until it was. No real answer or estimate as to when my request would be started. I decided to not call for updates for a little while, so not to stress over the the time it was taking. I took a small break from calling, and just let time go on. Month, after month, after month went by and still I heard nothing back. When would I get my info?! I was starting to feel frustrated now. Perhaps I should call and see if they are finally working on it? I did just that only to be yet again let down with no good answer. I pretty much got the same reply. The lady I called could see that I had previously called monthly for updates too. But she had no new updates for me and this just sadden me more.

I turned to my FB group to see if maybe they could help me with any answers to how long their request took and if there was any way to speed up the process. I got a few responses, which weren't quite the answers I was hopping for. Some said it took a few months, some said weeks, and another said almost 2 years! I guess LA county was kinda a mess! Someone mentioned they had contacted the county supervisor and got a quicker response. This sounded like a brilliant idea, and so I did just that! Feeling a bit more hopeful, I looked up a contact email and wrote to the supervisor.