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When I first met my husband in 1984, one of the first things he told me about himself was that he had two daughters that through no fault of his were adopted by two different families. His first daughter was born on the 19th May 1972 and adopted at just a few weeks old, his second daughter was born on the 4th July 1973 and again adopted at a few weeks old. I do not want to explain the circumstances for the adoptions, but would just like to say that at the time my husband had no say in the matter. The two girls have the same birth mother who moved away after the second daughter was born. My husband has never forgotten his two daughters, and talked about them often. We had a daughter in 1986 and from an age when she could understand she was told about her two half sisters. Time went by and one day, on behalf of my husband I started a search for the girls. I did,nt have a clue where to start, so just posted messages on various message boards and spent long hours seaching boards. One day I received an email from somebody recommending a specific site so thought I,d have a look. I typed in a name in the search box and could,nt believe my eyes when I found a message from a girl looking for somebody with the same name as the birth mother. This was in August 2002, but the message had been posted in April 2001. I replied to the message straight away, explaining who I was and why I was replying to her message. I felt a little apprehensive as the message had been posted over a year ago. After a few weeks, on checking my email one day, I nearly fell of my chair, as there it was, a reply. At this time my husband was away, and with nervous fingers, I opened the email. It was from my husband's younger daughter and consisted of two lines. We often look at that first email and think how things have developed since then. I replied back and explained that my husband was away, but I would try and answer any questions. My husband had often wondered if his two daughters knew about each other. Sadly his younger daughter did not know that she had a full blood sister and did not know the name of her birth father until I replied to her message, so you can imagine the emotional rollercoaster that she was now on. I explained that I did not want to tell my husband over the phone that we had made contact, and would rather wait until he came home, so I could sit him down first. We established a trusting relationship via our emails and our daughter was over the moon. Then the day came that my husband returned and the second emotional rollercoaster, when I sat him down and told him what had happened. He emailed her straight away and all I can say that it has gone from strength to strength. We kept in touch via emails as I explained to my husband that we would respect his daughter and go through this at her pace. Then one day the phone rang and well hopefully you can guess the rest. I will never forget the evening when we received the first photos via email. My husband just stared at them with tears in his eyes. We now have a full album. My husband and his daughter have not actually met, but I feel that we have all built a strong relationship via our emails and phone calls and that time will come soon. I cannot explain the joy on my husband and our daughters face when Christmas Cards were exchanged. At the beginning it was a huge emotional rollercoaster with tears when questions were answered but also laughter when other family stories were told. This is just one chapter of our story as now we are desperately searching for my husbands elder daughter, but now we have a new member of the family helping in our search, her younger sister. We will never give up. I hope you enjoyed reading this and I hope I will be able to write chapter two very soon.
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