INSIDE DOUGLAS COLLEGE / MAY 16, 1989

 

 

 

Adopted Woman Continued

 

Finding Family Like Winning Lottery

the telephone directory to track
down people of the same name.
Her search was successful.

When Bryce located her
natural parents, she didn’t have
the nerve to contact them her-
self, so she solicited help from a
friend. On January 11, Bryce’s
friend placed the call and con-
tacted a woman who turned out
to be Bryce’s younger sister,
Helen, age 29.

“The phone just exploded,”
Bryce says, when contact was
made with Helen.

Helen contacted the mother
and father, and they called
Bryce, who was soon to dis-
cover she also has a younger
brother and another sister. “I
have a family who reached out
to me with open arms,” she
says. “I feel I’ve won the lottery
of my life.”

When the parents called
Bryce, their first words were
“welcome home. We love you.”

They didn’t tell Bryce over
the phone why she was placed
for adoption. The explanations
must wait until Bryce and her
parents meet in person some-
time this month. Her parents,
who now live in the Ottawa Val-
ley, are making a trip out west
in May to visit Bryce and her
nine-year old daughter.

Bryce says she feels no anger
towards her parents, and she
realizes they must have had

 

valid reasons for the adoption.

“Since having my own
daughter, I realized how dif-
ficult and how painful it must
have been to give me up...that
whatever their reasons, they
must have been good ones. To
give up a baby, especially a first-
born, must have ripped them
apart.”

Bryce’s face lights up as she
talks about a recent visit made
by her younger sister, Helen,
and her sister’s young son.

“Helen and I are like two peas
in a pod,” says Bryce. “We look
the same, talk the same, wear
the same perfume, smoke the
same Cigarettes.”

Bryce says finding her family
has had many positive effects on
her life. “Things make sense
now,” she says, referring to her
own tastes and habits. “TI feel
complete. I feel like I belong.”

Bryce says her relationships
with friends have changed in a
positive way, most notably with
her boyfriend of the past four
years.

“Our relationship has blos-
somed,” she says. Now, her
boyfriend and her friends have a
more realistic place in her life.
“They don’t have to fill that
need (for a family). I used to
need somebody to fill that space
in my life.”

Bryce, who has been married

 

twice, says she now understands
why she had trouble with
relationships in the past. “My ex-
pectations were too high. I was
looking for a brother, father,
lover, family.”

The Douglas College student
says her daughter, Jessica, is
thrilled by her mom’s discovery
of family.

“T feel I have a lot more to
offer my daughter now,” Bryce
says. “I have a family to offer
her.”

Bryce has already talked to
her parents on the phone several
times, and laughs as she says
“my long-distance phone bills
are astronomical.”

But she’s happy about the
easy development in her relation-
ship with her parents. “I’ve been
talking to these two strangers
about the most intimate details
about my life. It seems odd, but
natural.”

 

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