I don't remember when I found out I was adopted. All I remember is that one day, when I was about 13 or so, I was down in the basement looking through some old papers. I came across a copy of my birth certificate. As I began to read over it, there were two main pieces of information that stood out!
First, it showed the city and county as: Cleveland, Cuyahoga County. This was strange considering I lived in Warren, OH, and just assumed that I was born at one of the local hospitals.
Secondly, the hospital I was born at was listed as: "St. Ann's Hospital". With the birth certificate in hand I then decided it was time to confront my "mom".
Once she realized that I found the birth certificate, my mom really couldn't hide the fact that I was adopted anymore and told me what she knew. The information that she gave me was really not very much. She didn't know what my "birth mother's" name was or where she was from. The only information that the "Catholic Services" had given her was that the "mom" was Irish, and the "dad" was Slovak. She had then explained to me what had happened and how they came to adopt me.
I guess I first became curious as to "who I was", and "where I came from" when I was about 15 yrs. old. My cousin had offered to look into my adoption and see what he could find out for me. Since I wasn't old enough to do it on my own, plus in my heart I was afraid that my "mom" might feel hurt than I wanted to find out who my "birth parents" were, I was greatful that he was kind enough to do this for me.
Unfortunately, after many weeks of waiting, he told me that he was unable to attain any information. See my birth records were closed off so that no one could get into them and get any information. So, I was back to square one.
It wasn't until approx. a year later my "mom" and I were looking through some old pictures and came across a picture of me when I was still living with my foster parents. When I turned the picture over it had an unfamiliar name written on the back. The name written was "Dora Ann"! When I asked my "mom" about this the only information that she could give me was that, that is what they had called you before they adopted me. This was my first real clue to work on. I had the name that my birth mother had given me when I was first born!
