Mind Blown

I knew going into this trip that I would learn a lot about myself - or at least where I came from - but I wasn't expecting to keep getting surprised! I guess I should expect anything at this point. I think now I'm prepared for whatever this reunion might throw at me, so that's good. 

I just found out that the meeting I have on Monday with my birth mother is going to be a "secret meeting." These are meetings where only the birth mother comes, because otherwise it would disrupt their life. Supposedly, she has now remarried and has two MORE children. So all in all, I could have at least 5 half-siblings from my birth mother, not even counting the potential half-siblings I probably have from my birth father. And probably none of them know of my existence. Crazy!!

Today was a pretty busy day. I didn't sleep well last night so it's been tough. I've been up since about 4:40am - I think it was around 5:15 when I just decided to accept it and actually got up, wrote my last blog post, watched a little TV (Modern Family with Korean subtitles was fun), went down and fixed myself breakfast, then took a shower and skyped with my boys. E kept giving me kisses over the phone, and little T asked me for a tootsie roll - I think I can handle that. These boys aren't too hard to please. Finally, we met downstairs at 9am for Registration.

We ended up taking a bus about 10 minutes away to a cooking studio where we had our meeting. The first part was just introductions and general rules, but then we had the CEO of DowGene come in and talk to us about the process of taking our DNA (hair & mouth swabs) to ensure we are matched up with the correct family. It was pretty interesting..don't worry, T - they don't store our information forever to use in a criminal database. I asked. Here I am getting my hair plucked.

The whole time this was going on, there was a cameraman from KBS (the major Korean television station) there filming. Apparently they are putting together a documentary on us, to be aired over Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving, which is in about 2 weeks). I was told last night that I might be very interesting to them (Koreans love drama) since I am pregnant and meeting my birth mother- and they were right. He kept filming my belly, it was kinda awkward..then he started asking me questions. My sister thought this was all hilarious so guess what? I made it even more interesting and told him that she was with me, which got his attention off me and onto her. He was intent on trying to make her say that she was jealous of me that I found my birth family, which she of course is not, so it was kinda funny to us. But eventually he caught her at a weak moment so I think he may have gotten a little bit of that Korean drama he was looking for after all. Sorry C! If I'm going down on KBS, so are you. LOL...awkward camera shot.

Anyway, he filmed throughout the whole day- even following us to lunch, where he filmed my belly while I ate and asked us more questions and even caught me getting seconds on camera. Great. I feel like there will be some still-action shots of my belly just getting bigger and bigger as this trip goes on.

After lunch, we had a quick Korean language lesson, and then broke out into small groups to talk about our BFS. Since there are three of us that have already located family, we were put together, and mainly just discussed our expectations out of the reunion. I am actually relieved that this is a "secret" reunion. I think that will take a bit of the pressure off of me to keep in touch, or become a new family member, or whatever extreme my birth mother may want out of it. I keep hearing stories about adoptee reunions that either go really bad (where the birth family is standoffish and a one-time meeting) or the opposite extreme- where the adoptee is expected to become part of the family again, move back to Korea, get naked in the bathhouse and scrub down their elderly grandparent, or sleep with their birth mother while she spoons them -- umm NOT HAPPENING with me! If anything, it helps me put her more into perspective, and makes me a little more grateful that even though I am her little secret, she is still willing to meet with me. So we shall see.

I'm trying to take a quick nap now so I can be somewhat social for dinner- apparently we are going somewhere kind of fancy where there are multiple courses, so I need a little energy for tonight. I never thought I'd say this, but I might actually get sick of Korean food after this trip...and it's only Day 2. Uh oh.