I was three days old when I was placed in my parents' arms. According to the story they've told me a thousand times, I didn't cry - I just looked up at them with what my mom calls "curious eyes," like I was trying to figure out these strange new people who would become my whole world.
My parents never hid my adoption. From my earliest memories, I knew that I'd grown in another woman's belly, that she'd loved me enough to give me a chance at a better life, and that my "real" parents were the ones who raised me. I never felt less loved or less wanted because of my adoption. If anything, I felt more chosen.
But there was always a question in the back of my mind. Not about who my parents were - that was never in doubt. But about who I came from. What did she look like? Why did she make the choice she made? Did she ever think about me?
When I turned thirty, I decided to find out. Armed with nothing but an old address from adoption records and the power of reverse address lookup, I embarked on a journey that would change my life forever.
What I Started With
My adoption was closed, which in the early 1990s meant almost no information was shared. My parents received some basic background: my birth mother was young, unmarried, and had made the decision to place me for adoption after careful consideration. They were given a first name - Katherine - and told she was healthy. That was it.
But in the file my parents had kept all these years, there was one other piece of information: an address. It was the address listed on the original intake paperwork, presumably where Katherine lived at the time of my birth. A small apartment in Riverside, California.
Thirty years is a long time. People move. They marry and change their names. They disappear into new lives. The odds of finding someone based on where they lived three decades ago seemed slim.
But it was all I had. So I started there.
The First Search
I typed the address into a reverse address lookup service, not expecting much. The address itself returned current residents - a young couple who'd lived there for two years. Dead end.
But here's what I didn't know until I started this search: these tools don't just show current residents. They show historical resident information - previous occupants going back years, sometimes decades.
I expanded my search to include former residents, and there she was: Katherine Simmons, associated with that address from 1992 to 1995. The timing matched perfectly.
But Katherine Simmons at an old apartment address wasn't enough. I needed to find her now. According to the Adoption Network, many birth parents register hoping to be found - but Katherine wasn't in any of those databases. I'd have to find her myself.
Building the Trail
What followed was weeks of patient research, using property records and address history to trace Katherine's path over three decades.
From the apartment in Riverside, Katherine moved to a house in Orange County in 1997. The property records showed she purchased it with a co-buyer named Michael Chen. A marriage, I guessed.
From Orange County, the trail led to Phoenix in 2004, then to a suburb of Denver in 2010. Each move left records - property purchases, address changes, utility connections - that a modern lookup service could aggregate and present.
By the time I traced Katherine to her current address - a modest home in a suburb of Portland, Oregon - I had learned she was now Katherine Chen, married for over twenty-five years, with three children (half-siblings I'd never known existed).
I also learned something else: she had never forgotten me.
The Letter
I thought about calling. I thought about showing up at her door. Both options felt too abrupt, too shocking. What if she didn't want to be found? What if she'd moved on and my appearance would disrupt a life she'd carefully built?
I decided to write a letter.
It took me two weeks to write. Every draft felt wrong - too emotional, too formal, too demanding, too timid. In the end, I kept it simple:
Dear Katherine,
My name is Rachel. I was born on March 15, 1994, and placed for adoption three days later. I believe you are my birth mother.
I want you to know that I've had a wonderful life. I was raised by parents who loved me deeply and gave me every opportunity. I'm not looking to replace anyone or disrupt your life. I just want to thank you, and if you're open to it, to know a little bit about where I came from.
If you'd rather not be contacted, I understand completely. I won't reach out again. But if you'd like to talk, my phone number is below.
With gratitude and hope,
Rachel
I mailed the letter on a Tuesday and spent the next week unable to focus on anything else.
The Call
She called on a Sunday morning. I was making coffee, still in my pajamas, when my phone rang with an unfamiliar Oregon number.
"Is this Rachel?" The voice was shaking.
"Yes."
"This is Katherine." A pause. A breath. "I've been waiting thirty years for this call."
What She Told Me
Over the next two hours, Katherine told me the story I'd wondered about my entire life.
She was nineteen when she found out she was pregnant. A freshman at community college, working part-time, with a boyfriend who disappeared the moment the pregnancy test came back positive. Her parents were supportive but struggling financially themselves. She knew she couldn't give a baby the life it deserved - not then, not at nineteen with no degree and no resources.
The decision to place me for adoption was the hardest thing she'd ever done. She told me she held me once, in the hospital, before the adoption coordinator took me away. She said she whispered something in my ear - a promise she'd kept for thirty years.
"I told you I'd think about you every single day," she said. "And I have. Every single day."
The Technology That Made It Possible
Looking back, I'm amazed at how much technology has changed the search for biological relatives. Thirty years ago, a closed adoption meant exactly that - closed. Birth parents and adoptees had almost no way to find each other unless both parties registered with reunion services and got lucky.
Today, a single address from 1994 led me through a chain of moves and life changes to a woman living 2,000 miles away. The same property owner search tools that help people buy houses and verify neighbors can reunite families separated by time and circumstance.
Here's what made it possible:
Historical Address Records
Modern lookup services maintain records of who lived at an address going back decades. Even if someone moved away years ago, their association with that address is preserved, creating a starting point for tracing their path forward.
Property Purchase Records
Every time Katherine bought a house, it created a public record linking her name to a new address. By following these purchases, I could trace her geographic journey from California to Oregon. Understanding how to search addresses backwards was crucial to following her trail.
Name Change Records
When Katherine married and became Katherine Chen, that information was also recorded. Modern search tools aggregate data across name changes, allowing you to follow a person even when their identifying information evolves.
Associated People
The search didn't just show Katherine - it showed her spouse and children, helping me understand the family structure I might be entering.
The Reunion
I flew to Portland a month after that first phone call. Katherine met me at the airport, and I recognized her instantly from the photos we'd exchanged - the same dark hair, the same eyes that I see every time I look in a mirror.
She was crying before I even reached her. So was I.
We spent a week together. I met Michael, her husband, who welcomed me with a warmth I hadn't dared expect. I met my half-siblings - stunned teenagers who'd had no idea I existed until a few weeks earlier, now trying to process that they had a thirty-year-old sister who'd materialized out of thin air.
Katherine showed me photos of herself at nineteen - barely older than her youngest is now. She introduced me to her parents, my biological grandparents, who had always wondered what happened to the granddaughter they'd never met.
And she told me the end of the promise she'd whispered in the hospital all those years ago.
"I told you that someday, when you were ready, I hoped you'd come find me. And that when you did, I'd be here."
She was.
For Others On This Journey
If you're an adoptee searching for biological family, I want you to know: it's possible. Even with limited information, even after decades, the tools exist to trace a path from an old address to a current life.
But I also want you to be prepared for any outcome. Not every search ends in reunion. Not every birth parent wants to be found. Not every story has a happy ending.
What I can tell you is this: the search itself was healing, regardless of how it turned out. Learning my own history, understanding where I came from, filling in the blank spaces that had always haunted me - that was worth everything, even if Katherine had never called back.
The information is there, waiting in property records and address histories and public databases. All you have to do is look.
And sometimes, when you look, you find exactly what you've been searching for your entire life.