Finding David's Birth Family, Part 2

(Read Part 1 here.)

Shortly after wiring the money to Velvet and Fide, I emailed them the few documents and photos we had, along with this letter to David's birth mother--"in the hope that Fide is successful" in finding her.

August 16, 2009

Dearest Andrea,

Your son, David, is an amazing boy--almost nine years old, healthy, happy, and loved. We think of him as not just our son, but yours also. He is handsome, smart, active, curious, funny, and content.

He is doing very well in school; his teachers say he is very intelligent and a delight to have in their classes. He loves to do karate, play piano, read books, play all kinds of games, and listen to all kinds of music. He loves to play with his dog, a brown Labrador retriever named Aly. He also loves to wrestle and to be tickled. We want you to know how happy he is.

The first page of our family photo album has a picture of you. Although we do not know your circumstances when you placed him for adoption, we do know it must have been a difficult decision. We tell David that you love him very much, and that you made the best decision you could for him.

We have many questions, many of them about the rest of his biological family--especially about you, his siblings, and his biological father. We hope that sometime you can write David a letter and tell him more of his story and yours.

We promise to love and cherish David, your son and ours. We will teach him everything we can about Guatemala. We have already made great efforts to teach him Spanish, and we hope to travel with him to Guatemala every few years so he can see the beautiful country he was born in.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for David. He is a truly amazing boy.

We hope that our contacting you will give you peace, and help with any pain or questions in your heart about either your choice or his life.

We ask the Virgin Mary to keep her protective mantle over you and your family and bring peace to your home.

With gratitude,

Richard and Robby

Since I didn't know whether our search would succeed, I hesitated to tell David about it. Rightly or wrongly, I wanted to spare him any disappointment if we failed. Instead, while I was negotiating with Velvet and Fide, I casually asked him in passing if he thought that "someday" we should try once more to find his birth mother. He nodded yes, and for the moment we left it at that. I figured, whatever the outcome, I'd be explaining it all within a few days anyway.

I was right. Just two days after sending our documents and letter, Velvet replied: They had found Andrea. And not only Andrea, but also David's birth father and David's two younger brothers, ages 5 and 7.

The following afternoon, their report and several photos of the family arrived in my inbox. Reading those words and staring at those photos was truly magical for me--like peering through an icon to another plane. Here are a few excerpts that especially jumped out at me:

Alejandro and Andrea expressed their sadness and cried for David. They commented that they gave him in adoption because they came to the conclusion that his destiny was to grow up with another family. They wanted him to be happy and peaceful.

[H]e was 8 months old when they gave him in adoption and they knew that he was going to be adopted by a family that wanted him.

Thank you for what you do for David and may God give you life to share with your son. Thank you for sharing your material possessions and above all your patience, love and care for David. They are happy to know of his family.

They would like to meet David’s adoptive parents and be able to see David again some day. They want to make sure you know they respect you as David’s parents and know you are his legitimate parents.

All this life-changing news arrived just a couple of days before David's ninth birthday. That afternoon, after bringing him home from his day at summer camp and settling him in, I began to tell him.

"This year, Papa and I got you something extra special for your birthday."

"Some NASCAR cars? Oh! The Jeff Gordon one!?"

"Dude, this present is eight bazillion times cooler than any NASCAR cars."

"Uh, a new video game for the Playstation?"

"Way, way cooler than all the video games in the universe." I could already feel my face getting warm and tears starting to well up.

"You found my mom?"

"Yep, we did."

Then I felt the tears rolling down my cheeks and a big smile coming over my face, and I hugged my kid like there was no tomorrow.