e-mail
…Continued from Part One
I gave her a call, and one ring away from the answering machine picking up she finally answered the phone. I chatted with her for a bit, before asking her the big question of “do you remember what time ____was born.” She immediately became flustered, stammering and 
stuttering, and thinking away, she tried very hard, but just could not pull it back. Finally, after trying to remember for several minutes, the only thing that she could come up with was to check his birth certificate.
I hung up with her, and then began what I thought was going to be an easy task, grabbing the envelope that I have with everyone’s birth certificates inside. It surely would have been an easy task, had I actually put it back where it belonged the last time I had pulled it out. And it would have been very easy to find in its new hiding place, had I actually been able to remember what I had pulled the darned envelope out for the last time I used it!
So I began a new, and by this time grumblely search for the envelope of birth certificates. After about twenty minutes of pulling the bedroom apart, one stack of papers at a time, I finally found the enveloped. Making a little yip of joy, as I triumphantly held it in the air exclaiming, “I found it!” to absolutely no one really, since the kids were upstairs playing, and my husband had already gone back to his video game playing. I opened it up and quickly thumbed through the documents inside until I came across what I had been looking for, the birth certificate of my adopted stepson. Not the amended one mind you, the original which is one of the reasons why I was so upset that it had been misplaced, well that and the fact that just about every other important document for this family is in that little envelope which usually resides in our lockbox.
I unfolded it and began scanning it, quickly at first, and then slower, and slower, until I had it about three inches from my face, scanning each letter in disbelief at a time. There was no time of birth listed on the certificate. Just the date and the names of his parents that was it. I couldn’t believe it. All of my searching and I still had nothing, I still had no idea what time of the day that he was born. There is no one left to call, the only hope that I had is that it is actually written in his baby book, which is somewhere around here nestled safely, and most likely at the bottom of a large pile of boxes.
It has bothered me all day. It has saddened me to no end that none of us know what time he was born, and that I have no answer to give him. And while I am sure that there are many adoptions in which the child’s age, and or birthday must be estimated, this hurts because I am the adoptive parent, he still has biological relatives in his life, and yet no one knows. Tonight I sit here feeling like no wonder he has issues of not feeling important, not only did he have his mother walk out of his life, but those who remained can’t even tell him what time he came into this world, and that just hits me hard today, it makes me sad today, and if nothing else it gives me more conviction to go digging through the garage until I come across that baby book!
