I recently received this letter and asked for permission from the writer to post on the blog here. I thought it is a great story and expresses the importance of Reg Day.

Dear Karen and Jan,

As many of your readers know, November 18 was National Adoption Awareness Day and like a number of triad members around the country, I sat for a couple of hours at a table on Saturday afternoon with IRSS registration forms outside a popular bookstore in Salisbury.

Mostly, we answered questions from curious folks who wondered what we were doing. Before my shift, one visitor picked up forms to take with her because a friend with an adopted child had wondered aloud about if and how they might find the child’s birth relatives when she was ready. My colleagues invited her to come to a meeting and bring her friend or contact us by e-mail if she was interested.

During my shift, a number of strangers eyed our sign and responded to a friendly greeting but didn’t stop. However, one woman really looked us over and said, I’d like to talk with you; I’ll be right back. A few minutes later, she came out of the store, accompanied by a woman who HAD to be her sister, and made a bee-line to Kristin and me and she had obviously be working up the nerve to speak.

“I gave up a son to adoption,” she said. “He’ll be 27 next Wednesday and I’d give anything to know he’s okay.” She was shaking as she spoke.

We told her we were both adoptees who had searched and found our birth families and that seemed to make it easier for her to talk with us. We explained how IRSS works and that our group searches actively and that we would be delighted to have her join us at our next meeting.

She gave us her e-mail address and the basic details of her son’s birth and the little bit she had been told by the agency. I came home and e-mailed her an invitation to join our group online where she will receive regular notices of meetings and activities. It made me feel really good to do that.