My beginning.

There are no pictures of my mother's baby bump...

No snapshots of my first cry...

No hospital bracelet keepsakes or ink blotted footprints...

But that doesn't make my beginning any better or worse than anyone else's...

it just makes it different than most.

The first minute or so on this video reads from a letter given to the agency who facilitated my adoption...

Several months ago, my mother had our family videos from Korea copied to DVDs.  I remember watching quite a bit of it and recalling her mentioning that there was footage somewhere in there of our family returning to the orphanage where I had been abandoned.  I believe I watched it at that time, and had planned to transfer it to my computer, but for whatever reason, didn't do so until recently.  I could not figure out how to upload it directly, so I played it on my computer while I video-ed it with my blackberry and then uploaded to youtube.

 Aw, technology!

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The narrator is my father. 

My mother is in the white sweater.

The woman in red is a friend of my parent's.

My oldest sister is the girl in orange.

My brother is the little boy in the white striped shirt.

My other sister is the toddler in the stroller.

The one year old baby is me...

and this is my beginning.

To me, this footage is priceless.

(And kuddos to my awesome parents for thinking to do such a thing that I will have forever!) 

It was an all boy's orphanage, and the jubilant Korean ladies bouncing me back and forth are presumed to be my caretakers for the few days before I was given to my parents.

I have resigned myself to the fact that it would be quite difficult to find any of my birth family...

but maybe one day, someone will come across this video and recognize the orphanage...

or even me.

I wonder what has become of the boys in this video.

Where their life has taken them after time spent in this orphanage.

If they returned to their families, remained there, or were ever adopted.

It is sometimes difficult to imagine the different path my life would have taken had I not found a family.

I do not know whether this orphanage still exists or if the people who resided there are even still alive nearly 30 years later.

But one of my goals in this lifetime is to make it back there again.

It just might be the closest I get to that part of my life.

My mind does occasionally wander to that night.

That car.

That basket.

That note.

That baby.

And I wonder if 30 years later, it is any easier for whomever was driving that car, to think about as well.

I am thankful for my parents,

my siblings,

my extended family,

my husband,

my kids,

my birth family...

and for my beginning.