'I was 20 and I knew it was her.' My relationship with my birth mother began with a letter.

Mum and I were driving along the road that runs around the perimeter of Sydney airport. Planes were taking off to unknown places overhead and cars were passing hurriedly to our right when she handed me an envelope. I opened the letter and as I read, I sobbed with joy and relief. I had waited and wished for this day since I was old enough to dream of it.

I was adopted at birth. At 18, I was legally able to access information about my birth mother. My mum had helped me with my search and enlisted one of her friends to trawl through phone books. When we thought we might have found a person who fit her profile I sent off a handwritten letter decorated with quirky drawings. “We met 18 years ago in Sydney,” I had begun.

Holding her reply meant that she was alive and that maybe one day we could meet. Mum pulled over and we took it in together. 

We wrote to each other for a few years and when I was 20 I made contact with my birth father and arranged to meet them. They both lived in New Zealand. 

Hundreds And Thousands. Dara Read is a writer, lawyer, mother... and also adopted. Watch her story here. Post continues after video.

The flight felt like forever. My nerves climbed as we taxied down the runway. When I stepped into the airport my emotions were so high that I literally had an out of body experience.

I found myself in the terminal with the big doors closed behind me and I looked around. This was in the time before Facebook and Instagram, and we had decided not to swap photos before meeting. I had a moment of thinking, she’s not here, she’s not coming, but then I saw a woman walk into the terminal - and I knew it was her. 

Dara with her dad at nine weeks old (left), and on the day her parents picked her up for the first time at six weeks old (right). Image: Supplied.  I had built this moment up in my mind for so long. So much of what I had done in my life up until that point was driven by a desire for her to be happy that she had decided to have me, for her to be proud that I was her daughter. I approached her and asked her if she was my birth mum. 

We were both nervous. The car ride to her place, and many conversations since, were filled with a lot of the unspoken, unshared stories of our lives that were at once separate and entirely entwined. Even while we talked about trivial things, I felt we were both watching each other, investigating, enquiring.

After a week with my birth mother, I climbed into a minibus and waited five hours to see my birth father. I knew it was him standing there waiting. No one else seemed to be waiting with quite as much anticipation.

Dara's parents celebrating her arrival with the extended family. Image: Supplied. 

I got into his car and started jabbering again to this stranger who was not actually very strange, because the way he looked and the way he was in the world felt so very familiar. I shot off a few questions which I can’t even remember now, but I do remember him saying, “Oh, so, you want to get right into all of that straight away.” 

We hadn’t had a long lead up to our meeting. I had written a letter to let him know I was coming over to meet my birth mother and then within a few weeks, I was there. Small talk has never been my forte, so running on adrenalin I must have just dived in headfirst.

Despite the stories I had made up in my mind that he wouldn’t really care that much about me, he embraced my questions, and me, with a warmth that made me feel like I belonged and that I was understood. 

That trip gave me so much, they both gave me so much. It literally made me feel whole. It sured up a lot of the parts of me I wasn’t sure about. 

It was all the small things that really made the difference, all the uncanny similarities. My birth father’s strangely similar career path working with children in out-of-home care and then with people in custody. Seeing my birth mother knit in front of the TV, creative like me, and recognising my big boofy hair and button nose in those around me. Finding out that my birth mum also loved reading and that she and her husband had run a book store. All these threads of connection were like seeing my blood flow through the room in real time. 

Dara, aged 4. Image: Supplied. 

Now that I have my own family and look back on that time, I can’t imagine how intense it must have been for everyone involved, particularly my birth parents' partners and children, to have me turn up on their doorstep for an entire week - sight unseen. It could have gone so terribly wrong. But thankfully it didn’t. I felt welcomed and loved in a way, frankly, that is beyond words. 

Biology is important but the experience of meeting my birth parents also showed me how much of me was nurtured by my family of origin. My parents and my family really know me in all my madness, trueness and deepness. As any parent knows, so much connection and togetherness is built upon the sheer amount of moments you share together, both joyous and hard.

I’ve always known that I was adopted. Even though we didn’t talk about it much, my parents had found a way to weave it into my psyche. In my early years, my parents socialised with other parents who had adopted, but I don’t remember knowing anyone else who was adopted until I was a teenager. I had a book 'Why Was I Adopted?' similar to the classic 'Where Did I Come From?', but otherwise, I didn’t see families like mine or see kids like me in books or on TV.

Listen to No Filter, When Anne Met Andrew: A Mother's Story. Post continues after podcast.

When I had my first child, Finn, I decided to use the space away from my work that had been almost all consuming to think about writing, and to put pen to paper whenever Finn’s sleep cycles would permit. The result was a children’s picture book called We Love You Hundreds and Thousands, published this year. It tracks Jasmine through her best birthday parties. There are backyard camping adventures, slip-and-slides and all kinds of scrumptious cakes. 

Not every child who is adopted or fostered is able to meet their birth parents, and not every child wants to. But I think it’s important that they know they are loved and that they belong in their family and their community. I wrote this book for every child to enjoy (who doesn’t love a slip-n-slide birthday party?!), but I also wrote it so that children who are fostered and adopted could see themselves and their family in one of the stories on their bookshelf.

I lost my birth mother recently. A few weeks before she passed, I sent her a copy of We Love You Hundreds and Thousands. Much like my rather cryptic first letter, the book carried an important message. It was my final (love) letter to her.  

 We Love You Hundreds and Thousands by Dara Read. Image: Supplied. 

Dara Read is an author, lawyer and mum. You can buy We Love You Hundreds and Thousands here.

Feature image: Supplied.