The Amish Midwife - By Mindy Starns Clark Page 0,92

way, heading northwest and then zipping through the city of Lancaster and back out into farmland, up Highway 23 through Mount Joy and Elizabethtown, Middletown and Steelton. Finally, I was making my way through the outskirts of Harrisburg, a bustling city built along the Susquehanna River. The capitol grounds were well laid out, and as I circled around, looking for the Health and Welfare Building on Forster Street, I eyed the capitol dome, which looked like something out of Rome when it came into view. Eventually I found a parking place, and in no time I was inside the vital records department on the first floor and stating why I was there to the receptionist.

“So it’s an adoption search,” she said, peering at me over her reading glasses. She looked as if she had only a minute or two left until she retired.

“A birth mother search,” I replied. I didn’t need to search to know I was adopted.

“We don’t handle the birth certificates in those cases,” she said. “They’re sealed.”

“I know.” I leaned against her desk. “But I know the name of my birth mother. I just want a copy of the original birth certificate.”

“You’ll have to go to the county where you were born for that,” she said. “Although they won’t give it to you either, most likely.”

“The county?” All the advice I’d read online had said to go the state vital records department in person. “What about the letter I sent, asking that I be notified if my birth mother tries to find information about me?”

“It’s filed here.” Her phone rang and she put up one finger. In no time she transferred the call.

“Is there a vital records department in Montgomery County?” I asked as she hung up.

“Go to the courthouse in Norristown. But, like I said, they’ll most likely tell you they can’t help you either.”

It was only a piece of paper, and a copy at that, but it meant so much to me. It meant I existed from the beginning. That there was a reason for my sadness and my grief. That I didn’t just start to live once I was slipped into Mama’s arms. It meant there was proof that the truth was being kept from me.

“Should I call first?” I asked.

She peered at me over the rim of her glasses again and then, quietly, said, “If you just show up, you might catch someone off guard. If you call, you’re going to give them time to think about it. Maybe someone who’s not in-the-know will help you.”

She told me it was about a hundred miles, so I figured it would take me an hour and a half, unless there was traffic.

She glanced around the lobby and then said, “My kids are adopted. Two boys. One had no desire to find his birth family, but the second one did. I helped him search and search, but we never found a thing. Anyway,” she took off her glasses, “good luck.”

For a second I had the urge to share my story with her, but then the phone rang again. I mouthed a sincere “Thank you,” and turned toward the heavy glass doors.

In no time I was on the Turnpike and heading east, wondering why in the world Giselle had given birth to me in Montgomery County. Had she made arrangements with Mama and Dad already and decided to go closer to Philadelphia to have the baby, closer to where I would be given away soon after? Or, if Alexander was my birth father, perhaps Mammi wanted Giselle to be far away from Klara when it was time for me to be born. Maybe Klara didn’t even know Alexander was my father—although it was hard to imagine Klara not being in the know of anything. There was the fact that Mammi took me to the airport to relinquish me to Mama and Dad. She would have hired a driver. Maybe Giselle waited in the car while Mammi and I went on inside.

A semi whizzed past me and I realized I was going too slow, driving as if I were still in Lancaster County. I sped up. The morning grayness had burned off and the sun shone brightly. I drove past patches of forest, rolling hills, farms, and subdivisions. A tractor with an enclosed cab pulled a wide seeder through a plowed field. Next to it was an orchard. A melancholy feeling overtook me as I thought of my own orchard, and I wondered if maybe I should try