In 2016, nine years after Toni and I first met, I was thrown for a loop.

Toni called me one day, and her voice sounded unusually serious. I immediately felt a wave of anxiety, hoping she wasn’t about to tell me she was sick.

Instead, she told me something I never could have imagined.

Two years after giving me up for adoption, Toni became pregnant again—this time with another daughter, whom she also placed for adoption.

Wait.

What?

OMG. Wow.

Toni went on to tell me that her name was Julia and that she had recently searched for and found her. I was flooded with emotion. I was excited to learn that I had another sister, but I was also deeply saddened by the realization that Toni had experienced the heartbreak of giving up not one, but two babies.

I couldn’t begin to imagine what that must have been like. Two pregnancies, just two years apart, and two times having to say goodbye. The weight of that realization hit me hard.

And then came the anger.

I thought back over the previous nine years—years filled with long, heartfelt conversations between Toni and me—and I was hurt that she had never told me about Julia. I remembered one particular conversation when Toni seemed like she was trying to tell me something important, only to suddenly change her mind. I wonder now if she had been trying to tell me about Julia.

It also stung to learn that she hadn’t told Vito or her other children either. What a heavy secret that must have been to carry. She had so many opportunities to share this part of her story, and for whatever reason, she hadn’t.

Still, this was incredible news.

Over the years, I had jokingly entertained the possibility that Roy might have other children out there. But Toni?

Never in a million years would I have guessed that one.

Apparently, life still had a few mysteries up its sleeve for me.

I soon learned that Julia lived in Washington State, was married, had two grown daughters, and—amazingly—owned several successful bakery and coffee shops. I couldn’t wait to introduce myself.

Having been through this before, I wasted no time. I sent her an email.

Julia was thrilled to learn she had a sister, and we quickly began sharing stories about our lives and our experiences searching for our birth mother. There was something wonderfully familiar about getting to know her, even though we had lived completely separate lives for more than five decades.

Eventually, we met in person.

And then we met again.

Julia is smart, kind, quiet, devoted to her family, and has created a beautiful life of her own. Getting to know her has been another unexpected gift in this journey of discovering where I came from and, in so many ways, discovering who I am.

Looking back, I realize my search for my birth family was never really just about finding the people whose blood runs through my veins.

It was about finding the missing pieces of my story.

Toni gave me answers. Roy gave me another connection to my beginnings. All of my new found siblings gave me another glimpse into the life that might have been.

But somewhere along the way, I found something even more important.

I found me.

For the first time in my life, I can stand tall and feel completely at peace in my own body. I no longer feel like a missing piece searching for where I belong.

I belong to myself.

It feels like the culmination of my whole adoption/birth-family journey—was not that finding my family completed me, but that the journey helped me realize I was never incomplete.

Like the words of Amazing Grace say, I once was lost, but now I’m found.