Thread of Life: An Adoption Story is the true story of an adopted child’s journey to find his birth parents. The adoption process can often leave many unanswered questions for the adoptee, the adopted parents, and even the eventual offspring of an adopted child. It has been said that adoption is more like a marriage than a birth, with two or more individuals, each with their own unique mix of needs, patterns, and genetic history, coming together with love, hope, and commitment for a future together. You become a family not because you share the same genes but because you share love for each other. Mike Doiron’s original intent was to try to fill in some of the gaps—genealogically, medically, and perhaps even mentally—as he began his adult life following university. The endeavor took him down a path of self-discovery and adventure. When he began to chronicle what he had learned, he decided that he wanted to share his findings with others. For him, Thread of Life is not meant to be a guidebook for families of adoption, but rather a documented true story sharing personal insights from his own journey to answer the questions many adopted children ponder as they become adults. MIKE DOIRON is a Vice President of WorldWide Advanced Engineering, Quality, & Business Excellence at one of the world’s largest design & manufacturing contract organizations called FLEX. Holding similar executive roles at Amazon as well as startup organizations, he has over 25 years of experience in Operations, supply chain management, Outsourcing strategy, and senior Management. He holds several degrees, including a masters in Engineering from the University of Toronto. He lives in Dallas, Texas, with his daughter Alexandra. Thread of Life An Adoption Story By Mike Doiron iUniverse, Inc. Copyright © 2013 Mike Doiron All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4759-8215-2 Contents 1. Meet the Big Apple......................................................12. A Boys Roots............................................................113. Harter and Ruthy........................................................474. A Diamond in the Rough..................................................695. Starting to Search – pre-Google.........................................976. E Pluribus Unum.........................................................1157. Meeting Mother and Brother..............................................1218. My Dad or Our Dad?......................................................1499. Driving to see my 'Real' Dad............................................16110. The Horizon moves as you get closer....................................17311. Connecting the DNA.....................................................18712. Birth mom and Real mom.................................................19513. Connecting the thread to your Children.................................201 Excerpt CHAPTER 1 Meet the Big Apple "A People without the knowledge of their past history, origin andculture is like a tree without roots." Marcus Garvey Some stories never really have a beginning nor an end. Ruth Wilband was a living contradiction in many ways. Born in1926 and growing up in Saint John, New Brunswick, on the eastcoast of Canada to Clara, a homemaker, and husband Stephen, alongshoreman, She was a working class girl in a working class burg;quiet yet rambunctious, ladylike yet tomboyish and pretty, very pretty,and petite. Her family was close-knit and large, though some of hersiblings did not make it out of childhood. The era was different thantoday and medicine was not modern nor childbirth easy. For practicalpurposes, she grew up with four sisters and two brothers. Agnes, the oldest girl, was the prototypical sibling matriarch,dedicated to remaining ensconced in the town of her birth `til death.Ruth was the next oldest girl, a conflicting counterpoint to Agnes andyet the two remained close forever and ever. Agnes was the family's rockand would remain loyal to her siblings in all of their life's adventures,keeping her judgments to herself, difficult as that would sometimesprove to be. Often younger siblings confide in their older or closestsibling, sharing secrets or simply seeking advice. Saint John was indeed a large city for its place in Canada, andyet it was not a place of glamour, but more a port of call, a center ofindustry, prominent for its shipbuilding and its fishing, located, as itis, along the north shore of the Bay of Fundy at the mouth of the SaintJohn River. The bay there boasts some of the largest tides in the world.The location lent itself to both great port access to the East Coast, aswell as for shipbuilding. Ruth's grandfather was a sea captain by trade.The most abundant settlers in the area were called the Loyalists , NorthAmericans who remained loyal to the British crown, unmoved by thepolitical concepts of the American revolutionaries. Many left theirhomes and their properties in the thirteen colonies to mi