The corridor of uncertainty

For Roger James, the years between Ruby’s birth in 1998 and the moment he finally started looking for his birth mother stretched across nearly 3 decades. Not because he didn’t care – but because he cared too much, about too many people.

The corridor of uncertainty

Roger had some information to go on. His birth father was from Sydney. His birth mother from Adelaide.

In his 20s, Roger lived in Sydney himself for a couple of years in the early 1990s. While he was there, he went to government offices and obtained paperwork that could have helped him find his birth parents – but he never followed through.

What held him back wasn’t lack of interest. It was the weight of 4 people.

There were 4 people…my natural parents and my adoptive parents…the last people you’d want to hurt. If there was a risk of hurting any one of them, that was the barrier.

He worried about upsetting his adoptive parents. He worried his birth mother may have wanted to move on with her life. So he stayed, as he describes it, in a massive corridor of uncertainty – unable to quite make the leap. Meanwhile, life got beautifully in the way: 3 daughters with Mel – Ruby, Poppy, and Llewellyn – a busy family, and, in time, a deeper appreciation of family itself. Having his own, he says, helped him understand just how much family meant.

The spark and the vehicle

Two things eventually shifted Roger out of the corridor.

The first was emotional – having his own children, and the perspective Mel’s childbirth experience gave him, slowly turned the question from one he could keep avoiding to one he no longer wanted to.

The second was practical: Ancestry DNA. When the family started taking DNA tests, Roger found himself surrounded by mystery relatives and unexplored leads. With the support of his daughter Poppy and close friends – and the lessons he’d learned years earlier from watching his teenage girlfriend Elaine’s own search – he finally felt he had nothing to lose.

The corridor opened.

Watch Part 3

🎬 Roger James Pt.3: The corridor of uncertainty is live on the Kindred Ponderings YouTube channel.

In Part 4 – the final episode of this series – Roger shares what he’s found, who he’s met, and the search that’s still very much in progress.

Join the conversation

Are you an adoptee who’s spent years in your own corridor of uncertainty? Or someone whose search finally became possible through DNA testing? We’d love to hear from you.

Roger’s story is shared with his permission as part of an ongoing 4-part series on Kindred Ponderings.