Stephen Grochol is a Financial Planner in San Mateo, CA.  He and his wife just celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary and they have two daughters. He is a post-Baby Scoop and post-Roe v. Wade adoptee.  Born in Oakland, CA in 1974 he is the oldest of three.  One brother, adopted and the youngest is not.
Stephen’s adoptive parents went through a private doctor for this process.  He was relinquished immediately after birth and whisked home to Pacifica where he grew up.  A stroke of luck occurred when his Aunt and Godmother procured the names of his birth parents during his delivery.
As time went on things within his family unit started to unravel.  His younger brother, also adopted, started suffering mental health issues and was ultimately diagnosed as schizophrenic and bi-polar.  The family was hamstrung by the fact his medical records were sealed by the state of California.  This was the prompt that Stephen needed to start the reunion process, for real.
His parents were amazingly supportive throughout the entire search for reunion.  This just made things okay.  On his 28th birthday, armed with “the adoption file” he was able to quickly track down his birth father.  They have been in reunion since 2003.
Tracking down his birth mother was a much more difficult task.  Two weeks after he was born the birth parents broke up and she joined a church that had some “cult-like” qualities.  In 2017, Stephen and his birth father used Ancestry DNA to narrow the search for her.  It worked!  It’s here where he met a half-sister on his mother’s side.  From there he was able to finally track down their birth mother on Halloween of all dates.
The reunion with both parents and the siblings has been filled with joy and happiness.  There have been several family reunions where Stephen finally feels like he’s “wearing the right uniform.”  Of course no reunion is perfect but we are pretty close.