The Girl with Three Birthdays: An Adopted Daughters Memoir of Tiaras, Tough Truths, and Tall Tales

(Paperback)

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Patti Eddington always knew she was adopted, and her beloved parents seemed amenable enough to questionsbut she never wanted to hurt them by expressing curiosity, so she didnt. The story of her mother cutting off and dying her hair when she was a toddler She thought it was eccentric and funny, nothing more. When she discovered at fifteen that her birthday wasnt actually her birthday She believed it when her mother said shed changed it to protect her from the nosy old biddies who might try to discover her identity.

It wasnt until decades later, when a genealogy test led Patti to her biological family (including an aunt with a shocking story) and the discovery of yet another birthday, that she really began to interrogate what she thought she knew about her origins. Determined to know the truth, she finally petitioned a court to unseal records that had been locked up for almost sixty yearsand began to put the pieces of her past together, bit by painstaking bit.

Framed by a brief but poignant 1963 Report of Investigation based on a caseworkers one-day visit to Pattis childhood home, The Girl With Three Birthdays tells the story of an adoptee who always believed she was the answer to a couples seventeen-year journey to become parents, until a manila envelope from a rural county court arrived and caused her to question . . . everything.

Author Bio

Patti Eddington is a newspaper and magazine journalist whose favorite job ever was interviewing the famous authors who came through town on book tours. She never dreamed of writing about her life because she was too busy helping build her husband's veterinary practice, caring for her animal obsessed daughter--whose favorite childhood toy was an inflatable tick--and learning to tap dance. Then fate, and a DNA test, led her to a story she felt compelled to tell. Today, the mid-century modern design enthusiast and former dance teacher enjoys being dragged on walks by her ridiculous three-legged dog, David, and watching the egrets and bald eagles from her deck on a beautiful bayou in Spring Lake, Michigan.