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Published Tuesday June 9th, 2009 at 8:03am

Original Article

When Ontario threw open its adoption records June 1, requests for answers and anonymity came flooding in.

There have been more than 1,000, all arriving by snail mail, which means the numbers will continue to climb in the coming weeks.

But while many dream of fairy-tale reunions, some adoptees who have already found their birth parents are warning they don't always have a happy ending.

Randi, 43, a Toronto teacher who asked that her last name not be published, was rejected by her birth mother not once, but twice: Once as a baby, and again at age 30.

"It's very important that people be solidly, psychologically healthy before they even do this," she said.

When she was 29, Randi reconnected with two half-brothers through the province's Adoption Registry.

All three had applied for birth information, and she has since grown close to them.

Randi and one of her brothers later found their mother using clues from the non-identifying information they had received and with help from the adoption support group Parent Finders.

"It was a great first meeting," she said. There were pictures, presents and many stories, and Randi left feeling her mother was happy to have her back in her life.

But it ended with a phone call not long after that. Her mother said she could not bring herself to tell family and friends that she had given up not only one child, but three.