A short (OK, maybe not so short) follow-up to the previous post on my reunion with my birth-mother. . .
I am now the same age my birth-mother was when we first met (since she was, for all intents and purposes, 20 when I was born). It is hard for me to describe what it has meant for me to have had her in my life these past 20 years. Just knowing where I came from, and that I didn't fall out of the sky (or, as my friend Lime is wont to say, that I wasn't hatched from an alien egg) counts for a lot. But having the kind of 'intrinsic' connection that flows from shared DNA has been a unique delight, all its own. Besides which, I really like her; she's a neat lady, and I'm glad I can know her.
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One of the things that is on my mind as I ponder this anniversary is names. We all have one (heck, most of us these days have three of 'em, or more), and, in whatever odd and mysterious way, it identifies us uniquely. Parents give a lot of thought to naming their children, and the vast majority of those children accept the name their parents gave them as somehow intrinsic to their own identity. Having a name - being given a name - seems to signify our personhood (or somesuch hi-falutin' stuff).
In my life, I have had three names. Or maybe I should say, I've had three sets of names. The first was the name I was born with. A first name, a middle name, and a last name. Oddly enough, my first name has been one of the very few constants, that have inhered to my life over the full extent of it; there's a story connected with that, but I don't want to get ahead of myself. My birth-mother says that she gave me that name because it seemed a strong name to her (the 'Names' section in the back of our dictionary makes associations with mountains and rocks; FWIW), but beyond that, it had no particular significance; it wasn't a family name, or anything like that. Just a strong-sounding one, at least to her young ears at the time. My middle-birth-name was the same as her brother's (my uncle's) middle name. And my birth-surname was the same as hers. Which fact would come in very handy when I undertook to search for her.
When I was a child, I came across a baby book that one of my foster mothers kept for me (quite an unusual thing for an adopted child to have). In it, I was identified by my first and middle birth names, which was a little confusing to me, since, at the time I was seeing it, that wasn't my name. The first name was familiar, but I didn't know what to make of the other one. For many years, I thought that it was my birth-surname (it was one of those names that could have been either a first/middle, or a surname).
My adoption wasn't final until sometime after my first birthday, as attested by the date on the adoption order. I think my birth-mother was a little reluctant to once-and-for-all sign the papers relinquishing her rights to me. My adoptive parents may have had me as their foster son for a short time before the adoption was final, but that was when it all became official. Since I was a year old, they reasoned that they should leave me with my original first name, since I was, by that time, well used to being called by it (and all the moreso, if, as I believe, they had already had me in their home for a while, and had called me by that name themselves).
They gave me a new middle name, after a famous Supreme Court Justice (why my parents were so enamored of that particular Supreme Court Justice, I have no idea). I never particularly liked my middle name (and, in the fullness of time, once I learned a little about him, I wasn't terribly happy to be named after that particular Supreme Court Justice, either). Although I did get some amusement from people trying to guess my middle name from knowing the initial (no one ever did). And of course, I got a new surname. A new family name, signifying the new family that I was being brought into.
And the family identity that was signified by that name has come to be precious to me. 'Jones' (of course, that's not really my name, but for our purposes here, pretend that it is, OK?) is associated, in my mind, and in my psyche more broadly, with a whole set of 'family' things - my dad, most especially; his dad, my grandfather; my grandpa's farm, where we went for all the holidays when I was a kid, and which had my grandpa's name prominently displayed on the front of the barn; my brothers and sisters, and my cousins from my dad's two brothers, and the fact that everyone knew we were connected to each other because we all shared the same last name; and so on, etc, etc. Even when I went away to college, I went (almost in spite of myself) to the same school my dad had gone to (and his brother, my uncle), and I was well aware that I was not the first person named 'Jones' to have walked those hallowed halls.
And such was my name, through all of my living memory, and I had no reason, nor desire, to think that it would ever be otherwise. . .
Until I met my birth-mother. When I was first starting to think about searching for her, I spoke with my parents, to try to get a 'read' on where they'd be at if I decided to do such a thing. And, in the course of the conversation, my mom (my 'stepmother', though I've never called her that) produced a torn scrap of paper with three names on it. The first two, I recognized from the baby book. The third, the last name, was completely new to me. She went on to tell me that, when she'd married my dad, she'd come across the papers pertaining to my brother's and my adoptions, and had written down our 'original names', just in case, and then hidden that scrap of paper behind a picture that hung on their wall for years. And, as it turned out, within the first year that she and dad were married, our basement flooded, and all of those records were destroyed. So, for more than 20 years, that scrap of paper, hidden behind that picture, was virtually my only connection to my origins.
Anyway, when I asked my dad how he'd be disposed to my searching for my birth-parents, he was fine with it. "If you think it's something you need to do, then by all means, go ahead." And then he added, "Just don't change your name." And I assured him that I had no intention of doing anything like that.
While I was searching for my birth-mother, I made some use of the fact that my dad had a great-grandmother with the same surname as I had been born with (he and my birth-mother turn out to be something like 8th-cousins); I could credibly (and truthfully, if not quite 'the-whole-truth-fully') say that I was researching the family whose name happened to be theirs. I also spoke with a few of her friends and relations (none of whom, by the way, figured out my true intentions), and they duly recounted their conversations with me, when next they spoke to her. And she was extremely intrigued, when she heard the name of this young man who was asking about her - the first name was the same one she'd given her son, years ago (and 'Desmond' - again, not my real name, but we can pretend - is not the most common name in the English-speaking world). Which was most curious, since she assumed that, whoever her son was, his adoptive parents would have given him a different name. Even so, she had inklings that something significant was afoot.
Once we were well and properly reunited, and I had gone to visit her at her house, and it was well-established that we were going to have a long and happy relationship, I came to lament the 'broken connection' between us, and all the years we'd spent apart, and I wanted to have some tangible expression of our connection to each other. My dad having admonished me not to change my name, planted a seed for a possible resolution to my difficulty. I was pretty sure that the 'name' my dad was referring to was our family name. And, since my first name was the same, no matter what, I thought, I could change my middle name to coincide with my birth-surname, which was also my birth-mother's maiden name. That would 'complete the circle', capturing in my name all of my birth and familial connections (and would also shed me of a middle name that I had never liked). (And besides, I've always thought those 'mother's-maiden-name' middle names sounded classy).
When I checked my hunch with my dad, he agreed that it was the family name he was concerned about, and he didn't attach all that much significance to the middle name he'd assigned me, either (beyond the fact that he had, in point of fact, assigned it to me; but he didn't regard that particular assignation as binding). And so, in 1990, just before my 34th birthday (and just before my birth-mother's first visit to our house), I went to court and legally changed my name, so that now, my birth-family-name is my middle name, to go between the only first name I've ever had, and the name of the family I was raised in, and nurtured, the family whose name I've borne for longer than I can remember.
And it all just seems to fit. My whole life, and all of my circumstances, are accounted for in my name. And it seems very good.
Showing posts with label reunion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reunion. Show all posts
Friday, October 2, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
It Was Twenty Years Ago Today. . .
Molly and I had taken the kids (at the time, we had three) to the photo studio for a sitting. My search for my birth-mother had just recently come to a close - I knew who she was, and how to contact her. All I was waiting for was for my intermediary to make the first contact with her, and I wanted to have a current family portrait to give her, once it happened.
We walked through the front door after the sitting, and the phone was ringing. I picked up the phone; it was Annette, my intermediary. "You have a very happy lady on your hands," she said. . .
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Earlier that Thursday afternoon, Annette had called my birth-mother. She was busy preparing her house to receive weekend guests at her home.
Annette identified herself, then said, "I'm calling concerning material of a very personal and confidential nature. Do you have time to talk?"
My birth-mother was beginning to get annoyed with Annette's slowness at coming to the point, but just said Yes, she could talk.
So Annette just plowed ahead. "I am involved in a search for the birth-mother of someone you might have known as [my birth-name], born on [my birthday]. Can you help me?"
She was stunned. She'd actually had some pretty solid inklings that I was on her trail - I'd been to visit her aunt a couple weeks previously, and her aunt had called her immediately, telling her about this 'nice young man' who'd been to visit her, asking questions about her family. Hearing my first name (which was the same one she'd given me when I was born), and my approximate age, she immediately suspected that her long-lost son was searching for her, and getting close. But even so, she hadn't allowed herself to really believe it could be true. Finally, she told Annette, "I'm the person you're looking for; you don't need to look any further." Sobbing, she assured Annette that she was OK, that these were tears of joy.
They talked at some length. Birth-mom was concerned that I was mad at her for giving me away, but Annette assured her that my motives were purely of gratitude. She also learned that she was three times a grandmother, which took her back quite a bit; she had only adopted her daughter Sarah three years previously, and the possibility of grandchildren had never even entered her mind. Finally, Annette declined to tell her any more about me, insisting rather that she should call me herself. Annette only asked for some time to call and let me know that she'd be calling. . .
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After Annette called me, I was pretty completely distracted, waiting for The Call. A couple friends called with small items of business, and I jumped on the phone each time, before quickly shooing them off. Finally, about 8:30, the phone rang again, and a woman on the other end gave her name (which I immediately recognized as my birth-mother's), saying "I'm your birth-mother."
"I know," I answered. "I'm so glad to hear from you."
Even though I'd never heard her voice, it was very comfortable to me. And she was listening just as intently to me; one of her first comments was how much my voice sounded like her father's and her brother's.
As soon as Molly figured out who I was talking to, she ran screaming to the neighbor's house, her close friend from our community. "It's HER!" she shrieked. "He's talking to HER!"
We ended up talking for an hour and a half, and neither of us could bear to end the conversation - just let me hear your voice a little while longer. . .
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That was my first contact with my birth-mother. In some ways, it was the beginning of a 'whirlwind romance' between my birth-mother and me. The following few weeks were a blizzard of letters and phone calls, every letter obsolete before it arrived, since we'd talk on the phone in the meantime. We dug through old photos to send to each other, and it was like we were trying to undo 33 years of separation in 33 days. A little over a month later, I flew out to meet her at her home, and the following spring, she came to our house to celebrate my 34th birthday with us. And just that fast, we became part of each other's lives and families.
But it all started September 28th, 1989, and for that, I give thanks to God. . .
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(*edit*) As long as we're on the topic of significant anniversaries, last Thursday, September 24th, was also the 10th anniversary of 7M's accident, which is, of course, a major miracle in the life of our family. You'll have to forgive me for letting it slide past before bringing it to your attention; the date hasn't quite gotten seared into my brain the way other 'anniversaries' have, and I had to go back and look it up; we were a little busy, and kinda distracted that day. . .
We walked through the front door after the sitting, and the phone was ringing. I picked up the phone; it was Annette, my intermediary. "You have a very happy lady on your hands," she said. . .
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Earlier that Thursday afternoon, Annette had called my birth-mother. She was busy preparing her house to receive weekend guests at her home.
Annette identified herself, then said, "I'm calling concerning material of a very personal and confidential nature. Do you have time to talk?"
My birth-mother was beginning to get annoyed with Annette's slowness at coming to the point, but just said Yes, she could talk.
So Annette just plowed ahead. "I am involved in a search for the birth-mother of someone you might have known as [my birth-name], born on [my birthday]. Can you help me?"
She was stunned. She'd actually had some pretty solid inklings that I was on her trail - I'd been to visit her aunt a couple weeks previously, and her aunt had called her immediately, telling her about this 'nice young man' who'd been to visit her, asking questions about her family. Hearing my first name (which was the same one she'd given me when I was born), and my approximate age, she immediately suspected that her long-lost son was searching for her, and getting close. But even so, she hadn't allowed herself to really believe it could be true. Finally, she told Annette, "I'm the person you're looking for; you don't need to look any further." Sobbing, she assured Annette that she was OK, that these were tears of joy.
They talked at some length. Birth-mom was concerned that I was mad at her for giving me away, but Annette assured her that my motives were purely of gratitude. She also learned that she was three times a grandmother, which took her back quite a bit; she had only adopted her daughter Sarah three years previously, and the possibility of grandchildren had never even entered her mind. Finally, Annette declined to tell her any more about me, insisting rather that she should call me herself. Annette only asked for some time to call and let me know that she'd be calling. . .
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After Annette called me, I was pretty completely distracted, waiting for The Call. A couple friends called with small items of business, and I jumped on the phone each time, before quickly shooing them off. Finally, about 8:30, the phone rang again, and a woman on the other end gave her name (which I immediately recognized as my birth-mother's), saying "I'm your birth-mother."
"I know," I answered. "I'm so glad to hear from you."
Even though I'd never heard her voice, it was very comfortable to me. And she was listening just as intently to me; one of her first comments was how much my voice sounded like her father's and her brother's.
As soon as Molly figured out who I was talking to, she ran screaming to the neighbor's house, her close friend from our community. "It's HER!" she shrieked. "He's talking to HER!"
We ended up talking for an hour and a half, and neither of us could bear to end the conversation - just let me hear your voice a little while longer. . .
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That was my first contact with my birth-mother. In some ways, it was the beginning of a 'whirlwind romance' between my birth-mother and me. The following few weeks were a blizzard of letters and phone calls, every letter obsolete before it arrived, since we'd talk on the phone in the meantime. We dug through old photos to send to each other, and it was like we were trying to undo 33 years of separation in 33 days. A little over a month later, I flew out to meet her at her home, and the following spring, she came to our house to celebrate my 34th birthday with us. And just that fast, we became part of each other's lives and families.
But it all started September 28th, 1989, and for that, I give thanks to God. . .
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(*edit*) As long as we're on the topic of significant anniversaries, last Thursday, September 24th, was also the 10th anniversary of 7M's accident, which is, of course, a major miracle in the life of our family. You'll have to forgive me for letting it slide past before bringing it to your attention; the date hasn't quite gotten seared into my brain the way other 'anniversaries' have, and I had to go back and look it up; we were a little busy, and kinda distracted that day. . .
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
The Rest of my DNA
When I was reunited with my birth-mother, some 19+ years ago, she told me who my birth-father was, and gave me enough information to find him, over 1000 miles away from me, within a few more months. I called him on the phone, and by my dropping my birth-mother’s name, he knew immediately who I was, and my connection to him.
Our relationship has been friendly, although I wouldn’t characterize it as ‘close’. Certainly, I don’t view him as having paid the same kind of ‘price’ for my existence as my birth-mother did. He had his fun, and the rest was up to her. And in fact, when her father sued him, to cover her medical expenses, he treated her pretty shabbily; and I’ll leave it at that. So, yeah – his role in my coming-to-be was somewhat less than ‘heroic’.
And, on a more ‘existential’ level, I wasn’t in the market for someone to fill the role of ‘father’ in my life. ‘Mother’ is a very earthy, physical relationship – I lived for nine months in my birth-mother’s womb, and drew my sustenance from her body. And, in the current day and age (although not to the same degree when I was conceived and born), her own choice brought me to the day of my birth, and into my life ‘on the outside’. But ‘father’ is a much more ‘relational’ role in a child’s life, and that role had long since been filled in my life. My history with mothers had been somewhat checkered, but my dad had been the one, solid constant in my life. So, when my birth-father started to relate to me like his ‘long-lost son’, I recoiled from that, just a bit. I wasn’t looking for ‘another father’; I was only looking for insight into where, and who, I’d come from. I was happy to know and relate to him as my birth-father, and to enjoy the obvious genetic connection that we share (he’s a Jeopardy! freak, just like me), but the role of ‘father’ was already filled. Which, I think, hurt him, but it is what it is. I regret that he was hurt, but I don’t know how I could have done it differently.
Along with my birth-father, I also found two half-sisters, my birth-father’s daughters by his first wife (my birth-mother, you may recall, had an adopted daughter, but no other ‘children of her womb’, who would have been ‘genetically’ related to me). And my relationships with my half-sisters have been one of the most pleasant surprises of the entire search/reunion phenomenon.
My birth-father gave me the names of my sisters, and told me how to get in touch with them. I called the older one (call her Martha) first; we had a real nice conversation. I think it amused her a great deal to learn about her father’s ‘wild oats’. She told me that, in her teens, her dad had gotten drunk and told her and her sister that they had a brother, but he didn’t know where the brother was. Which she’d never known what to think of, but now, it seemed, her dad’s drunken ramblings had been true.
Martha was planning to be in Michigan, visiting relatives, within a couple months, and so we planned for her to visit us while she was here. The day came, and she called us as she was leaving her relatives’ house, saying, “We’ll be there in about an hour.” Something about how she said it struck me as odd, and as I hung up the phone, I turned to Molly and said, “I think Martha is a lesbian.” It was nothing specific, just an impression from what she’d said, and something about how she’d said it.
Not in the least that we wouldn’t have wanted to meet her; she was (and is) my sister, and I am happy for our connection, regardless of anything else. Still, we had an hour to wrap our minds around the possibility. Which was probably merciful, because it’s hard to know what our response would have been if we’d been blind-sided. Because when Martha arrived, with her partner, Laura, it was clear that my impressions had been accurate. It wasn’t so much the short hair – I’ve known lots of very heterosexual women who wore their hair short – but the studded black-leather outfit she wore fairly shouted her, uh, sexual preference. And I had to smile wryly to myself, realizing that she was intent on finding out, right up front, what our attitude to her ‘leanings’ was gonna be.
We had a really nice visit. She remarked, on seeing my face, that her dad could hardly deny me if he wanted to. We took a walk around our neighborhood, and at one point, Martha, walking behind me, remarked, “You’re definitely one of us – you got no ass at all.” I’d never particularly been accustomed to women talking about my ass, but it gave me a certain warm feeling that my half-sister was pointing out the marks of our genetic related-ness. At one point, 1F, who was about eight or nine at the time, noticed that Martha and Laura were wearing matching rings, and she asked them, “Are you married?” While I tried to clap my hand over her mouth, Martha and Laura just laughed, and said no, they weren’t married.
We got together with Martha a couple more times in the years following that, but after a certain point, she moved away from the town where her father lived, to another state, several hundred miles away, and stopped responding to our letters or phone calls. I don’t know if, or how, we offended her, but she also cut off contact with her father and split up with Laura around the same time, so it was evidently a time of some turmoil in her life.
I called my other sister (call her Janet) a few weeks after I called Martha. She was a single mother of a son, who was between 2F and 3M in age. Our relationship was slower to warm up, but over time, it has become a very warm relationship. In all sorts of ways, right down to our favorite books, and that we both like to ride bicycles, we just ‘clicked’ with each other, in ways similar to what I’d experienced with my birth-mother. And her son was, in a lot of ways, more like me than my own kids were. Which I found very ironically amusing.
Janet came to visit us at our house once, which was again, a very nice visit, although it came to a rather abrupt end when 3M and 4M got into a fight, resulting in me having to take 4M to the emergency room, after he punched a window in proxy for his brother.
Janet and I still talk on the phone a couple times a year, and whenever we do, neither of us wants to put the phone down. There is just something delicious about the connection with a genetic sibling that you just ‘get’ on some intrinsic level.
So, that completes the picture of my birth-family, from my birth-father’s side. His family – hard-drinking Southerners, originally from Mississippi – could hardly be more diametrically different from my birth-mother’s family of staid, German-Lutheran farmers. A marriage between the two of them would have been difficult on multiple levels. So, on the whole, it’s probably God’s mercy that I was adopted. But it has been very rich to get a glimpse at where my DNA has been, and what kinds of people came together, which resulted in me.
Our relationship has been friendly, although I wouldn’t characterize it as ‘close’. Certainly, I don’t view him as having paid the same kind of ‘price’ for my existence as my birth-mother did. He had his fun, and the rest was up to her. And in fact, when her father sued him, to cover her medical expenses, he treated her pretty shabbily; and I’ll leave it at that. So, yeah – his role in my coming-to-be was somewhat less than ‘heroic’.
And, on a more ‘existential’ level, I wasn’t in the market for someone to fill the role of ‘father’ in my life. ‘Mother’ is a very earthy, physical relationship – I lived for nine months in my birth-mother’s womb, and drew my sustenance from her body. And, in the current day and age (although not to the same degree when I was conceived and born), her own choice brought me to the day of my birth, and into my life ‘on the outside’. But ‘father’ is a much more ‘relational’ role in a child’s life, and that role had long since been filled in my life. My history with mothers had been somewhat checkered, but my dad had been the one, solid constant in my life. So, when my birth-father started to relate to me like his ‘long-lost son’, I recoiled from that, just a bit. I wasn’t looking for ‘another father’; I was only looking for insight into where, and who, I’d come from. I was happy to know and relate to him as my birth-father, and to enjoy the obvious genetic connection that we share (he’s a Jeopardy! freak, just like me), but the role of ‘father’ was already filled. Which, I think, hurt him, but it is what it is. I regret that he was hurt, but I don’t know how I could have done it differently.
Along with my birth-father, I also found two half-sisters, my birth-father’s daughters by his first wife (my birth-mother, you may recall, had an adopted daughter, but no other ‘children of her womb’, who would have been ‘genetically’ related to me). And my relationships with my half-sisters have been one of the most pleasant surprises of the entire search/reunion phenomenon.
My birth-father gave me the names of my sisters, and told me how to get in touch with them. I called the older one (call her Martha) first; we had a real nice conversation. I think it amused her a great deal to learn about her father’s ‘wild oats’. She told me that, in her teens, her dad had gotten drunk and told her and her sister that they had a brother, but he didn’t know where the brother was. Which she’d never known what to think of, but now, it seemed, her dad’s drunken ramblings had been true.
Martha was planning to be in Michigan, visiting relatives, within a couple months, and so we planned for her to visit us while she was here. The day came, and she called us as she was leaving her relatives’ house, saying, “We’ll be there in about an hour.” Something about how she said it struck me as odd, and as I hung up the phone, I turned to Molly and said, “I think Martha is a lesbian.” It was nothing specific, just an impression from what she’d said, and something about how she’d said it.
Not in the least that we wouldn’t have wanted to meet her; she was (and is) my sister, and I am happy for our connection, regardless of anything else. Still, we had an hour to wrap our minds around the possibility. Which was probably merciful, because it’s hard to know what our response would have been if we’d been blind-sided. Because when Martha arrived, with her partner, Laura, it was clear that my impressions had been accurate. It wasn’t so much the short hair – I’ve known lots of very heterosexual women who wore their hair short – but the studded black-leather outfit she wore fairly shouted her, uh, sexual preference. And I had to smile wryly to myself, realizing that she was intent on finding out, right up front, what our attitude to her ‘leanings’ was gonna be.
We had a really nice visit. She remarked, on seeing my face, that her dad could hardly deny me if he wanted to. We took a walk around our neighborhood, and at one point, Martha, walking behind me, remarked, “You’re definitely one of us – you got no ass at all.” I’d never particularly been accustomed to women talking about my ass, but it gave me a certain warm feeling that my half-sister was pointing out the marks of our genetic related-ness. At one point, 1F, who was about eight or nine at the time, noticed that Martha and Laura were wearing matching rings, and she asked them, “Are you married?” While I tried to clap my hand over her mouth, Martha and Laura just laughed, and said no, they weren’t married.
We got together with Martha a couple more times in the years following that, but after a certain point, she moved away from the town where her father lived, to another state, several hundred miles away, and stopped responding to our letters or phone calls. I don’t know if, or how, we offended her, but she also cut off contact with her father and split up with Laura around the same time, so it was evidently a time of some turmoil in her life.
I called my other sister (call her Janet) a few weeks after I called Martha. She was a single mother of a son, who was between 2F and 3M in age. Our relationship was slower to warm up, but over time, it has become a very warm relationship. In all sorts of ways, right down to our favorite books, and that we both like to ride bicycles, we just ‘clicked’ with each other, in ways similar to what I’d experienced with my birth-mother. And her son was, in a lot of ways, more like me than my own kids were. Which I found very ironically amusing.
Janet came to visit us at our house once, which was again, a very nice visit, although it came to a rather abrupt end when 3M and 4M got into a fight, resulting in me having to take 4M to the emergency room, after he punched a window in proxy for his brother.
Janet and I still talk on the phone a couple times a year, and whenever we do, neither of us wants to put the phone down. There is just something delicious about the connection with a genetic sibling that you just ‘get’ on some intrinsic level.
So, that completes the picture of my birth-family, from my birth-father’s side. His family – hard-drinking Southerners, originally from Mississippi – could hardly be more diametrically different from my birth-mother’s family of staid, German-Lutheran farmers. A marriage between the two of them would have been difficult on multiple levels. So, on the whole, it’s probably God’s mercy that I was adopted. But it has been very rich to get a glimpse at where my DNA has been, and what kinds of people came together, which resulted in me.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
I've Looked at Adoption From Both Sides Now
Today I’m going to post a couple of shorter items that sort of coalesce around a theme of Adoption. . .
A couple weeks ago was the 17th anniversary of my reunion with my birth-mother. She called on the phone, just as she did 17 years ago, and we had a really warm conversation.
Once I decided to search for her, years ago, the actual search went surprisingly quickly. I had my birth name, from the adoption order my parents got from the court way back when (and which they were happy to give me). I contacted the agency that had handled my adoption, and they gave me a sheet of ‘non-identifying’ information (things like her parents’ and siblings ages at the time I was born, hair/eye color, what county the family had lived in, etc.). That basic information gave me enough to go on, and in two months’ time, I had found her.
I didn’t have the slightest idea if she would even want to hear from me, so I arranged for an intermediary to make the first contact – if she didn’t want to have contact with me, I wanted her to be able to say so without having contact with me in the process. But of course, she did want to have contact with me, and rather than wait for me to call her, she called me first. And the rest, as they say, is history.
About a month later, I flew off to meet her (she lives in a completely different part of the country from us, one that I would likely never visit if she weren't there), and since then, she has come for annual visits to our place.
I want to say something about ‘why’ – what motivated me to search? First, let me be as clear as I can possibly be that it was in no way related to any dissatisfaction with my adoptive family – our family wasn’t perfect, but it was ‘plenty good enough’. My parents did very well with some fairly challenging circumstances, and I feel nothing but love and gratitude toward them.
Mainly, I wanted something that they simply didn’t have to give me – my beginnings. I knew the history of our family, I knew I was adopted, but certain ‘big questions’ – where did I come from; who do I look like? – they simply couldn’t help me with. My knowledge of my life went back to the point at which I was adopted, but before that was a blank page. And on top of that, I was having children of my own – 1F was the first person I ever knew who was genetically related to me, and as I saw different characteristics of hers that had obviously ‘come from’ me, I wondered who I had gotten those things from.
Anyway, it’s been 17 years now. At first, our relationship was very emotional, very intense, but it’s long since settled down to a pretty ‘normal’ family relationship – kind of like an extra set of in-laws. But I’ve been surprised at the sense of solidity that it’s given me – what someone called ‘a sense of being rooted to the earth’. There’s a richness that I didn’t quite anticipate – and which I’m sure most people don’t even think about – in just being able to know where I came from.
-------------------------
Also a couple weeks ago, 1F and Molly and I went for a visit with 1F’s daughter (I’ll call her AG) and her adoptive parents (call them AM and AF). 1F has gone for several visits by herself, but this was the first time that Molly and I had seen her since the day she was born.
It was a nice visit. It was good to get a look at our grand-baby, now 9 months old, crawling and pulling herself up, and assure ourselves that our gene-pool is doing OK. I was actually more fascinated than I had expected to be, just watching her move around and play.
Her parents are great people, and it was good to spend some time getting to know them a little bit. It would be very understandable for them to have some anxiety about AG’s relationship with her birth-family, but if they had it, they didn’t show it to us. And for our part, we are absolutely clear that they are AG’s parents; we know that we don’t have any claim on her, and we’re grateful to them for letting us have such relationship with her as we can.
It’s a new kind of thing for us – I never had a relationship with my birth-family until I was 33 years old, and my adoptive family never had to have anything to do with it, so we’re breaking some new ground here. But we’re committed to making it work, and so far, we’re as happy as we can be with how it’s going.
-------------------------
*edit October 13*
O272 and Emily had questions from the above post, and I want to answer them here, since they're really good questions and require more comprehensive answers than I wanted to leave in comment-space.
O asked: How did [1F] deal with putting her child up for adoption? It had to be a very difficult decision.
In a related vein, Emily asked: Was there a specific reason that [1F] didn't want to raise the baby herself?
From what I know of her decision process, her decision was both easy and wrenchingly difficult. Easy in the sense that, looking at her own life and circumstances, she simply didn't have the wherewithal to raise a baby, and she was clear on that virtually from the moment she knew she was pregnant. She didn't have a job, let alone one that would provide support for herself and a baby, and she hated the idea of making herself and the baby 'wards of the state' on welfare. She wanted to go back to college, but she needed time and money to do that, both of which would militate against her raising a baby. Her psychological state was (and really, still is) more fragile than a single mother's would need to be. But most fundamentally, she wanted her baby to have a family, and that would never be the case if she raised the baby herself.
The baby's father . . . how shall I say it . . . was a shithead and a loser of the first order. He essentially dropped her as soon as he found out she was pregnant, and after that, his entire role was to try to obstruct the adoption, so as to maintain some form of lasting 'control' in her life (it was not terribly unlike a dog pissing on a tree to 'mark' it as 'his turf'). He showed up at the adoption hearings with his new girlfriend in tow, herself now several months pregnant. Wonderful fellow, this guy. . .
In the context of giving a child up for adoption, nine months gestation can seem terribly cruel. She made her decision for all the right reasons, and really, pretty early on. But all the little signposts that are usually markers of impending joy - the first time she felt the baby kick, the first ultrasound picture, etc - were, for her, markers of impending sadness. She could have the greatest confidence in the decision she had made, and the firmest resolve to see it through, but the day-to-day reality of being pregnant ran smack against what her rational mind was telling her. On a very basic level, which for all intents and purposes she had no control over, she was bonding with her baby, whether she would end up raising her or not. And that was the wrenchingly hard part.
Childbirth was poignant, as you might expect. There was great joy at the arrival of a healthy baby girl, at finally being able to see and hold this little person who came from her. The adoptive parents were present for the birth (AM cut the cord), and their joy was very gratifying. If this was a difficult time for 1F, the pain was mitigated by the knowledge that something wonderfully good - a family was getting a daughter, and her baby was getting a family - was coming of it.
Emily asked about 1F's, and Molly's and my, relationships with the adoptive parents, and how they were 'chosen'.
1F chose the adoptive parents, although, for the adoption to be finalized, they had to be evaluated and approved by the agency which handled the adoption, and ultimately, by the court. She wanted her baby to be raised in a Christian community like the one she had been raised in, but she didn't really want her baby to be the same town as she lived in. So we made some inquiries among several other communities in the US, related to ours, and found a young couple in a community near ours (but not too near) who were childless after seven years of marriage. They were loose acquaintances of ours; although I couldn't say that we really knew them, we knew who they were.
The 'open' adoption arrangement that 1F has with AG's parents is purely informal - there are no legally binding 'agreements' in force. If the parents decided tomorrow that the arrangement wasn't working out and they wanted no further contact with 1F or with us, they would be within their rights, and we would have no legal recourse. That's just the rules of the game, and we all knew it going in.
But, as I said, they are good and gracious people, and, at least so far, they are happy to include us in the life of their daughter. And, as I said previously, we are completely clear that, in every meaningful way, they are her parents, and we are grateful to be included.
As an interesting aside, within a month of AG coming to live with them, AM was pregnant, and that baby is now due any day. . .
Emily was also impressed that Molly and I, as the 'birth-grandparents' are included in the 'open' arrangement. I actually hadn't thought of it as all that unusual, but I suppose it might be. I can say that, of all that has come into my own life as a result of being reunited with my birth-mother, the relationships we've formed with my extended 'birth-family' have been the most surprising. My own grandmother was sick and scant months from death when I appeared on the scene, but her reception of me was incredibly heart-warming; it hadn't occurred to me that other members of my 'birth-family' would have been all that strongly affected.
There is a kind of 'kinship' that is almost 'built-into' us genetically. I've been amazed, as I've met my own biological aunts and uncles and cousins for the first time, at the way that we're 'like each other' in some innate, undefinable way. With my adoptive family, there were differences that would crop up from time to time, and we mainly dealt with them with good humor. But with my 'birth-family' it was almost the opposite - we would discover unanticipated ways in which we were like each other, or just understood each other in some intuitive way.
So, ladies, I hope that this gives a helpful answer to your questions, or at least helps you understand the situation a little better. . .
(7/4 comments)
A couple weeks ago was the 17th anniversary of my reunion with my birth-mother. She called on the phone, just as she did 17 years ago, and we had a really warm conversation.
Once I decided to search for her, years ago, the actual search went surprisingly quickly. I had my birth name, from the adoption order my parents got from the court way back when (and which they were happy to give me). I contacted the agency that had handled my adoption, and they gave me a sheet of ‘non-identifying’ information (things like her parents’ and siblings ages at the time I was born, hair/eye color, what county the family had lived in, etc.). That basic information gave me enough to go on, and in two months’ time, I had found her.
I didn’t have the slightest idea if she would even want to hear from me, so I arranged for an intermediary to make the first contact – if she didn’t want to have contact with me, I wanted her to be able to say so without having contact with me in the process. But of course, she did want to have contact with me, and rather than wait for me to call her, she called me first. And the rest, as they say, is history.
About a month later, I flew off to meet her (she lives in a completely different part of the country from us, one that I would likely never visit if she weren't there), and since then, she has come for annual visits to our place.
I want to say something about ‘why’ – what motivated me to search? First, let me be as clear as I can possibly be that it was in no way related to any dissatisfaction with my adoptive family – our family wasn’t perfect, but it was ‘plenty good enough’. My parents did very well with some fairly challenging circumstances, and I feel nothing but love and gratitude toward them.
Mainly, I wanted something that they simply didn’t have to give me – my beginnings. I knew the history of our family, I knew I was adopted, but certain ‘big questions’ – where did I come from; who do I look like? – they simply couldn’t help me with. My knowledge of my life went back to the point at which I was adopted, but before that was a blank page. And on top of that, I was having children of my own – 1F was the first person I ever knew who was genetically related to me, and as I saw different characteristics of hers that had obviously ‘come from’ me, I wondered who I had gotten those things from.
Anyway, it’s been 17 years now. At first, our relationship was very emotional, very intense, but it’s long since settled down to a pretty ‘normal’ family relationship – kind of like an extra set of in-laws. But I’ve been surprised at the sense of solidity that it’s given me – what someone called ‘a sense of being rooted to the earth’. There’s a richness that I didn’t quite anticipate – and which I’m sure most people don’t even think about – in just being able to know where I came from.
-------------------------
Also a couple weeks ago, 1F and Molly and I went for a visit with 1F’s daughter (I’ll call her AG) and her adoptive parents (call them AM and AF). 1F has gone for several visits by herself, but this was the first time that Molly and I had seen her since the day she was born.
It was a nice visit. It was good to get a look at our grand-baby, now 9 months old, crawling and pulling herself up, and assure ourselves that our gene-pool is doing OK. I was actually more fascinated than I had expected to be, just watching her move around and play.
Her parents are great people, and it was good to spend some time getting to know them a little bit. It would be very understandable for them to have some anxiety about AG’s relationship with her birth-family, but if they had it, they didn’t show it to us. And for our part, we are absolutely clear that they are AG’s parents; we know that we don’t have any claim on her, and we’re grateful to them for letting us have such relationship with her as we can.
It’s a new kind of thing for us – I never had a relationship with my birth-family until I was 33 years old, and my adoptive family never had to have anything to do with it, so we’re breaking some new ground here. But we’re committed to making it work, and so far, we’re as happy as we can be with how it’s going.
-------------------------
*edit October 13*
O272 and Emily had questions from the above post, and I want to answer them here, since they're really good questions and require more comprehensive answers than I wanted to leave in comment-space.
O asked: How did [1F] deal with putting her child up for adoption? It had to be a very difficult decision.
In a related vein, Emily asked: Was there a specific reason that [1F] didn't want to raise the baby herself?
From what I know of her decision process, her decision was both easy and wrenchingly difficult. Easy in the sense that, looking at her own life and circumstances, she simply didn't have the wherewithal to raise a baby, and she was clear on that virtually from the moment she knew she was pregnant. She didn't have a job, let alone one that would provide support for herself and a baby, and she hated the idea of making herself and the baby 'wards of the state' on welfare. She wanted to go back to college, but she needed time and money to do that, both of which would militate against her raising a baby. Her psychological state was (and really, still is) more fragile than a single mother's would need to be. But most fundamentally, she wanted her baby to have a family, and that would never be the case if she raised the baby herself.
The baby's father . . . how shall I say it . . . was a shithead and a loser of the first order. He essentially dropped her as soon as he found out she was pregnant, and after that, his entire role was to try to obstruct the adoption, so as to maintain some form of lasting 'control' in her life (it was not terribly unlike a dog pissing on a tree to 'mark' it as 'his turf'). He showed up at the adoption hearings with his new girlfriend in tow, herself now several months pregnant. Wonderful fellow, this guy. . .
In the context of giving a child up for adoption, nine months gestation can seem terribly cruel. She made her decision for all the right reasons, and really, pretty early on. But all the little signposts that are usually markers of impending joy - the first time she felt the baby kick, the first ultrasound picture, etc - were, for her, markers of impending sadness. She could have the greatest confidence in the decision she had made, and the firmest resolve to see it through, but the day-to-day reality of being pregnant ran smack against what her rational mind was telling her. On a very basic level, which for all intents and purposes she had no control over, she was bonding with her baby, whether she would end up raising her or not. And that was the wrenchingly hard part.
Childbirth was poignant, as you might expect. There was great joy at the arrival of a healthy baby girl, at finally being able to see and hold this little person who came from her. The adoptive parents were present for the birth (AM cut the cord), and their joy was very gratifying. If this was a difficult time for 1F, the pain was mitigated by the knowledge that something wonderfully good - a family was getting a daughter, and her baby was getting a family - was coming of it.
Emily asked about 1F's, and Molly's and my, relationships with the adoptive parents, and how they were 'chosen'.
1F chose the adoptive parents, although, for the adoption to be finalized, they had to be evaluated and approved by the agency which handled the adoption, and ultimately, by the court. She wanted her baby to be raised in a Christian community like the one she had been raised in, but she didn't really want her baby to be the same town as she lived in. So we made some inquiries among several other communities in the US, related to ours, and found a young couple in a community near ours (but not too near) who were childless after seven years of marriage. They were loose acquaintances of ours; although I couldn't say that we really knew them, we knew who they were.
The 'open' adoption arrangement that 1F has with AG's parents is purely informal - there are no legally binding 'agreements' in force. If the parents decided tomorrow that the arrangement wasn't working out and they wanted no further contact with 1F or with us, they would be within their rights, and we would have no legal recourse. That's just the rules of the game, and we all knew it going in.
But, as I said, they are good and gracious people, and, at least so far, they are happy to include us in the life of their daughter. And, as I said previously, we are completely clear that, in every meaningful way, they are her parents, and we are grateful to be included.
As an interesting aside, within a month of AG coming to live with them, AM was pregnant, and that baby is now due any day. . .
Emily was also impressed that Molly and I, as the 'birth-grandparents' are included in the 'open' arrangement. I actually hadn't thought of it as all that unusual, but I suppose it might be. I can say that, of all that has come into my own life as a result of being reunited with my birth-mother, the relationships we've formed with my extended 'birth-family' have been the most surprising. My own grandmother was sick and scant months from death when I appeared on the scene, but her reception of me was incredibly heart-warming; it hadn't occurred to me that other members of my 'birth-family' would have been all that strongly affected.
There is a kind of 'kinship' that is almost 'built-into' us genetically. I've been amazed, as I've met my own biological aunts and uncles and cousins for the first time, at the way that we're 'like each other' in some innate, undefinable way. With my adoptive family, there were differences that would crop up from time to time, and we mainly dealt with them with good humor. But with my 'birth-family' it was almost the opposite - we would discover unanticipated ways in which we were like each other, or just understood each other in some intuitive way.
So, ladies, I hope that this gives a helpful answer to your questions, or at least helps you understand the situation a little better. . .
(7/4 comments)
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Being Adopted
I don't remember not knowing I was adopted. Sometime when I was very small, my parents told me I was adopted, that someone else had been my 'real mommy', but she couldn't take care of me, so she gave me to a family that could take care of me. As I was growing up, it was no big deal, an odd fact about myself on the order of 'I have a mole on my left shoulder'.
When I was two years old, my parents adopted another baby boy, who became my brother. Same song, second verse.
When my adoptive mother left my Dad, and Dad remarried, we were suddenly transformed into a blended family, with people having come from multiple different directions, so I almost lost track of the fact that I was adopted - we were busy making one family out of two, and who cared what path had brought you here?
Every once in a while, something would 'come up' that would remind me I was adopted - I'm pretty musical, whereas my Dad can't carry a tune in a basket - but it was mainly no big deal. By the time we were all grown, I was the only male in the family shorter than 6-2, let alone 6 feet, but since I was practically the oldest, it took a while for that to become obvious.
Looking back on my childhood, it seems clear now that my parents' (most particularly my adoptive mother's) infertility was something of a '900-pound gorilla' - the huge fact that you can't really ignore, but you don't want to talk about it. Some time back, I got a copy of my school record (I forget what I was looking for), and I was struck by the fact that, on the line for 'Relationship to Student', my adoptive mother had written "Step Mother". When it came down to it, she didn't really think of herself as my mother.
When Molly and I were engaged, and I told her I was adopted, it didn't faze her a bit. When she told her mother, though, her Mom said, "Don't ever tell your Grandma; he might be something she doesn't like." (*sigh*)
The next time I gave any thought to being adopted was when my first child was born. It hit me like a ton of bricks - this baby girl was the first person I'd ever known who was genetically related to me. She had a peculiar pattern in her hair that I also have, and that was just incredibly poignant to me.
When my second daughter was born, it began to bug me that being adopted meant that I didn't know any of my genetic health history - what if I had some pre-disposition for some disease that meant I should take special precautions for my kids? I made a few efforts to find out what I could actually know in that regard, but I didn't really know what I was doing, and I didn't get anything helpful out of it.
Some years later, I took up genealogy as a hobby, and got fairly adept at searching through public records to learn about the history of my family. Over the next few years, a whole series of circumstances came together, to the point that I decided I really did want to know who my birth-parents were.
I want to be very clear that searching for my birth-parents had nothing whatsoever to do with any perceived deficiencies in my relationship with my parents. I loved my parents as much as I ever had (still do); I was simply looking for something that they didn't have to give me. Where did I come from? Who do I look like? Etc., etc. Those are questions which, for most people, are plain and straightforward; for the adoptee, though, they refer to a blank page. It was almost as if I'd fallen out of the sky; at some point - Ploop! - there I was! That's all I knew, and I wanted the whole story. That's all. Before I started searching in earnest, I talked to my Dad about what I wanted to do. I wasn't really asking his permission, but I suppose he could have stopped me, if he'd wanted to. He didn't, though; he knew it wasn't about him, or our relationship. And for that, I'm grateful.
I won't bore you with the details of the search itself. It took about two-and-a-half months (pretty fast as such things go), and a lot of that time was just waiting for letters or phone calls to be returned.
Ever since our first contact, my birth-mother and I have had a very warm relationship. Knowing her has been pretty much all that I'd hoped it would be, and more besides. It has been wonderfully solidifying just knowing where I came from and how I got here. I now have a sense of being 'rooted to this earth', that I didn't have before. I hadn't anticipated what it would be like to come in touch with people who, 'in their bones' were 'like me' in some intrinsic way - the genetic components of personality took me by surprise, and it was a wonderful surprise, for sure.
I was also unprepared for the emotional impact of the search and reunion - for several weeks afterward, I was an emotional wreck. They were, in the main, happy emotions, but the experience of them was orders of magnitude more intense than anything I'd ever experienced. Poor Molly must have wondered, on occasion, if I was losing my mind.
By now, that is 16+ years ago, and knowing my various parents, 'birth-' and otherwise, has become pretty much normal, daily life (except that Molly now has three mothers-in-law; for which she has now mostly forgiven me).
The story took on a new chapter this past winter when 1F, my oldest daughter, gave birth to a baby girl. She's giving our grand-daughter up for adoption, so now I get to experience adoption from the side of the family 'saying goodbye'. It's very poignant, but ultimately, I'm happy that my grand-daughter will be able to have a family. I only hope that her experience can be nearly as good, and as rich, as mine has been.
When I was two years old, my parents adopted another baby boy, who became my brother. Same song, second verse.
When my adoptive mother left my Dad, and Dad remarried, we were suddenly transformed into a blended family, with people having come from multiple different directions, so I almost lost track of the fact that I was adopted - we were busy making one family out of two, and who cared what path had brought you here?
Every once in a while, something would 'come up' that would remind me I was adopted - I'm pretty musical, whereas my Dad can't carry a tune in a basket - but it was mainly no big deal. By the time we were all grown, I was the only male in the family shorter than 6-2, let alone 6 feet, but since I was practically the oldest, it took a while for that to become obvious.
Looking back on my childhood, it seems clear now that my parents' (most particularly my adoptive mother's) infertility was something of a '900-pound gorilla' - the huge fact that you can't really ignore, but you don't want to talk about it. Some time back, I got a copy of my school record (I forget what I was looking for), and I was struck by the fact that, on the line for 'Relationship to Student', my adoptive mother had written "Step Mother". When it came down to it, she didn't really think of herself as my mother.
When Molly and I were engaged, and I told her I was adopted, it didn't faze her a bit. When she told her mother, though, her Mom said, "Don't ever tell your Grandma; he might be something she doesn't like." (*sigh*)
The next time I gave any thought to being adopted was when my first child was born. It hit me like a ton of bricks - this baby girl was the first person I'd ever known who was genetically related to me. She had a peculiar pattern in her hair that I also have, and that was just incredibly poignant to me.
When my second daughter was born, it began to bug me that being adopted meant that I didn't know any of my genetic health history - what if I had some pre-disposition for some disease that meant I should take special precautions for my kids? I made a few efforts to find out what I could actually know in that regard, but I didn't really know what I was doing, and I didn't get anything helpful out of it.
Some years later, I took up genealogy as a hobby, and got fairly adept at searching through public records to learn about the history of my family. Over the next few years, a whole series of circumstances came together, to the point that I decided I really did want to know who my birth-parents were.
I want to be very clear that searching for my birth-parents had nothing whatsoever to do with any perceived deficiencies in my relationship with my parents. I loved my parents as much as I ever had (still do); I was simply looking for something that they didn't have to give me. Where did I come from? Who do I look like? Etc., etc. Those are questions which, for most people, are plain and straightforward; for the adoptee, though, they refer to a blank page. It was almost as if I'd fallen out of the sky; at some point - Ploop! - there I was! That's all I knew, and I wanted the whole story. That's all. Before I started searching in earnest, I talked to my Dad about what I wanted to do. I wasn't really asking his permission, but I suppose he could have stopped me, if he'd wanted to. He didn't, though; he knew it wasn't about him, or our relationship. And for that, I'm grateful.
I won't bore you with the details of the search itself. It took about two-and-a-half months (pretty fast as such things go), and a lot of that time was just waiting for letters or phone calls to be returned.
Ever since our first contact, my birth-mother and I have had a very warm relationship. Knowing her has been pretty much all that I'd hoped it would be, and more besides. It has been wonderfully solidifying just knowing where I came from and how I got here. I now have a sense of being 'rooted to this earth', that I didn't have before. I hadn't anticipated what it would be like to come in touch with people who, 'in their bones' were 'like me' in some intrinsic way - the genetic components of personality took me by surprise, and it was a wonderful surprise, for sure.
I was also unprepared for the emotional impact of the search and reunion - for several weeks afterward, I was an emotional wreck. They were, in the main, happy emotions, but the experience of them was orders of magnitude more intense than anything I'd ever experienced. Poor Molly must have wondered, on occasion, if I was losing my mind.
By now, that is 16+ years ago, and knowing my various parents, 'birth-' and otherwise, has become pretty much normal, daily life (except that Molly now has three mothers-in-law; for which she has now mostly forgiven me).
The story took on a new chapter this past winter when 1F, my oldest daughter, gave birth to a baby girl. She's giving our grand-daughter up for adoption, so now I get to experience adoption from the side of the family 'saying goodbye'. It's very poignant, but ultimately, I'm happy that my grand-daughter will be able to have a family. I only hope that her experience can be nearly as good, and as rich, as mine has been.
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