a very eerie parallel

Strange, but until just a short while ago, I never considered that my passion, my heart’s mission, dog rescue, is uncannily parallel to the human adoption process. It’s all so obvious but it just never occurred to me…We take OTIs (owner turn-ins), dogs stranded in shelters with a high risk of euthanasia, retired/rejected breeding dogs from puppy mills (through auctions, sweeps, etc), and other at-risk dogs; we place them in foster homes, care for their medical and behavioral/emotional needs, and place them in screened, qualified homes.  We’re all volunteer, we’re non-profit, and we all have a passion to do our very best for the sake of each dog.

 Needless to say, we don’t get in to post-adoption reunions, as there is no demand for them. The majority of people who “surrender” their dogs do not wish to have them back in their lives ever. They just go out and buy another one.

Which also makes me realize: I am an amom - of four dogs, three cats.

Ponderment.

okay

so I got my genetic background on Saturday. I kept checking the mailbox..how pathetic. But the mail carrier was late (we’re rural). Finally, we had to leave - had a dinner and movie date with my brother. We didn’t get home until after 10pm and Paul stopped at the mailbox to get the mail. We carried some of our purchases in the house and I did my usual thing - went out on the porch and smoked. Then I came back in, saw the mail sitting on the counter, saw the CHSFS envelope, went back out on the porch and smoked. Came back in. Fingered the envelope. Put some grocery items away. Looked at the envelope and wondered if I should wait until Sunday, or until I was alone so I could laugh, cry, keen, or scream in private.

Went back out on the porch and smoked. Thought about how the envelope was just a regular number 10 and not overstuffed. Evidently no pictures or teddy bears left behind by nmom were in it.

Came back in, picked up the damn envelope, opened it, and started reading.

A few things I knew from the little bitty background my aparents had. But many were surprises. As (almost) always, I felt pretty numb, as if my brain were filing things away to (maybe) take out later. But I tried to focus my attention. Some facts:

On nmom: Physical description about the same as the background I already had. Weight included this time. Faith included this time. “B” honor roll high school graduate.

On ndad: as with mom, much the same as what I already had. Non-graduate. Liked art. Going in to the armed service.

On their parents: I have among them, a sculptor, a decorater, a salesman, and a real estate agent. Physical descriptions and some preferences listed. Nothing was included like, “abhors illegitimate children and social embarrassment” but one can assume….

I have 3 maternal uncles and 5 paternal aunts and 6 paternal uncles. One of the aunts was a hula dancer in Hawaii at the time. Cool.

Both parents were 18. Background said they’d discussed marriage. Either this is not true, or- obviously- the answer was no way. According to the background, both exhibited non-characteristic maturity by agreeing they weren’t equipped together or seperately to care for a baby and therefore wanted me to go to a family who could. They did not specify I go to a family in which the amom would die within four years of the adoption and the adad would suffer from depression and related psychosis afterward, which would then cast a pall over all self-perceptions of said baby for the better part of her life.  But perhaps they should have specified one where this would not happen. LOL. I digress.

Mom didn’t go for any prenatal medical care until right before I was born. Like, two hours before. Probably not uncommon. I was small; small enough to be a girdle-and-a-big-shirt-should-do-the-trick hidden lump.

Numb, reading through it, but what broke me down was my name. The name she gave me. I had a name. I was somebody before I was somebody else’s somebody. Crying felt good but was brief.  Went out to the porch to smoke. Came back in. Re-read. I gave it to Paul to read and he was mostly amazed at the size of ndad’s family. He never knows what to say regarding these things I go through - but he cares, I know that. That is enough.

 I thought it was a hoot, having a hula-dancing aunt. I painted life-sized hula girls all over our little vintage camper a few years back. Aha! She was described as chunky - double aha! From considering what physical characteristics of each family were listed, I’m thinking I take more after my dad’s side of the family.

thank you

to all of you out there who know. Who understand, and who give support, either directly through comments on my posts or in your own blogs. I’d feel pretty damn alone  and miserable if not for you.

What I can’t believe is the number of people, of experiences “out there” that are so similar, that leave those affected feeling so lonely and so pissed off…experiences that fuck with their lives so completely, and yet people outside the adoptive circle know and suspect little or nothing! Why aren’t we on the Today show giving our points of view? Why is no one asking? Why does no one care, and worse yet, why is the message “Stop whining!?” We can watch Lindsey Lohan or Brittney Spears fuck up and learn all about them whether we want to or not whenever we turn on the television, but I can’t ever remember seeing an adoptee on tv saying, “You know, being adopted really brings more to your life than just being ‘gifted’ with parents who ‘chose’ you.” It brings some hurt, too. And feeling disconnected. And feeling inferior, and angry, angry at being taken away from one family and placed with another without your consent, angry at not having one person within your sphere who looks like you, who talks like you, who has your gestures, your tendency to gain weight when you’re stressed or chew on the ends of your hair when you’re deep in thought, etc. Angry at having to beg for what should be yours by entitlement, and then being made to feel guilty for demanding it. Angry at having been the object of someone else’s manueverings, of someone else’s knowing what’s best for you, someone else’s getting what they want at the expense of others -you- and having to concede with it and live with it and be oh, so grateful for it. So grateful that you weren’t sucked out of the womb and disposed of, so grateful that you were given opportunities that you otherwise wouldn’t have had…oh, you lucky, lucky person. Stop whining! As if from the moment of conception you had a mark on your head that made you somehow lesser…oh, so lucky to have chance intercede and protect you from the fate you deserved.

I’m sorry. Adoption did not ruin my life; I don’t consider my life ruined. My aparents, with all their flaws - I still love them even if I don’t totally like them. I have flaws too. And many, many have had lives far worse than mine. I don’t see myself as some singled-out special case. I’ve experienced what I’ved experienced, I’ve had feelings about what I’ve experienced, but I can’t remember ever really thinking, “poor me.” As a matter of fact, until I was in my mid-thirties, I rarely, rarely spoke of two things: one, that I was adopted, and two, that my adoptive mother had died when I was young. I felt guilty about both, as if to admit to either would be to proclaim loudly and proudly that I was not worthy of what I’d been given in life. And I didn’t want anyone to see me as a “poor thing,” either. Words to make me turn away in embarassment. I don’t like pity. I still have a hard time speaking of these things and to put them out on the web for so many to see has been both liberating and really, really frightening.

No, I don’t see myself as a special case. What I see is that I am part of a culture, of a collective, of a widely varied universal group of people who have had the same experience in different ways, who’ve gone through what they’ve gone through and are tired of keeping their mouths shut and pretending to be grateful and enlightened by the lily-white miracle of adoption. Tired of feeling like victims of rape back in the day when it was always the victim’s fault. And despite decades having passed, we’re still there, in that day, regarded with a skeptical eye.

I guess I’m pontificating a bit. But back down to earth, what I’m trying to say is that I’m so glad there are others “out there” who won’t keep their mouths shut and pretend, and who see no reason to feel shame for something we could not possibly be expected to have control over, and who speak, honestly and openly, about it….and most of all for those who reach out to others who are just beginning to get to that point. Thank you.

It’s been a while

since I’ve written anything, really. The process of just having to passively wait is exhausting for me. I find I have to focus my attentions elsewhere as much as possible. Fortunately I have a pretty busy life.

I’m waiting for my non-id info to arrive. It should be here tomorrow or Friday. I don’t know what to expect; the case worker wanted to read it to me over the phone but I just couldn’t bear to have a stranger who sounds about 25 years old read me information about my most personal beginnings that she can access anytime, that I had to pay for…so I asked her to please just put it in the mail. It’s not her fault but I can’t help but feel resentful. For a venture that I went into fairly glibly in some ways at first, I have gotten some rude awakenings.

I think I’m getting delusional

I found myself yesterday in the middle of a full-blown fantasy day dream while I was doing something else. I imagined being reunited with my biological mom and oh, we’d talk by phone, we’d visit each other, we’d spend time at each other’s homes and see each other’s haunts of the past…. THIS is why I’ve been so reluctant to get in to this process. I’m fairly pragmatic, but there is a big part of me that has been yearning for a mother since Dee passed away when I was four….and that side is about as mature and realistic as a four year old, too. I call it “Mother-lust.” Once, for a writing clinic I went to, I wrote an essay titled, “Unmothered” and surprised myself with being able to admit I’ve been constructing mother-figures out thin air for as long as I remember…taking bits and pieces of one person, mixing them in with my own perceptions and hopes of what a mother should be….

I have always tried to protect myself from disappointment. This usually means staying fairly numb and expecting the worst and not even hoping for the best, or better yet, staying inside myself within my own little safe world.  I’ve experienced most of my life through cloudy, padded glasses. I feel a little ripped apart by having to allow myself to be open to this process. Plus it’s maddening as all hell. The secrecy, the paperwork, the money, the having to ask permission to be let in on the secret. Ugh.

Sometimes I could just cry…

Well, this is what I get for beginning a search. Yesterday someone from CHS called me and said they were sending me the “official” packet to request my non-id info and asked what other services I thought I might want to utilize. And reality hit me. This is for real. I might not learn one new thing, ever, but I am going through the process. Which means I might have to feel something once in a while. That would be new.

What I felt when I was speaking with this CHS representative was trepidation….I felt they were going to hurry up and contact my birth family and tell them to run for the hills while they staged an “accidental” fire that would destroy any records I might feel I’m entitled to. I know this is not what happens, BTW, but I felt it. This search makes me paranoid. And angry. I feel like I’m tiptoeing around. Gosh, someone might be hurt. My parents might be hurt that I want information on my “real” family. My natural mother might be hurt that I want to ferret her out and expose her past. Her family might be hurt if I do find her, because if she’s never told them about me…well, that would be a tough thing to explain now. Leave it to that generation to set things up to the advantage of everyone but the person at the center of the plan. Ugh. Meanwhile, I have to work to keep myself in the “adoption fog” as I’ve heard it called many times now, to avoid getting so emotionally drained before the search even really begins that I burn out too early.

A Bastard AND An Orphan In Four Short Years

So here are my adopted brother (2 years old) and I (four years old) in an awkward predicament: our adoptive mom, who was supposed to nurture and shelter us in our formative years is now dead. She had an anuerysim; it burst; she died from  cerebral hemmorhaging. I don’t know - can’t remember - if our a-parents fostered the idea that we were second-hand children or not, but into this new situation I carried my four years old sense of responsibility and guilt for having been born; I was convinced Mommy being gone had something to do with me and I had better do something about it. I asked my Auntie Viv, “What am I gonna do about a mom?” She didn’t have much of an answer for me - I was looking for facts, methods, a hard solution.

From that time forward, I always had the sense that I was carrying around my own little traincase full of shit. I’ve carried it into my adult life and that is what keeps me busy trying to atone for my existance by doing good works.

It took me anther four years to find a step-mom and implement her into the Family Plan. Unfortunately neither she nor I did our homework first. I wanted a Mommy. She wanted…I don’t know what the hell she wanted. Neither of us got what we wanted, exactly. We clashed from the start. Let’s leave it at that for now.

The “Dee” Years

My adoptive parents married when they were in their 3o’s. For whatever reason, they couldn’t concieve children, yet they wanted them. This was in the late 60’s. Closed adoptions in MN were big-time. I don’t know the process they went through, and I have no one to ask. My adoptive mom, “Dee”, is dead, and my adoptive dad is genetically incapable of being the least bit truthful. So even when I come in to the picture, I can’t give an accurate portrayal, since my memory does not stretch back to the womb.

Let’s just say that: I have in my possession multiple pictures of my adoptive parents sitting on an Eames-style sofa upholstered in burnt orange, which is against a wall of pale brick. They look happy and righteous and maybe a little abashed. They’re holding an infant that looks to be about 2-3 months old. The infant is me. Other photos taken on the same day (same dress, hair, infant) show my a-parents standing in front of building with signage that reads, “Children’s Home Society of Minnesota…” gasp! I know these photos from childhood yet oddly enough it was not enough to clue me in until I was TOLD I was adopted…THEN the pieces began fitting together. Similar photos from two years later, almost to the day, show me as a toddler, looking cross-eyed confused, sitting next to my a-parents while they hold a little bundle…my new little brother, as it turns out. So I have those pieces of my past with which to work. I also have assertations from both my aunts on Dee’s side of the family that I (and my little brother) made her very, very happy. It’s very hard to tell, because my scattered memories of Dee usually involve her giving me “the look” for being naughty. Also, she does not have what one would consider an expressive face. Rather enigmatic, like the Mona Lisa with a blonde roller-set and horn-rimmed glasses.

Happy or not, I woke up one late night or early morning not long after I turned four and instead of finding one or both of my parents stumbling groggily toward me in the night-lighted hallway, I found my auntee Viv. Details are blurry but I believe she told me “Mommy” was sick and my dad had taken her to the doctor. I remember my little brother standing in his crib, crying loudly. I remember playing on the living room floor, I suppose a day later, and seeing my parent’s car pull in the yard. I remember my dad coming in to the house, chanting, “She’s dead; she’s dead; your mommy is dead.” Blank after that. I remember Dad lifting me up to her casket telling me to say goodbye to mommy and me struggling in his arms and whining to get away. Blank after that.

Grandma L came in to the picture after that, as sort of a baby-sitter/surrogate mom. Dad was gone often. He farmed. Dee died in August. Grain harvest time.

Four years later, Dad came in to my room to consult me on my opinion: he wanted to give me a new mommy. “Does she have long brown hair?” I asked. And, “Does she sing?” “Does she wear pantsuits?” I had this ideal, you see. Feeling mature and important, I agreed he should ask his Lady friend to marry him. I had not met her yet, so I had to go on his word. Enter my step-mom…Mom, as I’ve called her since the day she joined our family.

Ain’t Nothin’ Goin’ On But the Research…

I don’t have much going on right now with my search. I’ve compiled search information; browsed other adoptee blogs and forums, filled out forms for registries, made a request for my non-id information and foamed at the mouth over the balls LSS has for their near-$700 search fee with no guarantees. Haven’t they made enough money from adoptees in the first place?

While I’m waiting for things to inch along, I’m appreciating the quasi-therapeutic value of blogging, so I’m going to endeavor My Story As I Know It in a few seperate pieces.

Likes To Sing and Play the Ukelele

That’s one piece of information in the “Social Background” non-identifying information I have on my birth mother. I find it sweet and touching and ironic, since I have no musical talent whatsoever. The background also states she is of Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish heritage, is 5′3″ tall and “slightly above average in weight” (thanks alot, b-mom), has brown hair, blue eyes, and good health. She was on the honor roll in highschool and her family are “average in stature and represented in the real estate and decorating business.” Hmmm.

As for my birth-father, it states he is of Norwgian, Italian, and Hawiian descent (explains my coloring, I guess), is 5′4″, average in build, brown hair, brown eyes and a medium complexion. No highschool diploma. He is described as a laborer who is entering the Armed Service (this is around the time of Vietnam). The women in his family are petite, the men average height and stocky. “His family is considered artistic…” another comment that tells something and nothing.

The background goes on to say the “young people who gave birth to your daughter both desired adopton for her as they believe she needs a stable established home life which they cannot provide individually or together at this time.” I wonder how many adoptees have the same phrase on their non-id background information.

This was bequeathed to me along with several other articles of adoption-related info (amended birth certificate, adoption petition and decree, etc) by my adoptive dad. Actually he gave it on the sly to my husband, who gave it to me at the soonest opportunity. Of everything I have, this little, two paragraph, vague and esoteric body of writing has meant the most to me. How much is truth, I do not know. Deeper meaning I can’t presume to project…but I still do, as I wonder.

For the longest time, I felt  nothing toward either of my biological parents, if not a bigger nothing toward the mother than father. Underneath the nothing, there was hurt and betrayal and the sense of being very unwanted and unwelcome. Even as I first received these few keys to my past, I let myself feel nothing and see nothing. Maybe we can contribute this to the disconnect that happens when there are emotions one doesn’t want to explore regarding the issue. But now that I’m older and at least a tinch wiser, and also better-read and better emotionally prepared, I’ve done a lot of dreaming and wondering and trying to understand. I have realized I hold nothing against these biological parents…times were much different then. I have begun to break through the wall of thought that my biological mother didn’t want me, had me, and got rid of me as quickly as possible so she could move on with her life without looking back. Being a woman, being a human being with some level of introspection, I now see that that would be almost impossible. How could you not remember? How could you  not grieve? How could you not wonder? Everyone moves on, from anything, in one way or the other…yet we remember; we are connected with the past at some level, at least.

When I first considered a reunion, close to two decades ago, all I could imagine was the horror and revulsion of my biological mother when she was made aware that I knew who she was and wanted to meet her. I imagined living these many years with a secret, with whatever guilt she carried with her, whatever regret….and trying to put it behind her and most likely beginning a family of her own when she was ready and making that her life. Imagine the complications of having unwelcome, living, breathing evidence of a past you’ve tried to forget, show up at your door! Yikes! What do you tell your husband, your children? What could you possibly have to say to this person?

Maybe my fears are valid. And part of me (and others not involved in this whatsoever..I have heard it from their mouths, seen it written by their hands, etc, etc) has the belief that I have no right to try to make this intrusion into the lives of my biological parents, at this point, or ever. Let the past be the past, and appreciate all you’ve been given - this is counsel I’ve given to others over various circumstances, many times.

But that is the conspiracy of secrecy talking, and ignorance talking. I do have a right to ask questions, and I do feel I have a right to find answers. I do not want to hurt anyone, or make anyone’s life miserable, but I won’t deny my own history for the sake of inconveniencing others…I just can’t. I want to know about the woman with dark hair and blue eyes who played the ukelele and sang, back then. I at least want to know her name, if she’s alright, if she’s dead, if she’s been wondering about me. I want to know if the man who is my biological father made it to Vietnam and back again. I want to know what “artistic” means in the case of his family. I’m prepared (as much as you can be) for answers I might not like. I’m steeling myself for regret. But I’m still going to go ahead. That’s all I can say for sure right now.