posted June 24, 2003 09:31 AM         

We're doing a paternity test *this week* to give the 100% evidence to everyone. But we both already know it is the truth. (As does my Mom) It has been one emotional roller coaster ride trying to get to know this man after all these years. He wonders how we can build a father/daughter relationship after 26 years of not knowing each other. I think *anything* is possible when it comes to love! I hope that *everyone* has such a wonderful experience with meeting their birth parents as I did.

And I wanted to add to the comments that seeing your birth parent(s) for the first time is a mind-blowing experience. To see your own movements, eyes, or gestures is kind of shocking at first! I'm so much like my birth father, it's uncanny.

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The unseen, the unknown, the mystery - this is what drives me; propels me forward on new journeys as dark corners of my mind are lit with the evergrowing bright light of my enlightened soul.

posted June 24, 2003 11:05 AM         

I have a myriad of emotions with my birth-family. We clash in many ways, and yet are similar in others. They are good people, but they are not perfect. They are right-wing Republican Christians who don't understand their competent, intelligent, extremely independent daughter who has the heart of a Bohemian, if not necessarily the constitution of one. My Bfather and I especially lock horns philosophically...we just don't view the world in the same light.

But...I have to accept him for who he is. They are both aging, my birthparents, and are in their upper 60's. Even as healthy as they are, I realize their time may be short, and I can either continue to tussle with my mixed emotions, or make the best of it and value them for who they are. They are flawed, as are we all...it's our flaws though, that make us interesting.

More soon...and I'm off to visit them next week, I'll let you know how it goes!

posted June 24, 2003 03:18 PM         

Hi SeaNymf -- {{ hug }}

Hey Bendis-- welcome to the thread! If you don't mind me asking, why did your mom finally decide to reveal the truth? How has the revelation affected your relationship with your father (who brought you up, I take it)? I'm glad it's working out so well with your bfather -- sounds like the two of you are taking time -- this is good. Readiness is worth waiting for, but from your other posts I know you follow your intuition. That must have been some shock when you found out-- had you suspected anything?

I like who I am, and now I'm glad I only knew my birth family later, as an adult. True, there's the sense of lost years, of the emotional richness and automatic sense of belonging that could have been, but nostalgia for what wasn't, does not sustain a person or identity, so I can't dwell there, although I have spent time there, and reserve my right to visit when I want. As I think I posted elsewhere in another forum here, adoption provided me with the great gift of stability. I've now seen first hand what lack of stability did to my birthsiblings, and I appreciate that I escaped a lot of desperation and dysfunction by being given up (only to create my very own dysfunction, naturally! What would life be without it? But hey, it's mine!). When she met me, my bmother said I was not as "hard" as her other daughters, which is a facet of identity directly related to environment.

trillian -- whoa, strong minds and characters run in your bfamily! I'm sure you'd have been a boho rebel woman anyway -- maybe polarized against your bdad if you'd grown up together. Enjoy your visit next week. I wish I had closer bfamily -- the bsisters with whom I have a relationship live over a thousand miles away, and so visits have been few. I know I feel more like a kind of cousin to my birthfamily than a direct descendant. I suspect I would have been "different" in my bfamily too, and recently I compared my bmother's chart with mine, and saw some interesting aspects -- both our Moon/Mercs are conjunct (double!), but there are disturbing Mars and Saturn aspects -- I think there might have been violence, had I grown up with her. I have no such disturbing violent aspects with my own mom & dad.

Well, that's my fill of speculation for today! Once you reunite, and work through the Alice in Wonderland newness of these special relationships, then you go on to the reality of it. That's more where I am, although in this thread I am doing some reflecting.

posted September 26, 2004 02:12 AM         

is it a good thing to tell your children that they're adopted? i suppose i might have to, as my biological son, who probably would know that they weren't born by me, should not be required to keep such a thing secret.

if you do tell them, when is the best time? i would be afraid that they would feel a difference between themselves and my biological son, although i know my love for them would be just as thorough and pervasive.

posted September 26, 2004 05:21 AM         

About 26 years later, my sister got in touch w/ my grandparents in NZ, because my mother had since moved to the US. My grandmother wrote my mom and told her - this was when I was about 16. My Mom told me about her (Maree), but it didn't really phase me - I was very secure in my place in my mother's heart (which was something my mother worried about, she worried that I would think the "new" sister would "replace" me), and my new sister was so far away, well it made it a bit surreal. I did think it was pretty cool however.

Well, come to find out the entire family over there pretty much shunned Maree after her initial contacts, for various petty unsubstantiated reasons.

Well, when I moved there three years later, I was travelling around the country on a road trip at one point, and I realized I was going through the town that I had heard she'd lived in. I had been advised not to contact her by everyone BUT my Mom (all the trash talkers), because of all these negative things the family had said about her. "It would just be better". But being the willful person I am, and not one to be swayed by disparaging comments from certain individuals in my family, I contacted her anyway. I stopped at a pay phone and looked her up in the phone book. I called her, told her I was in town (she'd heard both about my existence, and that I was living in NZ so it wasn't a complete jaw dropping surprise to have me call). I told her I was in town asked her if it would be ok to stop by. She was wonderfully gracious, and justified my suspicions of other family's members - nasty designs, to put it nicely. This woman was absolutely wonderful, down to earth, everything that the rest of the extended family down there wasn't.

Well, I had several talks w/ my Mom, and let her know that all these negative things they'd been saying about Maree were just patently untrue. See, my mother hadn't done much more than just meet her once, and maybe write once in a blue moon, on the petty advice of other family members. So she herself had never actually developed a relationship with Maree. Well, it's one thing I'm very proud of in my life - I changed that, I was able to get them to get together, to get my mother to get know her, counteract all the negative things she'd heard, etc, and now they have a very robust, healthy relationship.

We're not extremely close only because of the distance (she now lives in Australia and I'm in the US), and we're both horrible letter writers lol - but we do have the kind of relationship where we just pick up wherever we've left off - it's as if the intervening years of losing touch never happened. I'll never feel the connection to her that I do with the brother I was raised with, merely because we don't share the same life-forming experiences, but as a person I think she's really cool, and I'd like to spend more time with her, if only we lived closer

posted September 26, 2004 10:22 AM         

In '93 (I was 16-17) my appendix ruptured. I had to have an emergency appendectomy. I was in the hospital for 6 days because I had gangrene growing on my large intestine. Following my surgery (in the recovery room), my temp was still up in the 103s (F).

So there I was... 16, appendix free, on loads of antibiotics... and my birth control pills. To my recolection, no one told me that antibiotics cancel out b/c. Around a month after my surgery, I started getting really sick... ALL THE TIME. The smell of my boyfriend's laundry soap (Tide) made me vomit everytime I smelled it. I thougth... Oh $hit! I'm still sick from my appendix... I'd better got to the doctor. Well... had a blood test... was preggers. I flipped out! I had always been responsible. ALWAYS took my pill.

I had a lot of pre-term labor. I was on a coctail of drugs to keep the child inside me. My first bout of preterm labor was at 29 weeks... I was completely effaced and 2-3 centemeters dialated... at 29 (out of 40) weeks! I carried this child in my womb with every intention of keeping her... until about 33 weeks along. My mother suggested a friend of hers to me (from her youth) whose mother took that miscarriage pill in the 50s. A lot of female children born during that time have serious reproductive issues. This woman couldn't have any children. Had actually had to have an emergency hystorectomy at like 25 After a lot of thought, and speaking with them over the phone, I decided to let them have my baby. I was so young, and so scared. I knew what it was like to grow up with a mother who was way too young to be a mother... and I didn't want to make the same mistakes she made. I didn't want my life to become my baby's. I was so scared for my baby. I knew I had no idea how to be a mother. I'd never really had one... and I knew I was too young. I think all that pre-term labor was a pretty good indicator that I wasn't ready to be a mother... even physically.

So, May 8, 1993 I gave birth (completely naturally) to a beautiful, very healthy baby girl named Megan. She lives in Spokane. It is an open adoption... but I keep my distance. I don't keep in touch. I can't. It's too painful. I decided giving her away was very wise and selfless... now I need to be selfish and take care of me. I've gone to see her twice. Once when she was a toddler, and another time when she was about 5. She asked to see me. I was pretty pregnant with my youngest by that time... and she wanted to know what it looked like to be in my tummy. Cute. How could I not oblige? That was the last time I saw her (about 6 years ago). I was an emotional wreck after seeing her. There is something very eerie about seeing a child that looks exactly like you call another set of parents "Mommy and Daddy".

I know it won't be long until Megan comes looking for me. I've been thinking lately that I'd better get an updated phone number and address to them... I'm sure she's got questions.

The very least I owe her is an explanation. I would want to know why. I really look forward to that time. I'm sure her parents have explained things to her. They're good people, and they were wonderful to me following the adoption. They even paid for 2 years of therapy for me... outa their pocket.

I know one day Megan's going to show up at my door, and I'll know who she is by looking at her. I'll prolly immediatly start bawling... because I've been waiting.

posted September 26, 2004 10:48 AM         

As an adopted child, I thought I might add my ten cents.

My parents never made it a secret that we were adopted. Their spin on it was: We choose you. I don't remember a moment when I was told, because it was always known, just an open fact about our family. And I think that was very wise of my parents. By allowing it to be common knowledge, it never loomed over us as some sort of stigma.

Issues with birth-parents and birth-siblings are another matter entirely. It's a rocky road. My birthparents married about a year after placing me for adoption, and went on to have two more children.

I know it's been difficult for my birthmother, I like her very much, but she will never be Mom to me. My birthfather and I have issues. So do my siblings and I. My birthbrother and sister resent me for some reason (I suppose I have my ideas why). It's subtle, but telling. C'est la vie.

Saffron, as with all families, a loving environment is all that's needed.

Isis, bravo to you for meeting your sister.

LS, it was a hard decision but as you said, you and your daughter will find your way to being friends. Unlike most birthmothers, you know your daughter is well and loved, and that is a gift from the Universe to you.

posted September 26, 2004 08:51 PM           

When I first met Virginia Williams in November of 1998, she was decked out in a colorful print dress, purple sweater, and a black stole covered with glittering musical notes. Her ample bosom was draped with necklaces, crosses, and a Star of David, tokens of her Catholic faith and a reminder of a great-grandfather who was Jewish. As I soon discovered, Virginia, a seventy-two-year-old African-American, was a one-woman rainbow coalition, if not a one-woman band. (Her business card identified her as "evangelist, singer, community activist.")
She and her late husband, Lewis, a fellow postal worker, had raised eight children, including Anthony, who at the time was the Democratic candidate for the mayor of Washington, D.C. Tony had been adopted at age three. As Virginia tells the story, a white postal office coworker kept bringing in pictures of his little foster son. "I looked at those pictures and I said, 'That's not a white child!' We later found out the boy's mother was white, an unmarried seventeen-year-old, and the father was black. Her family wouldn't let the girl keep the baby, and she had to put him into foster care.
"I believe the foster father loved that child dearly. But I think his wife may have neglected him," she continued. "I worried about that, and about a black child growing up in a poor white neighborhood. I sent his picture around to all of my black friends who didn't have children, but not one would adopt him; they all had one reason or another. His head was a little bit disfigured from lying in the crib...and although he was three years old, he hadn't said a word yet. The foster parents had him tested, and the father told me they were going to send him to a home for retarded children."
"I knew that child wasn't retarded. I told my husband that I felt like God wanted us to have this child. Tony was exactly two years younger than my oldest, Lewis, and two years older than my second child, Virginia. I firmly believed that God had left that space for Tony."
"My husband thought I was crazy. We already had two young kids, and I was pregnant again. Our priest said I shouldn't do it; that it wouldn't be fair to our other children, who had very high IQs, to bring a retarded child into the house. But my husband said, 'If you can get the money to adopt him, you can.'"
Virginia sang professional light opera whenever she could, and she raised money for the adoption by recording for the sound track of the film Carmen Jones. Only a couple of weeks after Tony came to live with the family, she had an inkling of what he had been through.
"I was changing the bed with the kids when the phone rang," she said. "I told them to wait a minute in the hall, and I went to talk, and when I finally got back, about an hour later, the other two were long gone, but Tony was still standing there, alone, in the hall. That's when I knew that someone had abused that child. I got down on my knees and held him and cried. I never would let them test him after that."
The Williamses brought their children up Catholics, and all attended parochial school. There never was any doubt that they would all go to college - "it was always when you finish college, never if," she said - and they all did. Lewis is a graduate from MIT and a professor of economics at the University of California at Redlands. Tony, the "retarded" child, attended both Harvard and Yale and went on to acquire a reputation as a brilliant manager in several city governments, including Washington, D.C., where as a chief financial officer he steered the city away from fiscal collapse.
Virginia, who throughout our interview answered her endlessly ringing telephone with a chirpy "Tony Williams's Mother," readily admitted that her influence alone did not turn a mistreated orphan into one fo the country's most prominent African Americans. "I had plenty of help," she confided. Her own mother pitched in, as did her sister Myrtle, who had no children.
She was also blessed with a job that allowed her to take time off whenever she had to, even to travel on short singing engagements. And above all, she had a husband who worked nights and stayed home during the day, allowing him to be deeply involved with his family.
"When I married Lewis in 1947, he said he wanted three things in life: to have six kids, to be married fifty years, and to live to be eighty. He got all three," she told me. Her husband, who died in 1998, was a strong moral influence. She described an incident that occured when Tony was in the eighth grade. The boy had come home bruised and scratched, and told his parents that he had been hit by a car that had suddenly come barreling out of an alley. They subsequently learned from one of Tony's teachers that he was the one who had come barreling out of the alley, right into the path of the car.
Her husband sat Tony down and said, "I want you to tell the truth about how the accident happened." When the boy admitted that he had caused the accident, his parents asked why he had lied. "Kids told me we could get alot of insurance money if it was the driver's fault," he explained, "and I know we can always use more money."
Lewis said nothing, but as Virginia tells it, the next day the insurance agent arrived, papers were signed, and the insurer turned a check of several thousand dollars to her husband. He dramatically tore it up. "When we start needing money that bad, I'll let you know," he told his son. "And never lie to get anything and think that I'll appreciate it."
"That showed character," Virginia declared emphatically.
On the day of our conversation, the voters in the nation's capital, tired of a mayor who took drugs and let every basic city service deteriorate, essentially decided an election on the issue of character. Two-thirds of the voters cast their ballot for Tony Williams for mayor of Washington, D.C. It was quite a victory for a onetime retarded child, who had been headed for institutionalization as a ward of the state before Virginia Williams saw his picture.
This is not the kind of story you will read in an economics textbook. And Virginia Williams is not the kind of person who is celebrated as a source of national wealth. But her story suggests that something fundamental has been left out of conventional economics. She reminds us that altruism is a driving force of human betterment, and that "irrational" mother love, backed by steadfast mothers and supportive kin, makes the material world go round.