Adoptee::update

First writing, sometime in early October:
I have had many more phone conversations with the social worker since my first post on adoption in June linked here.  And I have enjoyed and embraced reading this book, Being Adopted:The Lifelong Search for Self.  The book follows normal developmental psychology through the life cycle from birth to the age of 80 or so.  It has helped me in my friendships, with my relationship with family and even with my oldest son.  I did not know how much it would help put perspective on things for me as an adoptee but it has been tremendous.  I wish I could record every thought and break through I have experienced by reading it but I have not.  I only will have these brief writings and my feeble memory in time.

The social worker called today and told me their names.  Joshua age 39, Shelby age 35 and Bradley age 32.  My sister's letter to me will go out in the mail tomorrow so I will have more from her and a real letter to respond to by Wednesday.  I can call the SW to walk through the letter on Wednesday if I need to but today, as usual, brought tears as I was processing what it is like to have a biological past before me and a biological future at my feet.  My "half" siblings in my past, my children in my home.  I feel so connected to things for the first time in reality.  It feels good and it feels overwhelming.  My sister will have a unique perspective.  She is a birth mother.  She is a mother too.  She did not know about me when she gave up her first baby.  And now, she will meet me, a baby who was given up.  Will she project what her baby will be like by my behavior and my questions?  My biggest question of all, why did our mother give me up?  Joshua was born just two years after me and the SW says that it is typical for a birth mother to conceive again soon after the first one she gave up and then really struggle with whether or not to give up a baby again.  I am happy, my birth mother, did not do it again and hope to learn details of the reasons why she gave me up first.

The SW thinks that Joshua and Shelby share the same father but Bradley does not.  She found my birth mother, whose name I still do not know, with the same last name that Bradley uses.  These details are interesting.  I am not judging choices.  I am filling in holes.  There.  You know about as much as I do.
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Update, October 26th

Still waiting to hear from my birth sister.  I mailed my letter, five weeks ago.  The SW says I am anxious, with good reason.  This biological family, has only me but, I have the siblings, their children, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. out there.  I don't expect to feel a sense of easy knowing when I finally meet them but I hope for it too.  Many a culture has put a high value on blood ties.  Maybe when I meet my siblings, it will, in the words of Tom Hanks from "Sleepless in Seattle"  "feel like coming home, only to a home I have never been to"  Anticipating, anticipating, waiting, writing, laundry, dishes, handwriting lessons, a good book, knitting, nursing, waiting.  The SW is going to call me when she speaks to Shelby.  She says she is going to "give her permission" to not answer all of my questions.  I like it.  We have to file these three letter exchanges.  We need the slow exchanges for emotions and processing but I feel kind of up to speed now.  We need to have a chat over coffee, face to face.  Any ideas for where we should meet the first time, my half sister and I?  A quiet neutral place.  The agency is an option but that sounds so, clinical?

I am an adoptee

I was not going to write about this on my blog but, I must write.  I hope I will be forgiven as I need this therapy.  Stop here and read this article which gives weight and validity to so many feelings I have had over the years and continue to have today about being adopted.   If you want to support me in this, please read it.  It all does not apply to me particularly but much of it does...much of the thoughts of the adopted one, speaks to me.  I truly do not want to overdramatize, however,  I appreciate how the author compares the trauma associated with adoption to the effect of the Vietnam war on each individual war vet you may meet...some are affected and act out more than others.  It is, in fact, a trauma on a subconscious level.  Hummmm, interesting.  Today was the first time ever, I took time to search the web for other adult adoptees.  I did not know that there was so much out there about being an adult adoptee and had surpressed any searching before today.  Welcome to 2012, post feminism, all touch feely like.  Back to the blog...I have always told myself that this blog thing I write is my scrapbook, journal and, photo album of these fast days that seem to bleed, one into the next as I raise a small family with my husband.  The blog gives me a sense of "I was here, I made a mark and what we did is important, kinda organized and deliberate".  It's a memory, the whole thing for when my memory fades.  I already can look back at things I first blogged in the fall of 2009 and think "I wrote that?"  I love it.  I do not know how I can leave out this story, a basis for my whole life and beginnings, the beginnings of me, Traci.  I wear many hats and this is another one... I am what is called, an adoptee.  This is my first post ever about it.

First of all, I will say, I am interested in telling the truth but also not interested in being hurtful to my adoptive parents or sister who read this blog.  I am interested in going through this and putting it to rest once and for all.  I am not comfortable with every detail and sharing it all, all the time.  I will share what I can and feel the need to share.  I will hold tight what I cannot tell.  There is pain, there is joy, there are layers of things to assimilate.  I have called on the phone a handful of trusted friends who I wanted to share this journey with me and now, I share it here publically and will continue sharing here.  Maybe it will help someone else?  Maybe it will help another adoptive parent understand the viewpoint of one adoptee?  Maybe it will help me digest it all.  Maybe my children will read it one day and know me better.  Or maybe my husband, know me better?  It has taken me to today to digest what I can and relate it to you.  Here it goes.  This is a life changer for me and my family.

My wee one.

What is an adoptee?  It is one who has been adopted by one who is not the biological parent/guardian and raised legally as their own.  This is what I know and have known for years.  It was a private adoption and I was three days old when it took place in 1971.  I love my adoptive parents and sister.  It has always been out in the open that I was adopted at birth.  I have had a comfortable and stable childhood with my sister who was born to my parents after I was adopted.  Its all been very good and I know I am blessed.  I was not wheeled into an orphanage to wait and hope for parents.  I know that happens.  I know that most parents want a baby.  A clean slate, a new baby not a grown child with baggage.  I wonder, maybe one day, if my husband and I will adopt an older child.  I wonder if maybe, by this experience, we will be a better parent for a child in need of parents.  Sometimes we feel called to do this and it rests on the horizon out there for "one day".  We shall see.  For now, let me get you up to speed with recent events.  Brew a cup of coffee and have a seat.  Its kinda wordy.

The princess.

Last year, after a long time of not being on the same page, my parents put full support behind me to begin a search for my birth parents.   I have always wanted their support in doing a search.  Uncoerced in any way was how it had to be.  This has been a dream come true in itself.  To be justified that it is important to me and that they understand that it is important to me, has been a humongous, mind blowing, relief and comfort.  We decided that we would begin the search as soon as possible.  I believe they would support me in whatever in life, even if they are not totally comfortable.  They are my parents afterall!  With the birth of Donovan and parenting/homeschooling, it got shuffled aside for some time, until recently. 

One day, about two months ago now, a letter arrived in the mail.  It was hand addressed to me.  Someone has my married name and current address.  It was postmarked from Florida.  It was a letter written by a woman from an organization who was doing geneological research for a woman and it named my exact birth date and location.  She asked me to followup with her email address or a 1-800 phone number and a reference number.  I was stunned.  I had to reread it I don't know how many times, maybe ten, just to comprehend it.  My mind was overcome with questions and the main thing I remember thinking, "was this a scam? a cruel moneymaker?"  After much talk with my husband, I waited over the weekend, not sleeping too well, with a plan to call the private adoption agency that arranged my adoption, on Monday.  You see, I had called them several times over the years, maybe three times, with intentions to begin a birthmother/father search or, to see if one of them inquired about me so I knew they "knew" me.  My yearning to know more always moved up the priority list when I have been pregnant.  I knew that the agency had been bought by a larger company and wondered if my information had been sold.  When I talked to the receptionist, she promised me that it was in fact, illegal to do so and then wheeled me to the social workers voicemail as she was out of the office.  When the social worker called me back, a week or so later, and I shared a phone picture of the letter and its general contents, she said she thought it was legitimate and that she would follow up with her supervisor and get back to me.  Whoa, really?  Someone wants to know me?  Yes, someone wants to know me, someone biologically related.  Wow...speechless, stunned, scared and happy was I, to put it mildly.  Meanwhile, she began the search with eight different addresses and wrote letters to my birthmother.  She also said she had my birthfather's first and last name but, for now, we begin with her by my choice.  It is considered a whole different search when launched, for my birthfather and there are fewer details which will make that search more difficult.

The ham.

Another week passes, another phone call, a contact was made.  The social worker had tried to return a call to a young woman who had left a voicemail and when she did, there was an automatic message that the connection could not be made.  She said it seemed like it was a rural area or something but she felt that this young woman would call back.  She just had a feeling and she judged that based on the tone of her voice in the voicemail.  The SW (social worker) also wanted to get a release to protect the agency in following my request to followup the letter for me..to be a go between.  Sure enough, a young woman did call back the following week and she said that the letter was addressed to her mother.  A half sister?  The SW, in the ensuing chat, later told me that the young woman was leery, hesitant but wanted to talk with her.  She could verify some specifics when asked for information...she knew my birth mother's full and unusual name, including her maiden name, her mother's or the young woman's grandmother's name including her maiden name, my birth mother's birthdate (this is a closed adoption, I still don't know any of this information)...it all seems to be pointing to the fact that this is indeed my sister.  Who else would know these things?  I am not a celebrity with scads of money and wealth to be gotten.  ha, snort! There is no motivation to know these things to get to me other than to just know biological family and history.  This sounds reasonable and good. The SW also had some good news and some bad news.  The good is that there are three siblings!  The sister and two brothers!  One is deployed in the Navy currently.  The bad news is that my birth mother died in 2008.  The irony is that this was the same year that my husband suffered cancer and treatment.  I could write a long post on this news alone.  There is much to be mourned.  I have and am mourning over a woman I have never met and I will never know my biological mother first hand.  I knew her intimately as I was in her womb for 40 weeks yet I don't know her, I don't remember.  I know you may say..well, duh?....I will never know any details of my birth if she would have ever told me.  I don't know if my new siblings will know or tell me of it.  I will never talk with her.  I was comforted by my children that day when I first got the news.  Even my oldest son, not a demonstrative type, wrapped his arm around me and made me a card.  It said "Death is part of life, don't you miss grandma?"  "We love you mom, even when you are mad ~Gunnar, Winston, Tessa and Donovan"   ....sweet, perfect.

As of today and my last phone conversation with the SW, the sister and two brothers are in fact, biological half siblings.  What do you think of that??  I am thrilled!  I am in awe.  I am blessed to have a connection to my past in some way.  I anticipate great things and our first letters.  We begin with letters that are non-identifying.  Only first names.  No addresses, phone numbers, facebook, email, etc.  I can include photos.  The SW told me that my sister (still seems strange to say but true it seems!) plans to include photos with her first letter of my birthmother.  The SW told me, she told her, I would like that very much.  Oh yes, very much, to say the least.  The SW also said that she was excited to have a sister and told her that I had said that having grown up with two brothers, I thought that she might like having a sister.  Sounds better and better.

Today I talked to my adoptive sister, my only sister I have ever known, the only one you may know, I talked to her about my feelings on all of this.  She understands in a way that not everyone does.  I am again, so blessed.  She, and my husband, are crucial support in this journey along with that handful of girlfriends I mentioned (you know who you are and you too are critical to my moving through this and doing it well).  This is not an easy time for my adoptive parents.  This is a most exciting and scary time but mostly exciting.  I am so blessed.  I get my letter and photo in the mail later this week I think.

The engineer.