March 2005. Time for the face to face. My MIL is wanting to have a huge welcoming party at the airport. The pressure from her is hard and comes through in my email. Bdad decides the first couple days should be at a hotel. We arrange to meet at a restaurant near his hotel. I am so flustered, I get lost. I finally get there and we meet. Its so weird looking at someone who looks like me. After a bit, we decide to head to the beach house where the kids and inlaws are waiting. When we get there, my middle dd age 9 just stares. We head up to the house and talk some more and head out to dinner. We have a great time. He tells me more about his not so perfect past and that he is out of remission for prostate cancer. I get introduced as his daughter to people for the first time.
Time goes by. Less calls from bmom, regular contact with bdad and aunt L.
Plans are made to visit him in CO. I cant afford airfare for everyone, so my youngest (almost 4) and I fly standby to CO.
What a great time! I meet M, bdad's wife (a wonderful woman). My half brother and his wife and new baby. Its just a wonderful time. No weirdness. M and I head to the library. We find HS pics of bmom and all but one of her siblings. Finally I see what she looks like!
Time has gone on... bdad is hoping to come out this winter. He has had more health woes and business has been hard.
Would I search again? YES. Was it a perfect experience? NO. There were and are very painful times. Do I think adoption is great? NO. The adoption industry needs to be reformed.
Intro over.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Introduction, Part 3
The Letter is mailed. I am sending it certified mail also. It is scheduled to arrive on Friday. I am still very upset by my bmom's change of heart. I continue to obsess about genealogy. I chat for hours a day. I read about bmoms.
Saturday 6am, I check my email hoping to hear from bmom. Not expecting THIS. An email from him "Glad to hear from you". Everyone else is sleeping. I am almost jumping up and down. I read the email (a few times). Print it and forward a copy to my FIL. He has included his phone # saying I can call anytime (I hadnt included mine). He, like bmom, is brutally honest about his past and troubles. I am so flustered when I email back. He replies that he doesnt understand why I couldnt open the pictures he had attached. DUH! I was so stunned I didnt realize that he had sent pics too. I open the pics and WOW, I look just like him. He has included a pic of him with his brother and one with him and his son.
Bmom still hasnt sent pictures at this point so this is super exciting. I forward pics to asis and FIL. I also email bmom that he has responded in a positive way.
Monday..... Bmom calls mainly to hear about bdad's response (I kept the email brief, yes I was trying to lure her into calling).
I email bdad a lot... He emails to assure me he isnt going anywhere. I guess my insecurity came through. After two weeks of email I decided to call. The call goes well (a couple hours) so we schedule a time to call the next day (there is a four hour time difference). Its another long call. Time progresses. Bmom doesnt email or call. I email her weekly with genealogy updates etc. She finally calls and asks that I forward her email to bdad. ACK. He emails her (I didnt see it) an email apologizing for the past. She CALLS HIM. For the first time in 38 years they talk. It goes well. She calls right after talking to him. She is almost giddy.
Bdad tells his only living (known) relative from his mother's side (her sister) about me finding him (via email). L emails me shortly after and tells me that she had tried to find me in the early 1970s but didnt know how. Her daughter is also a bmom in a semi-open adoption. She is very kind and tells me what she knows about the family. She sends short emails with a bio of a family member. Bdad had also told me in the first email he was adopted by his stepfather and he had adopted his own stepdaughter. Bdad is the triad.
I go into full genealogy obsession mode. Bmom's calls are less and less frequent. My bday passes (six months to the day of finding her) with no call. Emails arent answered. I cling to the positive of my reunion with bdad. Bdad makes plans to come in March (nine months after first contact, ironic).
Saturday 6am, I check my email hoping to hear from bmom. Not expecting THIS. An email from him "Glad to hear from you". Everyone else is sleeping. I am almost jumping up and down. I read the email (a few times). Print it and forward a copy to my FIL. He has included his phone # saying I can call anytime (I hadnt included mine). He, like bmom, is brutally honest about his past and troubles. I am so flustered when I email back. He replies that he doesnt understand why I couldnt open the pictures he had attached. DUH! I was so stunned I didnt realize that he had sent pics too. I open the pics and WOW, I look just like him. He has included a pic of him with his brother and one with him and his son.
Bmom still hasnt sent pictures at this point so this is super exciting. I forward pics to asis and FIL. I also email bmom that he has responded in a positive way.
Monday..... Bmom calls mainly to hear about bdad's response (I kept the email brief, yes I was trying to lure her into calling).
I email bdad a lot... He emails to assure me he isnt going anywhere. I guess my insecurity came through. After two weeks of email I decided to call. The call goes well (a couple hours) so we schedule a time to call the next day (there is a four hour time difference). Its another long call. Time progresses. Bmom doesnt email or call. I email her weekly with genealogy updates etc. She finally calls and asks that I forward her email to bdad. ACK. He emails her (I didnt see it) an email apologizing for the past. She CALLS HIM. For the first time in 38 years they talk. It goes well. She calls right after talking to him. She is almost giddy.
Bdad tells his only living (known) relative from his mother's side (her sister) about me finding him (via email). L emails me shortly after and tells me that she had tried to find me in the early 1970s but didnt know how. Her daughter is also a bmom in a semi-open adoption. She is very kind and tells me what she knows about the family. She sends short emails with a bio of a family member. Bdad had also told me in the first email he was adopted by his stepfather and he had adopted his own stepdaughter. Bdad is the triad.
I go into full genealogy obsession mode. Bmom's calls are less and less frequent. My bday passes (six months to the day of finding her) with no call. Emails arent answered. I cling to the positive of my reunion with bdad. Bdad makes plans to come in March (nine months after first contact, ironic).
Introduction, Part 2
The next day was a Sunday. The kids were at a rodeo and we were going to pick them up. I was walking around the grounds and several people were congratulating me. I was confused. Finally someone said "didnt you find your real family?" My MIL as soon as she heard the knews had pretty much announced the news to the whole rodeo crowd. When we got home, I started gathering pictures to send to bmom. I emailed her a note about how happy I was to find her and that I was getting a photo album made for her. During the week I checked my email constantly, and my phone was with me at all times. Silence. My inlaws would call and see if I had heard from her. I emailed her again to let her know I had sent the pics.
Friday... She finally calls. The picture album has arrived. She sounds irritated that I had sent it to her house, like where else I could send it? She has decided not to tell anyone about me. She doesnt want to "rock the boat". I am stunned and devastated. She has completely turned around about things. She continues with more comments "I can never give you a mother's love, it died a long time ago". As she tells me this I cry (silently) while my daughter naps. She looks at the pictures while we talk. She tells me that I look "big boned" and that my children look "healthy". She talks about her therapist and how she was told to set "boundaries" with me. I am really upset by the time we get off the phone. I go online when I get home with my chat group. Of course they all tell me to think of HER and how hard this is for HER. Nothing about how hard this must be for me.
I decide FINE. I will search for my bdad. I had done some looking and he wasnt hard to find. I continue to look for information/genealogy on my bmom's side, MY family. I find a picture of my gr gr grandmother online. She looks just like me! The picture creeps out my hubby and kids though.
I find info on my bdad and decide to compose THE LETTER. His bday is coming up so I want the letter to arrive on his bday. That way if he isnt happy about it, he wont forget, and if he is happy about it, well its his bday!
Friday... She finally calls. The picture album has arrived. She sounds irritated that I had sent it to her house, like where else I could send it? She has decided not to tell anyone about me. She doesnt want to "rock the boat". I am stunned and devastated. She has completely turned around about things. She continues with more comments "I can never give you a mother's love, it died a long time ago". As she tells me this I cry (silently) while my daughter naps. She looks at the pictures while we talk. She tells me that I look "big boned" and that my children look "healthy". She talks about her therapist and how she was told to set "boundaries" with me. I am really upset by the time we get off the phone. I go online when I get home with my chat group. Of course they all tell me to think of HER and how hard this is for HER. Nothing about how hard this must be for me.
I decide FINE. I will search for my bdad. I had done some looking and he wasnt hard to find. I continue to look for information/genealogy on my bmom's side, MY family. I find a picture of my gr gr grandmother online. She looks just like me! The picture creeps out my hubby and kids though.
I find info on my bdad and decide to compose THE LETTER. His bday is coming up so I want the letter to arrive on his bday. That way if he isnt happy about it, he wont forget, and if he is happy about it, well its his bday!
Introduction Part 1
I have been reading blogs for awhile, mostly those by fellow adoptees. I am amazed at how articulate they are and will attempt a blog for me. I do have a blog, but its my "happy" family blog and not adoption related. I used the term b here meaning bio (not in a bad way) not birth. Its what I am comfortable with.
I was born Infant Atwell. The state of Texas, to make things harder, generally puts Infant instead of Baby Boy or Baby Girl. If there is more than one adoptee born on that day in a county it makes the search more difficult. I knew my birthname from about the age of 8 when I demanded that my aparents show me what info they had. There was only an adoption decree. Unlike my two asibs from Germany, they had it ALL. OBC, etc. During the years of pestering my amother, she told my my bmom's name S. I finally had a name.
I joined ALMA at 18 and started actively searching. I found an S Atwell who had married in TX. I wrote to the woman of the same name and sadly she wasnt my bmom. She was very kind and I still have her letter. I spent years chasing an Atwell family that had lived in El Paso (where I was born). After off and on searching I finally got reconnected to the internet in April 2004. I set a goal of July 1 2004, if I didnt find her by then I would hire someone. I also found on the birthbooks S's middle initial E. That allowed me to narrown down my search. I had a list of seven possible matches. Two were very similar (same siblings names etc, freaky). I called one in MO's brother who said he would pass my message along. I called another's bro in AZ who told me his sister's married name (I told him I was following up on genealogy postings) and where she lived. I called this one right away and got a recording. Just hearing the voice, I knew it was HER. I called back a few hours later (ready to barf) and she answered. I said my name and that I was born in El Paso and when. I said my information made me believe she was my birthmother and asked if she was. She said yes and asked for my number to call back. That was the longest five minutes. She had changed to her cell phone and gone into another room.
Her story came tumbling out. She said "I was going to keep you. I moved to El Paso to get away from my family. I went into the hospital to have you and when I woke up, the doctor said I had a baby boy who died". WHOA. She went on about Dr Joe, her care and how she tried to see "the body". She then asked me if I wanted to know "who your daddy is". I didnt expect this in the first conversation. She told me his name, where he had graduated school. She said she had wanted to marry him. When she went to his house after telling him she was pregnant, his mother said he had left town. She told me about her terrible childhood, about her two children (all this while careful not to name names) and that she had planned to name me Mary Estelle (I am named Mary Beth). The conversation lasted about an hour and I tried to take notes. I was totally blown away. Twenty years of searching (if you count from when I was 18) over. My husband who was mowing the lawn kept creeping over to make sure I was okay. I was stunned and on that "high". First person I called was my asis, then my fatherinlaw. That was 12 June 2004. Noon.
I was born Infant Atwell. The state of Texas, to make things harder, generally puts Infant instead of Baby Boy or Baby Girl. If there is more than one adoptee born on that day in a county it makes the search more difficult. I knew my birthname from about the age of 8 when I demanded that my aparents show me what info they had. There was only an adoption decree. Unlike my two asibs from Germany, they had it ALL. OBC, etc. During the years of pestering my amother, she told my my bmom's name S. I finally had a name.
I joined ALMA at 18 and started actively searching. I found an S Atwell who had married in TX. I wrote to the woman of the same name and sadly she wasnt my bmom. She was very kind and I still have her letter. I spent years chasing an Atwell family that had lived in El Paso (where I was born). After off and on searching I finally got reconnected to the internet in April 2004. I set a goal of July 1 2004, if I didnt find her by then I would hire someone. I also found on the birthbooks S's middle initial E. That allowed me to narrown down my search. I had a list of seven possible matches. Two were very similar (same siblings names etc, freaky). I called one in MO's brother who said he would pass my message along. I called another's bro in AZ who told me his sister's married name (I told him I was following up on genealogy postings) and where she lived. I called this one right away and got a recording. Just hearing the voice, I knew it was HER. I called back a few hours later (ready to barf) and she answered. I said my name and that I was born in El Paso and when. I said my information made me believe she was my birthmother and asked if she was. She said yes and asked for my number to call back. That was the longest five minutes. She had changed to her cell phone and gone into another room.
Her story came tumbling out. She said "I was going to keep you. I moved to El Paso to get away from my family. I went into the hospital to have you and when I woke up, the doctor said I had a baby boy who died". WHOA. She went on about Dr Joe, her care and how she tried to see "the body". She then asked me if I wanted to know "who your daddy is". I didnt expect this in the first conversation. She told me his name, where he had graduated school. She said she had wanted to marry him. When she went to his house after telling him she was pregnant, his mother said he had left town. She told me about her terrible childhood, about her two children (all this while careful not to name names) and that she had planned to name me Mary Estelle (I am named Mary Beth). The conversation lasted about an hour and I tried to take notes. I was totally blown away. Twenty years of searching (if you count from when I was 18) over. My husband who was mowing the lawn kept creeping over to make sure I was okay. I was stunned and on that "high". First person I called was my asis, then my fatherinlaw. That was 12 June 2004. Noon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)