Archive for the ‘Adoptee’ Category

It’s kind of funny, but there are things I remember with perfect clarity from my first phone call with Leah and there are things I feel like I didn’t hold on to tightly enough. I remember listening carefully to the way she talked, intrigued by her accent and overwhelmed by emotion. This was my Birthmother, after years of wondering – here she was. There were a few thoughtful (I will not say awkward) pauses and clearly we were kind of feeling each other out. The end result was that Leah and her husband decided to rearrange their travel plans to come and visit me in Pensacola! I called my Mom and talked to her and she made arrangements for Leah and her husband to use her sister’s condo on the beach.

It’s hard for me to not feel like everything was meant to be, because everything just seemed to fall into place, and literally a week after our first phone call I was standing in the airport waiting for Leah to arrive. My Mom was with me and two of her best friends, my two aunts Ruth (who was there when my son was born) and Carol. These are the women who had been there for every major event of my life so it seemed fitting for them to be there today. We shuffled about and waited…and waited…and waited. On a funny note from the moment that we knew the flight landed the waiting seemed longer, rather than shorter.

However, coming down the gateway, there she was and all I could think is “oh my god, that’s my Mother.”

There was a very brief pause and then our group dissolved into hugs and tears. My Mom hugged my Mother and I would later hear that she told Leah, “Joy has two mothers now.” Aunt Ruth was, of course, taking pictures. Mom and I drove Leah and her husband out to the condo so they could get settled and then we went back to town so I could get some car stuff settled. (I had added a degree of difficulty to the equation by buying a new car in the middle of all this – I had been driving a company pick up truck.)

At the condo we took a few more pictures, of course. Later I would look at the pictures and laugh when I realized that Leah and I both do the same head tilt in pictures. I also got the picture that I have always wanted, even though I didn’t know it – a picture of me and my Mom and my Mother.

Over the course of Leah’s visit, we did some of the tourist things – like going to the Naval Aviation Museum and we did some of the non-tourist things, like I took them to where I work and where I live to meet Ben. We had a family dinner at my Mom and Dad’s house and Mom pulled out all sorts of old family pictures.

I don’t think what we did was as important as the connection that we made during that visit. All awkwardness was put aside and our family circle expanded to include Leah and her husband.

What’s funny is that it’s almost hard for me to remember my life before Leah was an active participant in it. We don’t talk as much as we would like (especially since I am a reluctant Skyper) but we email often. I don’t know exactly what the future holds but I know without a doubt that she’ll be there.

When I look in the mirror, at the woman that I’ve become I see the two women who have shaped me. Leah who through the courage of her conviction gave me life, gave me her genes. She gave me a love of words, a fascination with art and photography (though I think she’s a better creator of artistic endeavors than I am), and so many other gifts, some I am still uncovering. My Mom who taught me how to make life a celebration, the importance of girlfriends, and so many other things. I don’t have enough words or time to express my love and gratitude for them but suffice to say – I love them both dearly, and I am lucky to share my life and my heart with both of them.

It’s really kind of funny that I aggressively jumped into the search for my birthmother, armed with a few names and a the place where I was born. My desire drove me fearlessly forward and as I mentioned before it wasn’t until I actually got David and then Nancy on the phone that anything other than the need to find my birthmother drove me on. When I actually got David on the phone I realized I hadn’t thought my plan out very well, and later I was fortunate that Aunt Nancy and I seemed to share an instant connection that put any awkwardness aside.

Timing is everything and I was very lucky that I reconnected with my Aunt Nancy a few weeks before my Birthmother was scheduled to the visit the States for the first time in several years. Corresponding with Nancy made the time pass quickly and life certainly had it’s own hustle and bustle to keep me busy, but before long the part of Leah’s visit that would take her to visit Nancy was here and there was nothing for me to do, but wait.

I knew when Leah and her husband were arriving at Nancy’s house, but what I didn’t know was when Nancy would tell her, so I had nothing to do but wait…and worry…

In retrospect it’s really kind of funny, but growing up everything I watched on television had indicated that most birthmothers don’t want to be found, but I hadn’t really considered that my birthmother would be one of those birthmothers until I was so close to being reconnected with her that it seemed inevitable. In the few short days from when Leah arrived at Nancy’s to when I would hear from her – I played every scenario possible through my mind. (I try to expect the best but prepare for the worst.) The absolute worst I could imagine is that after Leah’s visit, I would get a phone call from Nancy telling me that Leah didn’t want to be in touch with me and had indicated that she would rather not know anything about me at all. I wondered if Nancy and I would stay in touch if Leah didn’t want to get to know me.

It was Wednesday when the call came, and I will never forget it…

I taught the high school boy’s class at my church, and with the Bible in one hand and my hand on the doorknob I was getting ready to walk out the door for Wednesday night supper and class afterwards – the phone rang. I paused for just a minute to see who was calling and from the back of the house I heard a voice, it was a gentle voice, with a touch of a British accent. It was Leah.

Everything was forgotten then, as I turned my back on the door and went to answer the phone and talk to my Birthmother (who I prefer to just call my Mother) Leah.

Later that evening, after I had changed the message on my answering machine, Nancy called back. I explained to her, as I had explained to David, that I had reason to believe that Leah was my birthmother. However, awkward the experience with David had been it was completely undone by my conversation with Nancy.

She confirmed that Leah was my birthmother and that she was now married to an Englishman and living in England. (Confirming the suspicions that I had developed the minute that I heard that one of David’s sisters lived in England. She admitted that from time to time she had wondered how I was and if I would ever pop back up. However, once we had resolved that I was in fact, Leah’s daughter all formality and awkwardness seemed to slide away.

Nancy and I talked on the phone for quite a while. She told me about her life – she was married with a beautiful daughter who is just a little younger than I am. We talked about interests that we shared – we both loved to read and to cook. In no time at all, Nancy had completely accepted me as her niece. To this day, her complete acceptance of me and the unconditional love she extended to me is still one of the great miracles of my life – she is my Aunt Nancy.

Though we talked for quite a while, it wasn’t until the conversation started to wind down that we started to talk about Leah. Nancy said that she didn’t want to tell her via letter, email, etc. and as luck would have it, Leah and her husband were coming to the States for the first time in several years. Nancy would tell her about me then and let Leah decide what she wanted to do. In the meantime we exchanged email and snail mail addresses.

Just like that, I had an Aunt Nancy!

If I’d had any doubt about the very real connection that Aunt Nancy and I had made, it was only solidified over the next several weeks. We emailed frequently, chatty emails about the goings on in our lives, and I even got a package in the mail from her! It was full of little things that showed me that she was taking all of my likes and dislikes to heart and she was thinking of me. I cried as I went through the contents and found a newspaper clipping about Brett Favre in the box, someone we shared an interest in (don’t judge me! LOL!).

I had an Aunt Nancy and now there was nothing to do but wait until Leah got here to see if I would have a Birthmother too.

If I had to guess, I would say that it took almost a month of calling David, of trying to walk that fine line between being insistent (and letting him know that I wasn’t going to stop calling) and yet not being scary or stalkerish. It was really frustrating because the stubborn insistent child in me wanted to call, daily, over and over again until I got David on the phone, but I didn’t. I called…left a polite, albeit vague message…waited for a return call for a few days…called again. After a while I suppose that David finally realized, I wasn’t going to stop calling, and he was left with no choice but to talk to me.

I didn’t expect him to answer the phone when I called and frankly I was caught unprepared. I was listening to the phone ring, standing in kitchen (I think I was dancing along with the radio) when he answered the phone.

“This is David,” a rather curt voice said on the other end of the line.

I was so shocked that I almost dropped the phone, I scrambled to get to the radio and turn it down.

“Hey, this is Joy,” I said.

“Yes, you’ve called several times.” he interrupted.

“I have, I’m trying to get in touch with your sister, Leah, I was hoping maybe I could get some information from you.”

“Why?” he asked.

I was stymied. It was extremely naive on my part to not be prepared to answer this question but on some levels this felt like very personal information that I should not share with “just anyone” and then on the other hand this was my birthmother’s brother, surely he had to know that she had been pregnant. The wheels were flying in my mind as I tried to decide, how to best handle this situation. I realized that anything less than the truth was probably not going to help my cause.

“I have reason to believe that she might be my birth mother.”

This statement was met with a long pause, and by long pause I mean that I started to wonder if he was still on the phone or not. It seemed to stretch on for an eternity.

“I’m going to have to call one of my sisters, someone will get back in touch with you, you don’t need to call me again.” he said, and then he hung up the phone.

“Right-o, no need to put Uncle David on the old Christmas card list,” I thought, as I put the phone back on the cradle.

A week went by, and I was a little despondent. I thought I had been given the big brush off and I was on an emotional roller coaster. Maybe he had called my Birthmother and she wasn’t calling because she didn’t want to have anything to do with me? Or maybe he hadn’t even bothered to pass my message along, since he had clearly told me not to call him anymore. Was I ever going to find my birthmother?

Before I tell you this next snippet, I should probably confess that I have an odd sense of humor and I have always loved “unconventional” answering machine messages. The message on my answering machine at the time was something like -”Hey this is Joy, I’m probably here but avoiding someone so leave a message and if I don’t call back – it’s you.” Terribly witty, I know.

I came home at least a week after talking to David, to a message on my answering machine. The message started with a long and pregnant pause.

“Yes, hello, this is Nancy, you were looking for my sister, and *pause* I’ll call back later.”

I cannot express my embarrassment and chagrin, so far my interaction with my biological family were that I had “stalked” my “Uncle” until he broke down and talked to me. (Probably, mostly to get me to stop calling.) Now my Aunt, who probably thought I was utterly rude and possibly a lunatic based on my goofy answering machine message.

Yes, we were off to a GREAT start.

Before I tell you how I found my birthmother, I should probably tell you that my adoption wasn’t what I now consider to be a conventional one. By “unconventional” I mean that my adopted parents got a phone call from the doctor that I believe delivered me. (Actually as I just realized that my birthmother and I have never really talked about that – I may find out he was merely the family doctor.) My adopted Uncle knew that my parents weren’t able to have children and he called them up and said “hey, I have a little girl here who is going to be placed for adoption, are you interested?” They were, the rest is my history and written up somewhere on this blog.

My Uncle had a relationship with my biological family, he was a Family Medicine doctor in a small town in Texas where my biological family lived and because of that relationship I had a little bit of insight into my biological family that most people probably don’t have. I don’t mean that my Uncle came running to tell me anytime anything happened in my biological family, but I do mean that when I found a lump in my breast at the age of 20 he told me that he didn’t believe that I had a family history riddled with cancer so I didn’t need to be too worked up about it. (Yes, the laws in place now would keep him from telling me even that much I think.) I always knew that I had that link there, it was kind of a security blanket.

After getting my first update, my Mom called my Uncle and a few weeks later she gave me all the pieces that she had and what she gathered from my Uncle. I learned that my biological father was, for lack of a better term, kind of a jerk – he completely bailed on my birthmom when he found out she was pregnant. (My Mom also told me that he denied being my birthfather and yet signed his rights away, but I believe I would later find out that wasn’t quite true.) My Mom told me how many siblings my birthmother had and gave me her full name at the time I was born, and being a good computer geek – I rolled up my sleeves and went to work.

With the help of some genealogy sites and a little bit of luck, I was able to locate my biological uncle, David, who was still living in Texas, not too far from where I was born. (The only information I had been able to gather about my Birthmother was her date of birth.) My plan was simple, and not very well thought out, to get in touch with David and ask him for my Birthmother’s contact information.

David did not cooperate with my plan.

I left a few messages (and by a few I mean more than one and less than five) on his answering machine over the next couple of weeks, and got no answer, and no call back. I got frustrated.

While venting to my Mom, she told me that David used to work for a newspaper and so I called the newspaper and while I didn’t get David, I did get some news. I called the newspaper office while I was at work, with a friend sitting close by for moral support. I didn’t get David but I got a very helpful secretary that had apparently known David and his family for most of their lives. I explained to her that I wasn’t really looking for David, but for one of his sisters. (I was very vague about which sister and exactly why I was looking for her – something that astounds me when I look back considering the information she readily gave me over the phone.)

The helpful woman at the newspaper office told me that David usually worked in the evenings, which is probably why I never had any luck calling him when I got off work. However through the course of the conversation she also told me that both of David’s sisters were married and one lived out of state and the other lived in England!

I grimaced as I hung up the phone, and looked at my friend, “my Birthmother lives in England.” I said, because I just knew in my heart that it was true.