The Story of My Life: ....And the Door Closes

In mid August of 2014, about three weeks after I had found my half siblings and birth mother, I had the chance to travel to Florida to meet my siblings for the first time. It was a wonderful weekend where I had the chance to be face to face with people I shared DNA with for the first time (other than my own children).  You can read all about that experience here.

We returned home from Florida, and following the advice of my counselor, I had not been communicating with Carol unless she contacted me first.  We didn't really text much and I only remember talking with her on the phone a couple of times.  Those times that we did talk were not necessarily pleasant memories for me.


One of the times she called, we talked for a bit. It was a nice conversation. We chatted for a few minutes and just as I told her how much I had enjoyed talking with her, she started in with "Jessie and Brad just need to....."  This time I couldn't take it, so I yelled back at her.  I said, "You really just need to stop blaming everybody else for your problems!!" Then I hung up the phone.  She ended up calling me back about 45 minutes later. I could tell she had been crying. I apologized for hanging up on her but also told her that I wasn't going to let her talk bad about the siblings to me any more.  We continued our conversation for another half an hour or so.  Later on that evening she texted and said, "Thanks for listening and talking with me today. I really appreciate it."

The other phone conversation took place not long after the first one, although I don't remember the exact date. The phone call started off well.  I don't remember all of what we talked about.  I just remember asking Carol at some point in that conversation if she ever thought about me after she gave me up for adoption.  Her answer to me was, "I was done with you when I gave you up for adoption and never thought about you again."    I sat there on the bed, stunned. It felt at that moment like a knife had just pierced my heart. Surely she had not just said what I thought I had heard.  If she had, I felt like that was the cruelest thing anyone could ever say to me, especially coming from someone who had been adopted herself.  So I told her I didn't believe her.  I said that I had miscarried two babies of my own, and even though I don't think about them every day, there are times I sit and think about how old they would be, whether they were boys or girls, and what they could have possibly grown up to be. To think that someone had carried me for nine months months and gave birth to me, and yet never thought of me again, seemed beyond belief.  But she said it again. And then added, "I wasn't supposed to know anything about you and you weren't supposed to know anything about me."  So I told her that it was up to her to decide whether or not she wanted a relationship with me. I wasn't going to force myself upon her if she didn't want me.  She thought about it for a second and then responded, "I guess I don't." I told her that was fine, but also that I was not going to give up trying to find answers about who my birth father was. I told her that I was going to ask questions of everybody I could until I figured it out.  She told me to ask away and she she didn't care who I talked to.

I hung up the phone in disbelief. I was hurt, angry, sad, confused, and most of all rejected.  But the rejection that I felt was not the rejection of just this phone conversation, but a two-fold rejection.  I had never felt at any time during my growing up years that by being given up for adoption, I had been rejected. I had always held her in such high regard and assumed that she had given me up out of love.  I had always assumed that she cared about me, but in this moment, I didn't feel like she did, then or now.  And I felt it.

I only ever remember talking to her once after that.  She called upset because I had been talking with my brother Brad about people in his past who might possibly be able to help me with my questions.  He had asked his mom something, and she realized that he had been talking with me.  She called.  "Have you been talking with Brad today?" she asked.  When I told her I had, she said she didn't know why.  She said she thought she had answered all of my questions about my birth father. I assured her that she had not.  That "I don't know" and "I don't remember" are not answers, at least not ones that meant I didn't have questions anymore.  She was angry with me and I was angry with her. I was not about to put up with her lies or excuses any more.  She had told me she wanted nothing to do with me, and at that point as far as I was concerned, I didn't need to tiptoe around her any more.  I told her I did not believe her when she said she did not know who he was.  I told her that it did not make sense to me that the adoption agency would have a description of him specific enough to include the fact that he had "a growth removed from an armpit" and that his mother had "lumps removed from her breast" if it was someone that she did not know.  She finally told me that the reason that she did not know the identity of my biological father was because there were three different men around that time.  The first was the man in the drugging incident that she had told me about. The second was a man she was in a relationship with for a period of time. The third was someone she was involved with briefly.  She begged me not to tell the others this bit of information because of how it would make her look to them. I asked her just to give me a name.  I told her if she did that, I could use the results of my DNA test to confirm whether it was him or not.  Again, she just told me that she "didn't remember."


It wasn't long after that when she blocked me on Facebook, even though there had not been any contact between us. And that was the end of it all. I have not heard from her since.

I cannot lie. It has been a struggle for me at times. The hurt, pain, anger, sadness, rejection....it is all so very real and raw.  And my emotions can flip from feeling sorry for Carol one minute to being really angry with her the next.  But now that I am a couple of years out from the situation, there are a few things that I have come to realize and learn about my feelings regarding this situation and some about adoption reunions in general.

Let me share some of those things with you:

- Carol was not looking for me. She had told the others about me assuming that I would never be found. And I wouldn't have been, if the court had not made that mistake all those years ago. Not every adoptee or birth parent wishes for a reunion and not ever adoptee longs to be reconnected.  Some adoptees are very content in their situations (just as I had been for so many years) and have no desire to know more. To push them or encourage them towards searching or reunion when they are not ready or do not desire it would be a very damaging thing to do.  This process has not been an easy one emotionally and I cannot imagine what it would have been like to go through it if I had not been ready and wanting to do so.

-Carol has the right to refuse to have a relationship with me.  It is not how I would have done things if I were in her shoes, but I am not.  She is not wrong in her choice, just as I was not wrong in my desire to want to get to know her.  But the same goes in reverse. Just as she had the choice to continue the relationship or not, I also have the right to make that same choice.  Just because an adoptee searches and find a birth parent does not mean that they have to continue in a relationship with them forever. If they find that the birth parent is toxic or harmful to their well-being in some way (which they often are), they have the right to cut that birth parent off without having to feel guilty.

-The anger I feel towards Carol because of her lies to me is valid. I value honesty above all and she wasn't honest with me.  She could have outright said to me that she did not want to discuss certain things and I would have respected that.  To intentionally give me incorrect information or pretend she didn't know something was just wrong.  And when I later contacted the adoption agency again, they told me that Carol had written a letter to them when I was six months old inquiring as to how I was doing.  So I have solid proof that she was lying, and it is not just a guess.

-I assumed my whole life that my birth father knew of my existence and had to sign off on the adoption papers. I also learned when I contacted the adoption agency that he didn't have to sign. They  said in my file that it said Carol told him about her pregnancy and that he said it was "her problem."  For the first time ever, I began to wonder if maybe he did not know of my existence. I was also angry with him when I first heard that he had said that to her. But then I had to tell myself that she had lied so much to me, that I couldn't know for sure whether or not that was a lie.  Then I began to question whether or not the information she provided about him was truthful or not.  The adoption agency told me that they did not know of any reason why she would have provided inaccurate information at the time, but there really was no way to know.

-I am saddened at times when I think about the fact that I may never get to meet Carol.  The only time I may possibly see her is at her funeral.

- I realize now that the image I had built up of Carol in my mind was an image of what I imagined a good mother to be. I had placed on her the characteristics of my own mom, someone who was loving and kind.  Carol was not that person and never would have been.  God blessed me with a wonderful mom and I am so thankful for her and for God's protection of me when he placed me in their family.  This whole experience just confirmed to me that I grew up exactly in the home where I was supposed to be.

But don't go anywhere, the journey isn't over.....