The Story of My Life: The Reunion

That last post took place on August 5th, just one day shy of it being two weeks since I had found my half siblings and birth mom.  I called her that afternoon and we had a fairly nice conversation, but I still found that I was having a hard time communicating with her. Because of my frustrations, I had decided to focus my efforts on my half-siblings for the time being.  You can read all about that here. 

Let's fast forward just a little over a week to Thursday, August 14th. It was the day that we were leaving to head to Florida for me to meet my half-siblings the following night. The last few days leading up to our trip had been busy with packing and getting all the final details together. I had finally had my first counseling appointment on Wednesday, the 13th. I loved my counselor, Jane, and was so thankful for how she had already helped settle some of my emotions. I had not been in much contact with Carol over that last week. We had a brief conversation on the 6th when I asked her if she knew any information about her own birth mother. Carol said her name was Joyce but that she didn't know where she lived or anything else about her. "That was too long ago," she said. So that ended that conversation.  The next time she messaged was a week later and she wondered when we were all meeting in Florida.  I told her we were leaving the following day and would be meeting everyone on Friday night. She said that was all she needed to know, so I left it at that.  I was too excited about the upcoming weekend to let myself be drawn into a super emotional roller coaster ride of a conversation.

We headed out driving through South Carolina and into Georgia. There were stopped at The Smoking Pig and had an awesome BBQ lunch. We continued on and despite the pleas of my siblings to just keep driving and get to Cape Coral a day early, we stopped in Ocala, Florida where we had Mexican food for supper and spent the night at at hotel.  

Friday morning, we continued our journey to Cape Coral, the city where all three of my siblings reside.  We enjoyed reading everyone's guesses as to where we were headed on Facebook.  Most people thought Disney or a cruise.  Steve tried to convince them that we were driving to Cuba to strike up a deal with Fidel Castro. I don't think anyone believed him.

We arrived in the early afternoon. Steve had booked a hotel that overlooked the Gulf of Mexico.  We enjoyed the view and tried to catch a quick nap before getting ready for the reunion in the evening. When the time came to change my clothes and get ready, I felt the knot in my stomach get tighter and tighter. The thoughts were racing around in my head. What if they don't like me? What if I don't like them?  What if we don't get along?  I knew there was always the possibility this could end in a huge disappointment, but I was praying it wouldn't be so.

We had decided to meet in an upstairs lobby of the hotel.  It would give us a bit of privacy and the chance to talk a little before heading out to a restaurant to eat.  Brent and his wife, Alyssa, and their boys, Blake and Brock, were staying in the same hotel with us for the weekend, so they were there and ready to go.  Jessie and her boyfriend, Frank, arrived with her two kids, Kaleigh and Franke. We were just waiting on Brad.  He was late. Apparently, he is always late. (lol!) We finally got the text that he along with his wife Melissa and kids, Kobe, Jaelyn and Bella, were finally there. As we came out of our room and were walking along the outside walkway to head toward the elevator to the lobby, I looked over the edge.  Brad and Melissa and the kids were down below headed inside the hotel.  We yelled down to them and waved. They waved back. And my heart smiled. I just had a feeling it was going to be a good weekend after all.

When we walked into the lobby, there immediately was a flurry of tears, hugs, and pictures.  There was so much to take in and my head was spinning with excitement.  For the first time in my life, outside of the two children that I had given birth to, I was face to face with people who shared DNA with me.  It was a very surreal experience.  During the entire weekend, I would find myself staring at different ones of them thinking, "Hmm....something about you looks very familiar to me." Then I would realize that it was because I was seeing various pieces of myself reflected in them. Brad and I ordered the same meal at every restaurant.  Brent and I both used the word "fridgerator." Jessie and I both use the same facial expressions.  I know those are just little things, but to me they were huge.  It was crazy that even though I had been raised in a completely different family far away from them, how many things about us were similar. 

We ate out several times, went swimming in the hotel pool, went to the beach, and went to church. The time there was crammed full of hanging out with them. There was lots of talking about life, about growing up and most importantly about Carol. It was during this time I found out that I was not the only one that struggled to have a relationship with her.  Her own children found it difficult at times. It was not uncommon for her to keep secrets, lie about things, or find ways to pit one person against another in the family. It was all beginning to make more sense to me. Her issues weren't just about me, they were just her issues.  And when I realized that, a bit more of the model of her that I had built up in my mind over the years crumbled and fell away.  She was becoming less and less of what I had dreamed her to be.

By the time Sunday came, I was very sad to leave.  I had a pit in my stomach from the time I woke up. It had been such a wonderful experience and I was so very excited to be connected to my siblings after all this time.  We stopped at Cape Canaveral on the way home and visited the Space Center with the kids.  I tried to stay focused on what we were doing, but that day and for a long time after, I would just find myself staring off into space thinking about everything that had happened during that month. 

One of my siblings told me while we were in Florida that I was the lucky one because I had been adopted and didn't have to be raised by Carol. I struggled with that. It was almost like I had survivors guilt. Even though a part of me wished that I had been able to grow up with my siblings, I now understood that God had protected me and given me wonderful parents to raise me, and as hard as I try to understand that at times, I just can't. But I am thankful.





         

The Story of My Life: The First Phone Call

I had gone to the beach for a few days with friends from church.  While there, I had decided to start trying to do my own research to find my birth father. My birth mother had not been too cooperative where he was concerned, so I figured the best way was just to work on it all myself. I, of course, found nothing.   When I returned from the beach, I had a conversation with Carol that indicated she really was pretty much done with all of this. You can read about that conversation here.  I decided after that declaration, I was not going to contact her unless she contacted me first.  I didn't have to wait too long.

The last conversation with Carol had taken place on Sunday, August 3rd.  I didn't hear from her at all on Monday, but on Tuesday, August 5th she texted me.  She said, "I am not really mad at you. I am just tired of being the conversation of something that was so long ago and it has a simple explanation. I was pregnant, had a baby girl, gave her up for adoption and now you have a wonderful family that loves you plus your own children. Live life to the fullest....I was not supposed to be in this picture."

I asked her if she was going to be home that afternoon and if so, if I could call her.  She said yes, so I told her I would talk to her later that day.


The kids were gone somewhere, most likely at my parents, when I called.  I was nervous and there were a massive amount of butterflies in my stomach.  What was going to be that outcome of this conversation?  I really don't really know what I was hoping would happen.  Maybe that by talking on the phone and having an actual conversation the outcome would be positive and we might come to a better understanding of each other.  Maybe it was that we would be able to communicate what we wanted out of this journey. I wasn't really sure.  I had been struggling up to this point in my relationship with her.  What Carol seemed to be through text was so different from the image that I had built up in my mind throughout all the prior years of my life of who my birth mom was and what she would be like. 

She answered the phone. Her voice was not the soft, warm voice that I dreamed of all of those years.  It was a bit more on the harsh side and her talking very direct, much like the conversations that we shared through text.  We talked for maybe an hour and a half.  I let her know up front that I wasn't calling to try to find out information on my birth father. I just wanted a chance to get to know her better and I didn't want her to worry that I was somehow going to pop questions about him on her later on in the conversation.  She still brought him up anyway even after I had said that to her.  I didn't pursue the conversation and she really didn't give me any information. All she was was that she didn't know what his name was.  Big surprise. 

I tried to use the time to get to know her a bit better. I found it difficult to get anything out of her that was on much of a personal level.  She would share things about what she liked to do, for example, wear cowboy boots, plant flowers or eat at McDonalds, but would not really share information about who she was as a person. She never gave any real indication about what she was feeling or what made her tick. She did reminisce a little about her childhood and she told me about the cloak her parents made her wear while she was pregnant to hide her baby bump from the public eye. I encouraged her to think about whether she truly wanted a relationship with me or not. I told her I wasn't going to force anything on her, but that whatever determination was made about the future would be her decision.  I also asked her about the upcoming trip I was going to make to Florida.  In less than two weeks, I would be headed to Cape Coral to meet my siblings for the first time.  We were all excited and I knew that there would be pictures posted on Facebook and Instagram to celebrate the big reunion.  I asked Carol what she thought about all of that and if she was ready to handle it.  She said she would just deal with it when it came.  When I asked her what she would say if someone asked her who I was, she said she would tell them I was a friend of the family.

I had to go get the kids, so I ended the conversation.  I was more confused afterwards than I had been before. At this point, I was beginning to question my desire to have a relationship with her.  Part of me wanted to and part of me didn't.  My conversations with Carol whether through text or on the phone just seemed to end with such emotional upheaval. I had a deep down desire to get to know her and who she was. I really was so grateful to her for what she had done for me. But on the other hand, I wasn't sure I was permanently ready for the ups and downs the contact with her seemed to bring and most of all, I wasn't sure what those emotional swings would do to my family. 

Later on that day in a conversation with my sister, Jessie, I told her all about the phone conversation with her mom. I relayed to her that Carol said she did not know my birth father's name. She and I were both baffled at the fact that the adoption agency had information about my birth father from what his degree he had in college, to his height and weight, down to the fact that he had a growth removed from one of his armpits.  It did not seem possible that a person, like Carol,  could give the adoption agency such intimate and detailed information about my birth father and then say to me that she did not know what his name was. It did not make any sense.  It made me so frustrated and really just increased my anger towards her whenever I thought about it.

I also found out in that conversation with Jessie that she and her mom had not spoken in over a week.  So this whole time that Carol had been venting to me about Jessie trying to get information from her, they hadn't even been talking with each other. 

I decided to turn my attention away from Carol and focus on the siblings. After all, I was going to visit them in less than two weeks and spend time with them in person. I didn't know if I was ever going to meet Carol and to be honest, at this point in time, I wasn't sure if I cared whether I ever did or not.

So focus on the siblings I did.  Plans were made. Hotels were booked. Lots of exciting conversations were taking place. My Facebook friends could tell from my posts that something big was going on in my life but they didn't know what it was.  I decided to string them along until the big reveal when I met my siblings face to face in Florida. (I am sure none of you are surprised by that fact. lol!)

I cannot wait to tell you all about the reunion....such a wonderful experience. Until next time. :)

The Story of My Life: The Girl Who Went Away

It is now Wednesday, July 30th, 2014.  It had been exactly one week since I had found my birth siblings and began contact with my birth mother. It had been an emotional ride as I had been having such a wonderful time getting to know my siblings through texts and messages but also struggling with the various different reactions I was having as a result of the things my birth mother was saying to me. When she told me that she had been drugged and I was the result of that, I wasn't sure what to think. Then the adoption agency told me that there was no mention of a trauma anywhere in my file. I wasn't sure what to believe from her anymore.  You can read more about that here.

I packed up that Wednesday morning and headed to the beach for a few days with some ladies from church.  We hadn't been attending this church very long, so I was excited to get to know a few more women and make some friends.  I rode in the car with my friend, Shannon, and excitedly told her everything that had been going on in the last week.  Steve had asked her before I left to keep an eye on me and to make sure that I did not allow myself to get drawn into anything too emotional with Carol while I was at the beach. I needed the time to relax and get away, and he wanted to make sure that I would do just that. Shannon assured him that she would take good care of me. 

We got to the beach and sadly, it rained most of the weekend, so there wasn't too much time spend in the sun and sand.  We savored the few moments we did get out there and then spent a lot of time inside, just sitting around and talking. I had brought along the book, "The Girls Who Went Away" by Ann Fessler and had the chance to check it out during this time.  The lady from the adoption agency had suggested I read it.  It is stories of women from the 50's through the 70's who gave their children up for adoption. It talked about what they went through at home, with their peers and at the mother's homes that many of them were sent to.  It tells the stories that many parents told about their daughters to be saved from the embarrassment of having a pregnant child.  It talked about birth mothers who searched for their children and vice versa along with the struggles that came with finding them and the reunions.

At different times during the book, I felt my heart breaking for Carol. I could not imagine what it must have been like to have to give up a child that you had carried to full term.  I asked Carol if I could ask her some questions that the book had brought up in my mind.  She said to send them to her and she would answer if she could. I asked her a lot and she didn't answer even half of the questions, which was okay with me.  I didn't really expect her to. I was just hoping that she would see that I was trying to make an effort to understand where she was coming from. What she did answer, though, gave me a better glimpse into what it must have been like for her during that time. I knew that she had been sent away to stay at an unwed mother's home.   She did say that the people at the home were very nice to her and treated her well. I was glad to hear that since some of the stories in the book told of very terrible experiences in some of those places.  Her parents never came to visit her during the time that she was there. She told me that no one was there with her when she gave birth to me. Maybe the lady from the home where she had been staying, but that was it. She was never even allowed to hold me. And by the time my parents adopted me when I was six days old, she was back in Ohio.  It all made me feel very sad for her.

I had decided already to take a break from trying to get information from her about how I had come to be and who my birth father was. I figured at this point that she wouldn't tell me the truth even if she did know. In my heart, I had a feeling that I would know one day, so I set out to try to solve the mystery on my own.  I felt like maybe if I could figure it out, once she realized that I knew, she could be free from the bondage of her own secrets. Because it was raining so much and I had some time on my hands, I got to searching on the internet.  I used whatever information I knew from the adoption agency along with anything that Carol had told me already (which really wasn't much) to see if I could learn anything knew. I enlisted the help of some of my newly acquainted friends and we all went to work trying to solve the mystery.  I tried to look up family businesses in the Findlay, Ohio, are since I knew that was where Carol was from and that my birth father had been working in his dad's business at the time I was conceived. I wondered if he could possibly have been the son of the man that her mom had worked for at the milling company.  I would search pictures of families to see if there was any resemblance with them, always checking their eye color and whether they wore glasses to see if they would match the description of my birth father. I googled every name or place that she had ever mentioned to try to see if was somehow related. 

Of course, I figured out nothing.  How could I? Did you know there can be an awful lot of family owned businesses in a town? And how would I ever know if I had the right one? I would have to figure out a better way to get this search going.

I headed home, relaxed and thankful for a fun weekend with my new friends.  It had rained a lot, but we still had a great time full of laughs, shopping, and McDoubles and sweet tea.

When I got home, I contacted Carol to ask her if she had been involved in the process of picking my parents. I had been told that at some point she thought they were doctors, so I was curious to see if she had been allowed to give any input when they were making the decision of who would be my parents.  She was not very agreeable to my questions and said some things that let me know that. She said that she did not know anything about me after I was adopted. That she was not allowed to know anything about me or my parents and that what they did was not a matter of interest to her.  I apologized for upsetting her,  and told her I would not going to ask any more, but she continued.  She wondered what information my parents had about her and I told her that it was just the little bit of information that was given to them by the adoption agency and if I had been asking her questions of things I already knew just to see if she would give me the same answer.  I could tell she was getting really upset, so I tried again to apologize to her. I told her I was sorry and that I never wanted to hurt her or interrupt her life.  She vented a little bit and then said, "I am done and thru with this whole ordeal and ending conversations reference to all this. I am a human being with feeling and now I have to go on living with the fact that what was to be private is now known due to one person thinking she had to know. I AM DONE AND OVER ALL OF THIS..."

All I could say was, "I understand."

I decided for the time being that I was not going to contact her any more unless she contacted me first. I was not looking to force myself upon her or make her have a relationship with me.  That would be something that would have to be a mutual agreement between both of us. And it sure seemed at the moment that it was not something she was interested in at all.

The Story of My Life: The Pendulum

Sunday, July 27th, ended roughly for me.  Carol had texted me a picture of herself and said, "Me....your momma."  It brought up a rage inside of me and I felt very violated.  I was beginning to wonder what I had gotten myself into.  If you missed it, you can check out that post here.

On Monday morning, I decided to send Carol an article through Facebook messenger about adoption reunions.  The article share a lot of advice and suggested issues that should be talked through by the adoptee and biological parent/s and siblings.  I told her that I hoped we could begin talking and working through these things and that there needed to be lots of open conversations about them in order to make this process more successful.

She responded that she was in the middle of something and that she would read it later.  Then she started in on Jessie again, but in the midst of it all, she inserted something that caught my attention.  She said, "It was my worse nightmare but out of it I had a beautiful baby girl that my adoptive parents MADE ME give her up."

To see her use the words "it was my worse nightmare" made me think that something terrible had happened to her. Possibly a rape.  I immediately felt sympathy for her and assured her that although I wanted to know generally what the situation was that resulted in me being given up for adoption,  there was no hurry for me to need to know and I for sure did not need to know specifics. 

In the texts that followed over the next couple of days, I found what she said to me to be so confusing.  One text would find me feeling sorry for her and sympathetic and the next one would leave me angry with her and never wanting to speak to her again.  But I took it all in, figuring there must be some information that she was giving me that was true and would help me find the answers I was searching for.  

She told me that she wasn't a bad person, but rather a human being that got in a wrong situation and was suffering for it now except for the fact that she wanted to meet me and get to know me.  She added, "What happened is not important."  I could not have disagreed with her more. I felt like knowing what had happened was very important. It would help me understand better who I was and where I came from.  I was in no hurry to make her tell me anything and I tried to let her know that I had no expectations of her.  I just hoped that in time she would be able to tell me the general reason why I had been given up for adoption.

At one point she said, "You know I was adopted also...my parents that adopted me were my parents....not the lady that gave me up. She was the birth person and that was it...I was grateful she did as far as giving me up for adoption but that was it. I never met her and only talked to her once on the phone because she called my mom that adopted me to get some medical info to me. Once I was adopted, my adoptive parents were my parents and always will be."

At this point I felt like maybe we understood each other.  I had been wanting to address the "your momma" reference to her picture, so I used this as an opportunity.  I responded, "I was reading the things that you said about your birth mother. In a lot of ways, that is how I feel about this situation. I love my mom and dad and they are my parents and always will be. I am grateful that you gave me life and I am thankful for the role that you plated. I understand that this is hard for you...I want you to know, I have no expectations of you. I don't want you to feel like you have to have a relationship with leif that is too hard. I would love to get to know you as a friend if you feel like you can handle that. That is the only role I would ask you to fill in my life."

She never responded directly to what I said. But she did tell me again to send her any questions that I had and she would answer them, again saying that the others were not to know.  I had decided after the earlier reference to some kind of trauma around my conception, that I was not going to directly ask her about that again. I didn't want to cause her additional stress. I would only talk to her about it if she were the one to bring it up. 

It didn't take long. I received a text later that day that said, "Ok this is it...my life is mine...what happened to me was a long time ago. 40 years right? The guy's name I do not know. I was drugged. I woke up and my friend that took me there, her and I then left. End of story.  I know it is not much but that is all I know and remember."

I was sick to my stomach as I responded to Carol, "So it was rape?"

She texted back, "If it was rape or it was consensual, does it make a difference?  No, it doesn't.  It happened I got pregnant. I had you and end of story. This is my life we are talking about and no, I am not happy or proud about what happened, except I had you and gave you the opportunity to be adopted and you were. End of story.  Please do not pass this info on to Jessie or Brad or anyone. Thanks."

I was so confused. Was it rape or was it not?  And if it was rape, why was it so important to keep that a secret from the others? I figured in a traumatic situation like that, they would rally around her and be supportive. So why the secrets?  Secrets are powerful and if you let them out, they can no longer have control over you.

I told her that I had always assumed it was consensual and if it was rape, that it would help me to understand her better.  I told her that I was not ashamed of who I am even if I was conceived in a way that she thought people might judge...that my conception is just a part of my story, but it doesn't define me.  What defines me is who I am in Jesus and that she needed to let that define her as well.  Under the blood we are all forgiven and God sees us as righteous beings because he sees the cloak of Jesus' righteousness on our shoulders.  I urged her to let God define her and not to worry about what other people would think.

It hadn't even been a week since I had found my biological relatives, but already it was having an emotional toll on me. I was having difficulty sleeping at night and I found my emotions changing so quickly from happy to sad to angry.  The emotional changes were affecting not just me, but also my family.  Something had to be done.  Steve urged met to back off on the texting with Carol, so I did. He also put in a call to the adoption agency for me.  He told the lady there that I had found my birth mother and she offered to call me to talk with me about the situation.

When Linda from the adoption agency called, I was so grateful. My first counseling appointment was still over a week away but I needed someone to help me navigate this situation.  She had pulled my file and read through it. She said the file was pretty thin without a lot of information in it.  And even though there wasn't much, she wasn't allowed to share all of it with me. She did tell me what she could and was willing to try to answer questions that I had.  I asked her most importantly if I came to be as a result of a rape.  She responded, "There is no trauma indicated in Carol's file."

I decided at that moment, I was done with trying to get information from Carol. It seemed I would have a very difficult time knowing for sure if what she was telling me was the truth or not. 

Later that day, Carol texted me and said that she did not want any of this to be anyone else's business but mine and hers.  I responded and said, "I don't need to know any more. I know enough."

I decided that I didn't need her help to figure it all out. I just believed in my heart that one day I would know. 

The Story of My Life: You Are Not My Momma

I had found my birth siblings on Wednesday, July 23, 2014 and began communicating with my birth mother that same night. The conversation with her started off well with us exchanging information about ourselves and comparing the things that we had in common. Within a day or so, she started using terms of endearment with me which caught me off guard and left a funny feeling in my stomach.  I didn't really like her calling me her "sweet daughter" and her saying "luv you" to me.  By Saturday, July 26th, she had begun venting to me about the questions my half-sister, Jessie, had about what happened to me and then told me that we should just keep the questions between us. You can check out that post here.

When Sunday rolled around, I decided that I should try to address with Carol how she was feeling about the fact that I had been found when she wasn't really looking for me.  Since we were planning to go to Florida in a few weeks for a visit  with my half siblings and I was sure there would be lots of pictures posted on Facebook, I decided asking what she thought in regards to that would be a good starting point. 

Carol responded, "If you don't want to do it, then don't. That is your choice and no one can make you do it." Then she started going off on Jessie again saying that what had happened to her was "her business" and didn't need to be brought out in the open.  She ended with, "Don't tell them anything you don't want to tell. It is your life not theirs."

I assured her that I wanted to do this, that I wanted to meet my siblings and I wanted to tell people. That even though the siblings and I were super excited about it, that I could understand how this situation could cause her some anxiety. I had been her secret and it seemed that the circumstances around my existence weren't the best. Everything I had read said, in many cases when an adopted child was found that wasn't being looked for by the birth mother,  it brings up all the hurt, shame, guilt and other emotions from the birth experience. I imagined this to be the case with her which is why I told her that I wanted to know how she was doing and that she didn't need to worry about me. 

Her answer: "I have no problem with that....I will deal with it when it happens.  It is Jessie I worry about......"  

*sigh*  I was getting pretty tired of this. Why did she keep venting to me? I was not the one that she should be talking to about that.  So I decided not to answer her for the rest of the afternoon. 

Fortunately VBS was starting at church that evening and I was helping with the teaching part of it. I had something else to capture my attention for a while and it was desperately needed. But the distraction didn't last too long. 

When I got home from church, Carol had texted me again.  This time she was asking about how church had been and told me that she knew there was a storm coming our way.  

We actually had a pretty good talk this time. We talked about how things were for each of us as we were growing up. We talked about how I met Steve and how she had met her husband, Ron. We talked about our parents and their professions. We talked about church. She told me she had been saved during Bible school many years ago.

I couldn't believe that we were actually back to having a fairly normal conversation.  But then it happened.....

She texted me a picture of herself.  

The caption -  "Me.....your momma."

Now I am not a person who usually cusses. I wasn't raised that way and if I said any word that even resembled a cuss word when I was a kid, my mouth was sure to be washed out with soap.

But at that moment, a fit of rage welled up inside of me.  I threw my phone on the bed and said, "Who the hell does she think she is saying that to me??"  (Sorry, mom and dad.)

The only way that I can describe how that phrase she said made me feel is violated.  Yep. Violated.  It was one thing for her to call me her "sweet daughter."  It is possible that she viewed me that way and I could understand that. After all, she did carry me in her belly for nine months and then give birth to me.  But for her to put on herself the title of "my momma" felt like she had forced upon me the position that she wanted to take in my life.   That position was already filled.  It was taken by a woman who cared for me as a wee infant, who jump roped with me in the living room of our trailer in Wisconsin, who was at my high school and college graduations and who was there when I walked down the aisle to marry the man of my dreams.  And I had no plans to replace her.

So again, I did not respond....

A few minutes later Carol texted and said she was headed to bed. That she loved me and would talk to me later.

All I said was "goodnight." And I wondered what in the world I had gotten myself into.

The Story of My Life: Secrets

After the initial conversation with my birth mom on July 23rd, she started including things such as "my sweet daughter" and "luv you" in her texts to me. I was totally caught off guard by the emotional response inside of me to those statements.  I was trying to figure out how I should handle it. You can read a little bit more about that here.

Saturday, July 26th, rolled around.  My first counseling appointment was still two and a half weeks away. Realizing that I needed some advice and better understanding regarding what was going on with Carol and these words of endearment that I was so frustrated by, I turned to a trusty friend for help - Google.  I read article after article on adoption reunions hoping to find something to help me figure out what was happening.

I began to understand that as the adoptee, while I was excited and looking for answers about myself, it was common in this type of situation for the birth mother to be taken back to the place where the child was given up and to feel the emotions of that time. I also read that it was recommended that the person who was doing the searching be the one to help talk through and set up the expectations of the relationship.  Since Carol was not the one that had been looking, she was caught off guard by my return and not really ready to handle thinking through those decisions. Since I had been looking for a while, I had already had a little bit of time to process what was happening.  I began reading about ways to do approach the topic of our relationship.  Be patient. Don't ask too many hard questions right off the bat and take things slow. Be willing to be flexible. Talk about what your expectations are. 

I began to think about what I truly was wanting from this reunion. What expectations did I have?  I really hoped to be able to have a friendship with Carol. I hoped that we would be able to be involved in each others lives. I hoped to be able to learn about where I came from and maybe even who my birth father was. I also began to think through what I didn't want. I didn't want to be "needed" by someone, to have to fill any void in their life, just as I didn't want to "need" anyone in return.  And I knew that I didn't want another mother. I already had one, and no one else could take her place in my life.

I knew I would need to be patient and wait for a good time to be able to address these things with Carol. I had to be careful about how I worded it. I didn't want her to somehow feel rejected by me when I shared what my feelings were about the situation.  I also hoped that she would be able to express to me what she was hoping for through this reunion and that somehow we would be able to come to an understanding.

Saturday was quiet on the texting front with her. I had decided that I needed to slow things down a little bit and not be in such a hurry to respond when she texted.  Carol texted me first that day, around 6 pm. 

Here is what she said:

"Hello. I want you to know that if you ever have any questions about me and about you, please know that you can ask me anytime and I will tell you. I have waited for this time to come to find you and meet you and I am not going to let anyone mess it up.  Hope you had a good day. We planted flowers and rose bushes and put down mulch....yes I am sore.....again I will answer questions if you have any....later."

I felt like I had been handed an opportunity to start explaining what I was hoping for out of the relationship. So I responded and said: 

"Obviously I do have lots of questions. I want to know about you, about your family, about my dad and what happened with that whole situation. I understand why you had to give me up and I have no problems with that. I feel like that was the best thing you ever could have done for me. I am so thankful and grateful. As for the other part, I want to be sensitive to you and your feelings. I want you to be able to share when you are ready. I am sure that was probably a very difficult time for you and I don't want to force you to drudge up the hurt in your past."

Her response to me caught me a bit off guard. Besides the fact that she began with "I love you," she went on venting to me about Jessie asking her questions about what had happened with me.  She ended with, "I am so embarrassed by the way she is acting towards me and you. I will talk with you later."

I couldn't understand why this woman that I hardly knew was venting to me, someone she hardly knew, about her child. It didn't seem right to me. And I don't know if you caught this or not, but I did and my antenna went up.  "....the way she is acting towards me and you...."  

Granted, I don't know what was going on behind the scenes with her and Jessie and I didn't need to know.  I could totally understand why Jessie would be asking questions of her and it didn't surprise me that she would be. I could totally understand why Carol would be upset by the questioning.  The decision to give me up for adoption was one that affected not just Carol and me, but all of the other siblings as well, especially once she had told them about me about 16 years previous to this time. I felt like everyone was deserving of answers.  What I didn't understand was why she was suggesting that Jessie was somehow acting in an embarrassing way towards me.  My interaction with Jessie and the other siblings up until this time had been nothing but excitement and fun. We made lots of silly jokes that would have all of us laughing so hard. We talked excitedly of the reunion we were going to have in about three weeks, as Steve and I talked about it and decided to drive to Florida where all of the siblings live so I could meet them and their families.  Outside of Brad jokingly suggesting that there was a possibility that he had a birth father different than who she said because of the fact that he is so much taller than all of us and he is the only one of us with green eyes, no one had said anything negative to me about Carol at all. In fact, I was truly enjoying all of my interactions with my half siblings.

I wrote her back and told her that because of my reading on adoption reunions, I knew that it was not uncommon for everyone involved to experience a huge variety of emotions. I told her that I did not think anyone was wrong for asking questions just like I did not think she was wrong for not wanting to answer them.  It was only normal since I had been on the minds of the other members of the family for years and they themselves wondered what had happened.

She responded and told me not to worry about it. That there were many questions that we all had and everyone was excited and wanted to meet me.  But then she said....."let's just keep the questions between you and me."

Secrets. I despise them.  Now I am not saying that there can't be things about you that you keep to yourself and don't tell a lot of people.  I can respect everyone's privacy. The kind of secrets I am talking about are the ones where a situation affects a multitude of people, yet steps are taken to keep the truth hidden except from a few. My past was full of hurt because of secrets and I had just come out of the hurtful church situation which was full of hidden truth. I didn't want to be responsible for hiding truth from others. And even though I knew that it meant that I may not find things out as quickly as I hoped or even at all,  my response to her was....

"I am not in the least bit worried. I have enjoyed chatting with you and all the siblings. Part of this whole process is going to be lots of questioning and discovery about who I am and for me it will be about learning who all of you are. I am not one to hold back and when people ask me questions, I tend to answer them directly. If there are things you prefer they not know, it might be best not to tell me."

The Story of My Life: Emotional Entanglements

I love knowledge. I love the joy you feel when you finally figure something out and the light goes on inside of your head. I guess that is why I became a teacher. I wanted to be able to pass that joyous experience on to my students (although many of them really did not feel the same way I did about learning).  

To have figured out who my birthmother was, was one of those joyous experiences. I was so eager to learn more about her as it only meant I was learning more about me.

Let's travel back to that time in 2014. On Wednesday, July 23rd,  I had found my birth siblings and had my first contact with my biological mom, Carol.  If you have not read that part of the story, you can find it here.  It is now the following day. Thursday, July 24.  So many questions were being asked that day and I found some of the answers to be very interesting and some to be an eery coincidence.

Carol grew up in Findlay, Ohio.  (I found this pretty ironic since my maiden name was Finley.)  Her dad was a farmer and had a meat processing business.  Her mom was a bookkeeper at the Kirk Milling Company. The man she worked for was one of the richest men in town.  Carol's parents adopted her when she was a couple of months old.  Like me, she grew up in a conservative home and attended a Baptist church.  She was involved at church playing the piano and organ. While I never played the organ, I had played the piano since I was a little girl. She also played the flute, which I had played for a couple of years during high school and college. 

The paper I had from the adoption agency said she had attended a Christian college for one quarter. When I asked her what college it was, she replied Cedarville.  I could not believe it. That is the same college that I graduated from. And not only that, it is the same college that both of my parents have degrees from as well.  It isn't like Cedarville is a huge university like UNC or Ohio State. It is a small, Christian College in the middle of a cornfield in Ohio. 

Carol had grown up in Ohio and lived there for a while after she married. Then she lived in Florida for a while and for a bit in North Carolina. Currently she was living in Tennessee. Her husband, Ron, was a truck driver. They had a chihuahua named Bentley that she said she spoiled all the time. Multiple times she said she hoped that they would be able to come for a visit soon.

It seemed as things were going really well, but then something happened that confused me terribly. I wasn't really sure how to handle it. I am not blaming her for what happened. I am sure it is a fairly common response in this situation.  I just didn't know what to do with it. 

We had been texting all day and Carol said she was going to hit the bed and talk to me tomorrow.  

Then she said it...."sweet dreams, my daughter."

I understood that this was an emotional time in both of our lives. I did not feel any type of mother-daughter connection with Carol. While I was excited that I had found her and now knew where I had come from, that was as far as our relationship went. I did not feel anything deeper so I decided to just ignore that comment.

The next day, Friday the 25th,  began with a quick text from Carol telling me that she had gone to McDonalds for breakfast and was planning to pull weeds and put down mulch that day. She ended it with "luv u." 

I did not respond. I knew that she may love me because she had carried me for those 9 months and had chosen to give me life. But this is someone that I had just met through text and for me, those kind of feelings had not yet developed. I wasn't about to say something that wasn't true.

We texted a few times during the day, but nothing too deep. I decided I probably needed to take things a bit slower. 

The day ended with her sending me an 'xoxoxoxoxo' text. 

I definitely had some thinking to do about how to handle this.