"Find my Family" on ABC

Haven't seen the show yet, but I hear it's already making quite a buzz. And has a few APes twisting their panties.

I had to check out their message board after I heard from a friend of mine that a particluar adopter sent ABC a scathing letter, bemoaning the havoc and destruction that this show will cause on innocent adoptive families everywhere. Ohhh, the horror, what if some young, impressionable adoptee sees this show and gets a wild idea in their head that biology matters??? The horror.

Here is the letter that this APe posted:

Shame on you ABC! Shame on you for your latest quest for ratings at any cost: Find My Family. The show’s claim to be “bringing families back together” undermines the essence of what a family is. For an adoptive family, this assumption shreds away at our children’s security; a security we have carefully nurtured all of their lives...

Ummm...really, the children's security or your own?

It is a dangerous despicable concept that benefits a few at the risk of traumatizing the many.

Traumatizing the many entitled APes, you mean...

Adoptive families are not temporary custodians of a child until they are “found” by their “family”. The host actually said, “I believe that every adopted person’s dream is to be found”. That is pretty presumptuous and insulting.

Actually, it is pretty accurate and dead-on. How many adoptees has this nitwit actually talked to in her life, I wonder?

Are you suggesting that they are lost?

Does one really have to state the obvious?

Adult adoptees and biological relatives can find each other, if they so choose, through confidential and private means. This should certainly be supported if initiated and requested by both adults parties. If the makers of this show truly had that as the intention, then start a web site and/or organization to assist them if need be.

Um, hello dingbat, there ARE multitudes of reunion registries, message boards, seach angels, private investigators, etc. etc. that do just this. The problem is, it DOES NOT WORK. Ever hear of sealed records? What if one or the other is deceased; can they give their consent from the grave? What if one or the other doesn't know about reunion registries or use the internet or has the funds to pay an expensive search just to let a 3rd-party (with no real desire to see two people reunite) handle all of this oh-so-personal communication?

Adoption is a very difficult personal and private mutual decision made by the biological and adoptive parents in the best interest of a human being; a child.

But we don't stay children forever. Eventually we DO grow up and we DO have a right to our opinion on this "mutual decision" in which we had NO SAY.

Adoption is forever.

Unfortunately you're right. An adopted person has no recourse whatsoever if they should, upon adulthood (or even before) decide that they want no part of their adoptive family. We are forced into this familial relationship, a contract is signed FOR us when we are minors, and there is no opt-out clause.

There are laws wisely ensuring confidentiality to protect the children and their families.

The ONLY reason these confidentiality laws came into place was to "protect" the APes from the shame of infertility. And supposedly to "protect" the adoptee from the "stain of illegitimacy." It's the 21st century, we don't really care who's a bastard any more. Methinks you just want "protection" from losing money on your investment.

The first episode assisted a couple in locating their biological daughter. What would you have done if that woman’s parents hadn’t told her she was adopted?

And what kind of heartless, irresponsible, greedy people would not give a child..."their" child...her truth? Would YOU want to have a life-altering secret kept from you all our life?

She had not sought to find her birthparents. What if she wasn’t ready, or interested, or was upset by your intrusive behavior?

Or what if she was wanting to be found by her n-parents instead? What if she was afraid to search? What if she had greedy, needy, entitled APes such as yourself who would slap her down at the mere mention of curiosity about her biology?

If someone asks you to locate their birth parents, what would you do if you discovered painful facts regarding a person’s birth? Like incest? Or rape? Or drug use? What if the biological parent were a mass murderer? Would you tell them? Would you put that on the air? Do you play God and decide who/what you reveal to whom?

Whatever the "truth" is, it is that adopted person's truth. Period. And they are entitled to it, to know the truth of their origins, just like every other non-adopted person. We adoptees are not fragile little pieces of glass, we are actually quite sturdy, and allowing us to know and work through OUR truth is only going to make us stronger and healthier in the end.

I can deal with and process what I KNOW much better than what I DON'T know.

What if the person you find did not want to be found?

They have every right to not have any contact with each other. That's the beauty of this country, we are free to associate with whomever we choose. They can always just say no.

What gives you the right to surprise someone and omnisciently call it your “mission” to bring “families” back together?

What gives YOU the right to speak for adoptees or n-parents?

Maybe some stones are better left unturned.

And maybe you should dig a little deeper and figure out just WHY you are having such a strong reaction to something that is quite obviously highly important to millions of family members separated by adoption.

The manipulation and abuse of these people continue...

I think separating babies from their mothers is manipulation and abuse, personally.

In the show, they need to “reunite” and they hug under a proverbial “family tree”. In the first episode the young woman’s biological parents were currently an intact family unit; along with the look-alike biological siblings (Was this a set up? They had the same haircut and exactly the same highlights?). In reality this fairytale story is far from typical.

And again, how would you know? That's my "truth"...married n-parents, full sibling, the whole shebang. In fact I know of a few other adoptees who discovered their "truth" and found the exact same thing. The hypothetical "drug abusing birth mother" is actually what is far from typical. MOST n-moms (and dads) are decent, upright, successful human beings who just found themselves without the support and encouragement to raise their much-loved baby.

This is just another exploitive ploy in the hopes of increasing ratings and sponsorship. I suggest that American’s are savvier than that.. I look forward to ABC doing the responsible thing and taking Finding My Family off the air.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but this is just the beginning. I hope Americans will finally come to realize just how much damage adoption and it's secrecy and lies does to adoptees and their n-families. And I hope you do us a favor and take yourself and your hideous comments off the internet.

So this is kind of cool

On a completely non-adoption related note...

I have been wearing a ring for the last few days that I found among my grandma's stuff. It looks like a silver wedding band - so, of course, I assumed that it was hers or someone else's from the family. It just fits my pinkie.

I took it off yesterday and was looking inside the band and noticed some writing. Thinking, how cool, an inscription for the wedding, but I was a bit surprised and perplexed to read the words "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite" and "Francaise Republique."

I mean I know that none of my a-family came from France, so this was a little puzzling.

Ah but good ol' google, I come to find that it is actually WWI trench art. Some soldier fighting in the war made this out of a French coin - a method in which the writing on the outer edge of the coin is retained inside the ring. Pretty cool piece of history.

A little recap

So, I met up with nmom a few days ago.

All I can say is...wow. It went SO well, we were both SO at ease, and we did a lot of talking. A LOT. I can feel myself being more and more able to open up to her, and vice versa. I don't think we have ever actually been truly just one on one before, so that probably plays a huge role, but...

I was a little newborn infant once. Did you know that? I didn't, well ok I did but I never really felt it or could identify with the newborn me, until after Wednesday night. She told me about the day I was born, how they had to interrupt a parade (yes I am a real show stopper!) and then they took her to the wrong hospital, so she made them take me to the one she wanted to deliver me at.

She told me she never forgot my first cry and how she breathed a huge sigh of relief. And I was such a small baby, and so beautiful, and my dad's father came down there the very next day to see me.

I was NOT unwanted. I WAS loved.

This alone is enough to really help me connect to my birth. I feel so much more real now, so much more, I don't know, valid? More than I ever have in my life.

Another thing that really struck me is the importance that she is putting on me getting my OBC. She had NO idea that it was sealed and unavailable to me, none whatsoever. I even alluded to the forum and the Adoptee Rights work that so many of my fellow adoptees are doing to unseal our records, and she seemed genuinely on board with that. So in a couple weeks I am going to meet her, she is going to accompany me to the courthouse and sign whatever document she needs to sign, and then she is going to let me take her to Ikea. :) She wants to spend the whole day together, just the two of us, doing the things that real moms and daughters do. I can't wait.

There is more, but I need to process a little further.

Seeing mom

I am excited, I will be seeing my mother in two days. Nothing spectacular, just meeting up for dinner, but it's something.

Usually our emails are sporadic...well, I will email her pretty consistently and jump to reply to anything she sends to me, but coming from her, it takes days and days to reply if I get one at all. So when I asked her if she was busy on this particular night, I was quite shocked to get an instant reply. And not one but many as we planned the evening.

I had been trying to get in touch with my brother too, and she gave me his phone number. I hope he can make it, I haven't seen him in so long.

I've been debating back and forth with myself if I should share my blog or even possibly the forum with him. A big part of me thinks that he would be very receptive to this, that he would in some way understand, and that it would help solidify our relationship and bring us closer. We don't talk directly all that often but, I don't know, maybe by just being able to read what I say at his convenience, it would help. But then again there's that small adopted side of me that says "Don't do it!! He'll reject you for sure!!" I hate that part of me.

So wish us luck, I hope the evening goes well. I doubt any serious, deep discussion will happen, but it's a tiny step forward in this all but stalled relationship.

Sometimes I wonder, if I died today, would anybody attend my funeral?

If I somehow disappeared, how long would it take for anyone to notice? Or would anyone notice at all?

I keep myself at a distance from others because it's easier than dealing with the eventual loss. Because it will happen, sooner or later.

But I wonder what it's like to be loved, to be truly wanted and needed. It must be a beautiful thing, but I'll never know it. My phone never rings, my mail box is always empty. My heart is full, but nobody cares. Nobody sees the me that is craving to be cared for.

I'll never "fit in." I'll never be that person that gets thought of, that is remembered, that others want to hang around. I've accepted that, but sometimes the realization still hurts.

New Friends

So, my DS seems to have made himself a new little friend recently. I can't begin to explain how happy and relieved that makes me feel.

DS has always been the shy one - not your typical rough-and-tumble 9 year old boy, but very reserved, gentle, kind. A lot like me when I was little, we both tend to retreat into our shells and observe rather than participate. So over the years I have worried about him, because he never came home from school telling me about this friend or that. I was worried he'd never find that one best friend that I think everyone needs to have in their life.

And of course, my old "adoptee issues" rear their ugly head, as I am constantly reminded of my own feelings and abandonment fears and inability to fit in, and I worry. Worry, worry, worry.

I was teased constantly as a child. All through school, I was the one everybody picked on, I was the nerd, the wierdo, the outcast. I have flashbacks to the many times that a person in my grade would basically turn EVERYONE against me. Not just my grade, but the whole school (I went to a very small rural school). I had to go and face all those people, none of whom would speak to me, would be decent to me, would only tease and belittle. It was painful and only drove home more the abandonment and feelings of inadequacy. My own mother didn't want me, so why should any of these people, right? I was worthless.

And while I know that my DS doesn't have that in his life to draw upon, I still worry about him. What if the kids do it to him? He is such a tender soul, I don't know if he could take it. But if he even had one really good, tight friend to stick by him, he'll be all right.

I know I was, thank goodness for S, she was the only person who I could turn to, and got me through some very tough years.

And so I am excited, glad, happy, relieved...so many emotions come flooding in now that DS has finally seemed to find a friend. Someone he "clicks" with. I hope this is the beginning of a lifelong friendship for him, those are so precious and rare.

And I need to stop projecting my adoptedness onto my kids.

Now I need to go clean the house in case his little buddy does come over after school. I think we'll order pizza tonight....

Call me sometime

I tried to call my n-brother today. Not sure if he's still at the number that I have, but it sure would be nice to catch up with him. Of course, the entire time I was dialing, my stomach was in knots and I was scared shitless, I don't get that. Why do I get so damn worked up over calling my family? It's screwed up.

No word from mother in quite a while, I need to send our new family portraits up to her, maybe that will spark her into some sort of action. Well probably not, but I am perpetually trying. Such is the life the adopted, it's up to us to do the work if we want the contact, but it sucks. I just wish someone would want to make an effort for ME once in a while. Is that too much to ask?

Shouting it from the rooftops

I think I need to get more asters. Yes, in fact I know I do. My Purple Domes are all in full glorious blooming splendor right now, but I need more. LOTS more. So my yard becomes that place that everyone has to drive past in the fall and see the display.

Anyone got any you'd like to divide? I'll swap you some Purple Dome asters.

I was painting DS's room last weekend, the room that used to be mine here in this old house in the country. Of all the things I don't remember about my childhood, there are a few that I do, and one thing that stands out in my mind are times when I just hid out in my room, all alone, where nobody could hurt me. I was safe there.

My old room is upstairs, and the north window overlooks the part of the kitchen that was added on below. I could take the screen out of my window and crawl out onto the roof, and that's exactly what I did, ALL the time. Usually at night though, when my parents were asleep, because my dad wouldn't be too thrilled with me crawling out onto the roof in the dead of night. I wonder why.

But it was there that I would sit on the sharp scratchy singles and gaze northward, in the direction of the city of my birth, and think about her. Where was my mother...100 miles away through the dark sky and silent landscape, I knew she was out there, and I waited for her.

I waited for my "real" mother to come and get me, all alone on that rooftop, and holding my breath ever time a pair of headlights loomed on the horizon. I would hope - no, pray - that those headlights would slow down and pull into my driveway, and that mysterious brown haired, brown eyed woman would get out of the car and sweep me into her arms. I would finally see her face, finally hear her voice, I would finally be where I belonged.

But then how could she, right? She didn't know where I was any more than I knew where she was, but in my little girl's brain, she had to have some sort of mystical power to just know. Our connection was spritual, and I knew I could "beam" my thoughts into her brain.

i tried to every night, especially those nights when I waited for her to come.

I think back on those days and feel so sad for that little girl. Ironically enough, the adult me is still stuck on that roof, waiting and waiting, for a mother who is just not going to come. This time she knows where I am, she knows how to reach me, but she either can't or simply won't - and that realization has been getting pretty obvious. Perhaps I need to beam more thoughts her way.

Thing is, it used to just kill me, it hurt so bad that I would stuff it and deny it and, well, go searching for some low-lying fog where I could sip my kool-aid. But as time goes by, it doesn't hurt as much. Maybe I am just numb, or maybe I am just tired of being hurt. But I still think about climbing onto that roof sometimes, just in case.

Fall

I love fall. Back to school, dry air, cool nights, falling leaves...ahhh. My favorite favorite time of year. I met my mother for the 2nd time in my life in the fall.

The kids had their meet-the-teacher conferences today, and will start school tomorrow. It's so weird going into that Elementary school where I used to go, some of the same teachers are still there even! Wild.

I was going through pictures the other day and came across some old ones of me & my dad picking apples from the trees in the yard. I loved that. Although picking up the fallen, rotting apples before mowing was not one of my most favorite activities. But I miss apple picking, and I miss my dad. A lot. I feel so cheated. About everything.

The family I was born to gave me away and the family I was adopted by are all dead.

I feel a little like I have been washed overboard of a ship in the ocean; my little life raft is keeping me afloat but for how long? And who will come to rescue me? Nobody, the ship has sailed, they are going on to bigger and better things.

It's amazing to me how many times different family members cross my mind every day. If I spent as much time in the real world as I do with my thoughts, hell I just might get something accomplished. But as it is, I like my little internal world. It's a place where mothers don't give their babies away, where heart disease and cancer don't exist, and where weeds never invade the flower beds. That are full of bright and colorful asters and mums this time of year.

Girl's Night Out

So, I had a rare "girl's night" last night, one of those things that are so hard to do nowadays. It was nice - I like catching up with my girls and dishing about ex's and gossiping about this or that person. It's a nice break from everyday ho-hummery.

Besides the fact that on the way home I hit and killed a cat (which was very traumatic, I love cats), the friend who rode with me to the other friend's house was just triggering me up and down. This is the friend who I have known since high school; we have been through thick and thin, know each other VERY well, but she has always had a problem with my reunion and has been simply unwilling to support me in any way.

So as we made the 30 mile ride home, talking about our kids and the past and all that stuff, she started talking about her mom and dad and told me a story of how her son was absolutely devastated that grandpa couldn't come to his birthday party. And how her kids are staying at grandma's and how much they all love and adore their grandparents.

Nice stories - but it just drove home all that I've lost. My kids will never know their grandparents. I never got to give my mom the good news, "I'm having a baby!" which I know she would have been over the moon about. No dad to walk me down the aisle or dance the father-daughter dance. No nights at grandma's, no grandpa teaching them to ride a bike or take them fishing. It has been 13 years since my dad died, and 12 since my mom. I still feel it as sharply and painfully as I did so many years ago.

And then she goes on to talk about missing her grandpa who died 10 years ago, and I totally understand, but through all this not once, not ONCE, did she even bother to acknowledge what I may be feeling. I even mentioned that, yeah, I know, I miss my parents and think of them every day. Her reaction? One of surprise, like oh yeah, I suppose you might just miss them a little.

It was all just so hard to listen to.

And I don't want to be that person who nobody can talk to because I'll get all triggered. I'm not, and I am always there for my friends, but this time it was just so....I don't know. Difficult. Perhaps if she had even made one teeny tiny acknowledgment that she understands or empathizes with me, but no. It's all about her, all the time.

Then she went on to tell me about her older brother who she misses, he moved away when she was 6. She told me how they were SO MUCH alike and how it's amazing that they can be so similar, how cool it is to have that biological connection to someone.

No kidding.

I ended the evening by saying, "Yeah, I've never had that in my life, nobody around me is even related to me."

She just kind of changed the subject quick and we said our goodbyes.

GOD WHY IS IT SO HARD. I want to support her, I want to be there for her, but why can't se fucking acknowledge me at all? I sometimes wonder if this friendship is even worth it. I feel like I am doing all the giving and she is doing all the taking. But I can't just walk away from someone, I've had that done to me and it sucks, I can't do that to another human being. Not unless they reslly, really deserved it.

I don't know. So today of course I'm stuck with all the memories of my childhood, of my mom and dad and how much I miss them, and playing the "what if" game - what if they hadn't died, how would they be around my kids, how much would my kids adore them. It's so unfair, and I have nobody to really talk about it to, because nobody I know has lost both their parents (well, all 4 actually) by the time they were 23 years old. Nobody understands, and nobody wants to even try.

It would be nice if my n-mom could grow the fuck up and be a mother, but I've learned long ago not to count on her.

So I'll just turn to the only comfort I have - spending the day listening to sad sappy crap music and disappearing into the bathroom now and then for a fit of crying. I've never felt as alone as I do right now.

And Another Thing...

My heart hurts.

Stories in the news lately about adoptive mothers killing their little adopted babies, about returned adoptees (that was my biggest fear when I was a kid, that my ap's would return me if I wasn't good enough), reunions gone wrong, contact refusal, and my dear friend Heather who, although she KNOWS her nparents and is in reunion with her mom, still cannot get her birth documents from the state of New York because they feel she is trying to sneakily obtain the names of her nparents (ummm....did we already clarify that she's in reunion?) and has been utterly treated like second-class garbabe.

All this and more, just makes my heart ache. When do adoptees go from cute, lovable little creatures that are sooooo desired and wanted, to these dispicable, deplorable wastes of oxygen that we must be either murdered or stepped all over as if we are some sort of criminal? Our voices are systematically shut down when we try to speak up..."Be Grateful, You Just Had a Bad Experience, Your Adoptive Parents Are Your REAL Parents," bla bla bla bla bla ad nauseum.

It's funny in a way. But not really. I mean who would know more about adoption than the person who has lived it their entire lives?

I'm Bloggin' Again

After a long hiatus, I decided I might start blogging again. So much is going on right now in adoptionland that I just can't keep my mouth shut.

First on my mind is the recent article:


Now, I won't begin by commenting on how utterly selfish and disgusting this woman is for her buyer's remorse. Oh wait, I guess I just did. Oops.

No, what really gets me are the heaps and heaps of praise that people are piling on this piece of trash of a "parent" for having the "courage" to dump her adopted child.

Yep, she couldn't bond with him properly (might that have had something to do with her 50 blogs and 12 self-promoting websites she spends all her time on? Or the other 5 children she already birthed?)

But regardless of Ms. Tedaldi's reasons for not spending enough time and effort on the child she wilfully and consciously snatched from another country and brought into her home, is it really a noble and honorable thing to basically terminate that child's Forever Family simply because he wasn't what she had envisioned a good, grateful little adoptee should be?

What stands out most to me is this line:

"I wasn’t connecting with him on the visceral level I experienced with my biological daughters."

Um, no shit.

But what if, say, an adoptee had uttered those words in an article, basically stating that he or she wanted to dissolve their adoption because they "weren't connecting with my adoptive parents on the visceral level I experienced with my real, biological parents."

Would that adoptee be called brave? Would that adoptee get heaps and heaps of praised shoveled upon them? I can most definitely tell you that, no, there would be no praise. It would rather be a public flogging of biblical proportions.

I kind of feel sorry for Ms. Tedaldi in a way. And glad this little boy won't have to suffer a life of being ignored and babysat by Spongebob. I pray for the little guy, and hope he finds himself in a home truly worthy of him with parents who are actually capable of doing what's best for him, and not use him for more self-promotion.

Sorry, fans

I have not been updating this blog...wow, bad, bad blogger! Get out your rulers and rap me on the knuckles, I know, I deserve it.

Things have been pretty busy lately. I am starting up the Master Gardener core course and spending a lot of time studying and working on my modules. This is one of my dreams I have had for many years and it is finally becoming a reality. Yay!

I have also been working a lot on the house, finishing that bathroom remodel, going through the kids' toys and clothes and purging a LOT of stuff they don't wear or play with or use any more. What a task, UGH. But it's a fight to get them to give up their toys, even if they haven't touched them in years. They are so like me, attached to everything, I couldn't give up my stuff for anything when I was little. Thinking back, my mom must have had purging days when i was at school, because a lot of my things seem to have mysteriously disappeared, although I can't remember exactly when. Hmmmm.

And on the adoption front. Well, you'll be happy to hear that things between me and my mother are slowly improving. We have had pretty regular, if sometimes sproradic, email communication, but just the fact that we are communicating at all is huge. She is making great strides in opening herself to me, and has even invited me to come up and stay with her. Now THAT is REALLY huge. We haven't made any solid plans yet, because I, being the indecisive procrastinator that I am, have not been able to bring myself to commiting to anything yet. Can we say, like mother like daughter? lol. I think I am like her in more ways than I have thought.

Oh and I am going to meet one of the n-mom members of AFC, hopefully soon, Dbannie! She is so sweet and has always been so supportive. I can't wait until we get together, I hope the weather straightens out here.