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Anonymous: Dangerous Liaisons

My bmom's sister has an adopted son, about 10 years old, and she is *terrified* that meeting me will be detrimental to him in some way. She doesn't want to explain to him who I am and where I came from, and she doesn't want me to teach him how to search. (Like I would tell this sort of stuff to a ten year old anyway.) To ensure that I do not meet him, she has gone out of her way to disinvite me from any and all family functions that she has a hand in. I am specifically not invited to the family reunion at Horse's Ass, SC this year.

Susina Damaschina: True Tales of Conditional Love

Like most adoptees, I often wondered and fantasized about who my biological parents might be. It never really occurred to me to search. The whole idea must have been taboo since I can't remember it entering my mind as a child or even as a teenager. I often wondered if I would ever just magically meet up with my birthparents, and for a time I entertained the notion that my aunt was my birthmother. When, in a drunken moment of desperation I finally questioned her about it, she had the nerve to reply, "No, but if I were, I wouldn't tell you". What an asshole. Then and there I knew she couldn't be my birthmother. My birthmother would smile beatifically and welcome me with open arms. She would accept me as I am, be proud of my accomplishments and enrich my life with her great knowledge. My birthmother would never say anything so harsh and so rude. Little did I know...

One day, soon after my 18th birthday, I was eating dinner at my father's apartment. Somehow the subject of my adoption came up and my Dad said that he had the adoption papers with my "original name" on them. Naturally I went ballistic jumping around like an idiot and shouting "Where?! Where?! What is it?! What is it?!". My Dad got a big kick out of this and tried to draw it out but eventually he went into a drawer and handed me some yellowed papers. It was the decree of adoption and there typed in bold black capitals was my "original name". My Dad told me that I could go to the agency and get non-identifying information. I think he may have been as curious as I was. The next day I made an appointment.

It took another seven years for me to embark wholeheartedly on my search. Soon after I finished school I decided that it was time to find a husband and start a family of my own. It was then that, like so many others, I decided to search in earnest.

I will spare you the particulars of my search. Suffice it to say that I was completely obsessed with it for a year and a half. After about six months in full-throttle obsesso- mode I found a grandparent. It was a wonderful experience except that she didn't want me to contact my birthmother. She said it was a painful episode in her life that no one spoke of after it happened. She said some family members didn't even know about it. She said that I shouldn't want to rock the boat. She even said that she would put our correspondence in a locked vault and that she had instructed her lawyer to have them destroyed upon her demise. What the fuck had I gotten myself into?! At that time I was too caught up in it all to really consider the implication of her attitudes. I was scheming behind the scenes to find biomom. Using some very sneaky homespun tactics, I tracked her down and discovered her name, address, phone number, place of work and work number. Not wanting to betray my grandmother (who had no idea of what I had done), I sat on this information for nine whole months. When my grandmother came out to visit me a year after I had contacted her, she still didn't know that I had this information. I would just look at it. Didn't do anything with it. Didn't even call and hang up. Just sat and waited.

As you know, the day came when I couldn't sit on it anymore. One sunny June morning I must have had spring fever or something because I woke up knowing I would talk to my birthmother that day. Not to sound mystical or anything, but something just clicked and I knew that would be the day. I went to work but I couldn't concentrate. At 11:00 I would call her at work. And I did. And she freaked. I mean, she was happy. She dropped the phone and I could hear her screaming "My daughter!, My daughter! It's my daughter! She found me!". So I started crying like an idiot on the public phone in the hallway at my work. Later I saw that my mascara had run all down my cheeks. I should have put on the waterproof!

Biomom was on a plane out to see methe same week. I got all prettied up, but with no makeup so that she could see what I look like au natural. My girlfriend drove me to the airport to meet her and I twiddled my thumbs and tapped my feet for about an hour waiting for her plane to arrive. When it finally did she was one of the first ones out. I smiled politely and she shook my hand. It was all quite civil really. No hugging, no sobbing, no no starry-eyed soul-searching stares of long-lost recognition. Just sort of pleasant.

As we left to return to my place I started picking up pieces of evidence which would eventually lead me to believe that my biomom was a freak. She struck up inane conversations with about 5 different strangers on the way from the terminal to the baggage claim to the car. She handed out stickers to several children. She took down addresses. She accosted people speaking foreign languages. At that time I was a bit star- struck and I thought "Oh, how delightfully eccentric she is!". Yah. Right.

When we got back to my apartment, I showed her around but she was much more concerned with telling me every detail of her life since she was born until that very day. Neither of us slept that first night. She confessed all manner of things to me. Things I didn't particularly want to hear, but hey, if it made her feel better...

The second day she let loose her first real bombshell. "You know, I have to tell you something. I named the wrong guy as your father.". Er, OK. So tell me about Tom. It didn't hit me straight away that some other poor slob had been running around all these years thinking he had a daughter somewhere out there. Later, when that other poor slob wrote me a letter I realized how stupid my biomom had been. Oh well, we're all entitled to mistakes. Problem is, biomom made a few too many.

The next time I saw biomom was a few months later at my wedding. My parents had invited the bios and their spouses and everyone got along very well. Biomom and biodad danced together at the wedding which was very scary to watch, the least because she is an Amazonian 6'2" and biodad is a stout 5'5". Everyone was on their best behavior.

The real trouble began in the months following my wedding. I got pregnant pretty much right away and biomom started calling frequently and writing long-winded letters about how Jesus had saved her soul from mortal perdition. She sent me tapes on how to attain salvation. She sent me a personally inscribed Bible. She even sent booklets on how the theory of evolution was "The Devil's Monkey Business". When she called she would always ask that I allow her to pray for me over the phone. She prayed in tongues, which basically means she spouted gibberish in a very solemn tone and then said "Amen". I felt obligated to say "amen" too. So gradually I was getting sucked into her influence. I had never been a member of any organized religion in my life and this whole scene was very new to me. Basically I wanted her acceptance. She hadn't seemed very interested in my past or interests or accomplishments. She was just fixated on herself and on Jesus. And on sucking other people into her Jesus-trap. That's what I started to realize all her aggressive solicitation of strangers was about. Unfortunately I was still under her spell.

When I was four months pregnant I went out to visit her by myself. Like a needy child, I decided to accept Jesus to please her. She took me to her church, paraded me before a bunch of beaming. over-fed fundamentalists and was very warm and loving with me generally. She even took me to a christian "therapy" session during which I tricked myself into thinking that Jesus himself had pulled 100 yards of rotten intestines out of my body. Hey, maybe I'm just as nutty as she is!

But not quite. A few months after I returned home I realized what I was doing. I was lying to myself and to my biomom so as to gain her acceptance. I was scared to tell her how I really felt. She was so happy that I had found Jesus! Who knows how she would react? The charade could only go on for so long though. One day she called me and I just told her point blank that I didn't believe in Jesus and I had done it just to please her. She tried to talk me out of it, but I stood my ground. Everything was downhill from there. No more frequent phone calls, no more letters, no more elaborate packages in the mail. I wonder if she felt betrayed. I wonder if she understands the irony of how she treated me.

The next time I saw biomom was when my first son was four months old. She came out for an obligatory visit and basically made my life hell. The first night she broke down crying and begged me to forgive her. For what? She told me that she would have aborted me had it been legal. She told me that she had even gone to the very door of the abortion clinic but turned back at the last minute because she feared for her own life (abortion was illegal back then). I was very understanding and told her that of course I forgave her. But the bitch wouldn't stop there. Then she told me that she tried several "natural" methods of aborting me, obviously none of which worked. Fine, whatever. Then she told me that I was a big mistake and that God had punished her for sleeping around before marriage. Oy fucking vey! Still, I was patient. Then she started crying even more and told me that I had ruined her life!!!!! And there I was, patting her head, wiping away her tears and telling her "It's all right, it's all right". But it wasn't all right. From that point on the only feelings I could have for this woman were pity and disgust.

These themes were the topic of several subsequent conversations, all initiated by my biomom and all ending with me saying "Of course I forgive you. Stop torturing yourself.". I still can't figure out why she insisted on repeating these hurtful things over and over to me unless they were designed to guilt me into accepting Jesus or something. Whatever the reason may be, I have now decided that I simply don't like her and I will be happier without her in my life. Being basically compassionate, I will send her the obligatory birthday and Christmas cards, but that's it. And she's lucky she's getting that. Just as I'm lucky to be alive.

"Adoptee Bob": The "L" Word - Be Very Afraid

Sometimes life is filled with little coincidences. My wife and I are both adoptees, and as luck would have it, we were placed by the same agency in the state we live in. After many years of thinking about doing a search, we both decided to get serious about it and pay the agency to do first contact. Our motivations for searching were very similar, basically wanting to know our real last names and genealogical information, so we could fill the gaps in our "self-image" that only knowing where you really come from can answer. Both of us, if given the opportunity, would have preferred to just get our files without the b-parents being alerted or contacted in any way, but unfortunately in our state dual consent is required, and there was no way to avoid this. The letters were sent, and the die was cast. We began our wait.

Fortunately, we did not have to wait long. Both searches resulted in contact within two weeks, both b-moms overjoyed that we were looking for them (at least at first). Funny thing: before we paid to do our searches, we had attended a adoptee support group meeting, and rolled our eyes at all the angst-ridden whining adoptees who had already been reunited babbling on about what nutcases their b-moms turned out to be, and what hijinx and headgames the b-moms were laying on them. Gee, wouldn't it be fun to go to the meeting and tell them how great our reunions turned out? Good thing we waited a few months, considering where we finally ended up.

My wife's first call to her b-mom goes well, and the first thing out of her b-mom's mouth is "Oh god I love you so much". Hmmmmmm, this gets me a little worried, I thought it was a little early to be slinging the "L" word around, kinda like a girl you pick up in a bar telling you she wants to have your children after the first date. Then she was begging her to call her "mom", and to drive up as soon as possible. Okey doke. We drive up and she was all over my wife, telling her that they were going to be best friends and do everything together for the rest of their lives. I call this the "Honeymoon Period", and we go home thinking this is the coolest thing that ever happened to us.

My first call to my b-mother goes much the same. Lots of b-mom crying, asking my forgiveness for giving me up, and few shots at herself as "not being worthy" and "needing to lose weight before meeting me" and a few other self-loathing type comments. Fortunately, my b-mom lives on the other side of the country, so I had plenty of buffer distance and we could not see each other anytime soon. I came away from the call thinking my b-mom was a little kooky and down on herself, but a nice lady, and she immediately started passing out my phone number to all my aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, and my phone was ringing off the hook with "overjoyed" relatives who declared that "now the family was complete again". I call this the "Honeymoon Period", and I hang up the phone thinking this is the coolest thing that ever happened to me. How deja-vu!

Fast forward to visit #4 at the wife's b-parents. Turns out that b-grandpa had a taste for little girls, and b-mom was at the top of the list. Sad, and disgusting, and not something you would normally share with your b-daughter in casual conversation. But not only did b-mom like to talk about it, she liked to go into gruesome detail, describing sex acts, positions, etc. My wife politely rode the conversation out, but it truly disturbed her, not only to hear that she was a blood relation to a child molester, but now she could picture the crime in detail in her head, thanks to b-mom's colorful blow-by-blow (literally) description of the event. Later that evening, b-mom drives us by her brother's place and we have a nice two-hour visit, really liking my wife's new uncle. My wife and I are both like, *whew*, at least THAT was pleasant! This warm fuzzy feeling does not last long, however, as on the way out of the driveway, b-mom goes, "yes, he is really nice, but did you know he got caught screwing his stepdaughter?!" ALRIGHT ALREADY, we had had enough at this point, and my wife breaks it down for b-mom: we understand you have been though a lot, but could you please save all this soulsearching for another time? We hardly know you, and you are unloading a boatload of really vile family secret type crap on us, and in addition to ruining our self-esteem you are making us puke. Could you please have mercy on us and change the subject? Well, the honeymoon ended right there. B-Mom starts crying, and goes "but that is part of me, and you have to accept it, and if I can't talk about it, I can't be close to you". She then stopped calling and corresponding (they would send cutesy little cards to each other almost every day) and put on the deep freeze anytime my wife would call, suddenly no more I-love-you's or come- up-and-see-me's. I call this the "Reality Period", that she never really gave a crap in the first place, and that b-child was fun to have around until it did something b-mom didn't like.

Suddenly, my wife was one of those angst-ridden whiny adoptees at the support group meeting babbling about what a nutcase their b-mom is. Oh, the humanity! But at this point, I cautiously consider myself fortunate, I am getting along great with my B-mom's family. By now I have met both my uncles and one of my brothers, and am going broke from calling everyone else in the clan every other night long distance. Things couldn't be better...but then I made the ultimate mistake: I asked "The Question". What was my b-dad like?

After my ear healed from all the high-velocity shrieking about how dare I even ask such a thing, I hang up the phone and decide to look for b-dad without telling b-mom. She apparently harbored some 30-year-old hatred for him (can't we all get along?) and the mere mention of his name sent her into a seizure. Anyway, I get his real name from my adoption records (which b-mom doesn't know I have, she had lied to me about what his name was) and I manage to find an uncle, who relays my message to my b-father that I am looking for him. Trying to be as unobtrusive as possible (since I didn't know if he remarried or if he even knew I existed) I told the uncle that I would not bother him again and gave him my number to pass along, and if I didn't hear anything I would drop it, no hard feelings. Unfortunately, the uncle copies my number down incorrectly, and my b-dad goes apeshit trying to call me. Finally, since I had told my uncle I had been reunited with my b-mom, b-dad calls one of her relatives and tries to get my number, and she finds out that I am looking for b-dad. She is not amused.

The next day she calls me, again shrieking, and it goes like this: she was devastated because the imaginary little child (me) who was a constant companion in her head for the last 30 years was now "dead to her" (direct quote) and that whomever or whatever I was had evilly taken his place like some sort of doppleganger. It became apparent that b-mom was a few fries short of a HappyMeal, and she told me she didn't want to speak to me from this point forward since I had committed the ultimate sin of contacting my b-father....and then she hung up on me. Peachy. I call this the "Reality Period", that she never really gave a crap in the first place, and that b-child was fun to have around until it did something b-mom didn't like. Suddenly I am one of those angst-ridden whiny adoptees at the support group meeting babbling about what a nutcase their b-mom is. Oh, the humanity!

Is there a moral to this story? I don't know, maybe be careful what you wish for (finding your b-parents), 'cause you just might succeed. They may not be anything like you, they may be poor, they may be stupid. They will probably be a little nutty. You will probably end up in a support group and join the legions of the whiny, or just shake your head in disbelief and take it all with a grain of salt. They will probably make you miserable at least a few times, and may make you cry more than make you laugh.

Do I have any advice for you guys out there searching? Sure do. Don't get your hopes up too high. I almost guarantee that your "fantasy parents" are much more cool than the real ones you will eventually find. Take everything VERY slow, and keep your defenses up until you REALLY know where they are coming from. They will probably lay a bunch of emotional stuff on you (we miss you, we will love you forever, we will always be there for you) that they probably do not really mean. In spite of what they say, you are a stranger to them, and they blew you off once...and it is easier to do it again than accept that you are an adult with feelings and desires EQUALLY as important as theirs. As soon as it gets a little messy, don't be shocked if you get a pink slip in the mail.

Was it worth it? Yes and no. We went through a lot of crap, and that sucked. The b-moms in this story put a lot of emotional mileage on us in a very short time, and we have nothing to show for it, they are both out of the picture now. (better now than later, though, and we are both grateful we found out how flaky they were early in the game). The silver lining? We both came away with some great relationships: my wife is very close to her younger brother, and I am very close to my b-dad and my two brothers on b-dad's side. Unfortunately, I lost contact with all the relatives on b-mom's side as they all jumped in bed with b-mom when she excommunicated me from the clan. They wouldn't even return my calls to tell them my side of things...I was the "missing part of the family" alright. I call this the "Who Needs You Drooling Cretins Anyway Period" and I am feeling a lot better about everything now. Just don't sit within earshot of me at the next support group meeting.

REASON #1 TO OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT by Adoptee Lori

I started searching for my birth parents on my 18th birthday - at least, I THINK it was my 18th birthday. I'm not sure anymore, since my records all seem to have different dates.

The first thing I did was to send off letters to the Post-Adoption registry. They wrote back, saying that if anyone in my birth family also registered, I'd be contacted. Over the years, I made sure to write them on a regular basis, reminding them of my search, making sure they had my current address and phone number, etc.

I was already annoyed at the closed-records system, and so on top of registering my name, I joined a bunch of search and support groups, and regularly wrote letters to politicians who had the power to change the laws.

It made me even angrier, when most of the politicians replied with comments like "it's none of your business", "your birth mother doesn't want to be found, that's why she gave you away", and "we have to respect your birth mother's right to privacy". What about MY rights?

Finally, after several years of unsuccessful searching, I was at the point where I was ready to break into the records office with a large army of adoptees armed with machine guns. Ready to take what was rightfully mine. It was right about that time, when I received an anonymous phone call from someone who said that the law had just been changed. Adoptees could have an active search done (for a fee, of course).

Figuring that paying several hundred dollars for a search would be easier than a shootout, I went ahead with the search. It was completed within three months, and everyone has been found. It was nine years after I first started searching, that I first talked to my birth father. My relationship with him is going okay. But here is what REALLY ticks me off:

Firstly, my birth mother died three years after I started searching. The cause: suicide. The reason: because she couldn't bear to live, not knowing where I was and if I was okay. According to my b-mom's family, she talked about finding me CONSTANTLY. They sent to to psychiatrists and other doctors, who told her that she should look for me. But her mother kept talking her out of it, telling her that I probably didn't know I was adopted, and how she would ruin my life if she contacted me.

As well, I found out another very interesting and annoying tidbit of information. - One, that I'm sure the government wishes I didn't have. NEITHER of my birth parents gave me up!

My birth parents were engaged. Both were happy when they found out they were going to be parents. My bmother's mother didn't like my bdad, and made up a bunch of lies about him to tell to my birth mother. She bought it, and viola - break-up. But, even then, my birth mother had decided to keep me. She wouldn't even discuss giving me up. She even went out and bought baby clothes and other baby stuff for me before I was born. Four days after my birth, my bmom's mom shows up at the hospital, and sees that I'm still there. She tells my bmom that she's supposed to give me up for adoption, and bmom refuses. A few days after that, bmom's mom shows up AGAIN, and takes it upon herself to call social services to come and get me. Bmom goes ballistic, and tries immediately to get me back. Both bmom and bdad contact social services on a regular basis for the next few YEARS, trying to get custody of me, or at least a little information. Neither one keeps me a "dirty little secret", and talks about me regularly. (In case you were wondering, bmom was 18, and bdad was 21 at the time. Bdad had a steady job and owned his own house. Neither had criminal records.)

Does anyone else see the IRONY in this? Not only did the f#cking government keep the records closed, when NOBODY ever asked for this, but I SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ADOPTED! I thought America was supposed to be land of the "free", not land of the "you aren't allowed to raise your own child if it's a bastard".