AnnieAdopted

It’s no secret; I was adopted. I’ve known that I was adopted since I was really young — so young that I can barely remember being told. It’s one of those memories that I think I can remember, but I could also just be making up that memory because it’s so distant. One detail I will always remember, though, is that I was my adoptive mother’s birthday present. Isn’t that sweet??

I was adopted when I was six days old, which coincided with the birthday of my adoptive mom, hereby refered to simply as Mom. Mom could no longer have children of her own due to a complication in an earlier pregnancy, but she desperately wanted a child. So, she and Dad chose to adopt a child. What I was told was that my biological mother was only fifteen when she became pregnant and she knew she could not afford to keep me. The only other detail that I knew was that I was born in Texas. An adoption agency arranged the adoption and on Mom’s birthday, November 28th, she was able to pick me up and bring me back home to New Jersey, where I was raised.

As a child, I thought that I was SO COOL because I was adopted. It was a fun fact that I loved to share. I guess I felt like it made me unique, and everyone was always so fascinated to hear that I was adopted. I loved the attention it seemed to get me, as little as it may have been.

But as I got older and more depressed, I naturally started to question who I was and where I came from. I often wondered what my life would have been like if my biological mother raised me. Did I look like her? What would my name have been? Maybe it would have been Annie! 😉 Did I have any brothers or sisters? Did she even want to know me? What if she wanted nothing to do with me? I remember watching TV shows where the biological mother did not want to be a part of their child’s life at all. I always thought that must be absolutely crushing.

Once I turned 18 and moved out on my own, Dad surprised me with a packet full of adoption-related paperwork. Inside the packet were various papers, such as copies of letters Mom wrote to parents hoping that she would be chosen to adopt their child, hospital records, newspaper ads, and plane tickets. The hospital records would definitely have some interesting information! And sure enough, they did. Inside, I found my birth weight, the time I was born, my bio-mom’s social security number, the name of Bio-mom’s next of kin, and my “name” (Baby Girl [Bio-mom’s last name]). Holy shit. That was enough information to find my biological mother.

I wasted no time trying to find her. I can’t remember all of the steps I took, but I found her phone numbers and addresses at some point. The problem was I was terrified of making phone calls. What if she moved and this isn’t her phone number and address anymore? And what would I even say?? “Uh, Hi. I think I’m your kid?” How awkward. No. I had to find another way. I wondered if she was on Facebook. I found someone with her name and started looking through photos. I asked my husband at the time if her nose looked like mine. He said it did! So then I looked at the names of her family members and realized that I had seen one name in particular in the adoption packet Dad gave me. It was her dad. Her next of kin. This had to be her!

I sat with this information for days wondering what I should say and how I should introduce myself. Eventually, I decided I needed to just go for it. On December 11, 2012, I sent her a message. “Hello. Sorry if this is a little awkward, but i’m looking for someone and i am wondering if November 22, 1988 holds any meaning for you?” That was fine, right? I gave enough information that she would know that date if it was her, and if it wasn’t, then I haven’t given too much away and hopefully it wasn’t too awkward. Now I just had to nervously wait for her reply.

I never accounted for the fact that Facebook placed messages from people who are not your friend into the “Other” folder. Five months later, on May 1st of 2013, I finally got a reply, and that was exactly what had happened. That date held some meaning for her! I elaborated some more and told her that I was looking for my biological mother and I had some evidence that it might be her. She replied that she also believed she could be my mother. From there, I gave her the information that I had from the hospital paperwork to confirm that it was her, and it was. It definitely was!

I was so relieved to have found my biological mother. I was able to get some of my family’s medical history and better understand my own recent multiple sclerosis diagnosis. Even better, I was able to expand my family! I always used to dream of having big family gatherings for birthdays and holidays. But my family lived in New Jersey while I lived in Kentucky, and my husband’s family was not very big or super close. I had dreams of having big family gatherings with Bio-mom’s family. I dreamed about her coming over for dinners and going shopping together and gossiping over the phone while we watch our favorite show. As we talked on Facebook and got to know each other, it seemed like maybe those dreams could become a reality.

Sometime near Christmas, Bio-mom drove to Kentucky and we all got to meet her. It was a wonderful experience. She was silly and funny and my kids loved her. She didn’t get to spend very long with us, however. Meeting her made me want to meet her family even more. If she was this awesome, I could only imagine how awesome her family must be!

So next year, during spring break, we drove to Texas to meet the whole family. I really felt like I didn’t fit in. I was nervous and quiet most of the time, but I did my best to meet everyone. Let’s be honest — they were probably more interested in my cute kiddos. They were so young then! We spent some time outdoors with the family and visited Cadillac Ranch and Palo Duro Canyon. They were awesome locations and we got a lot of great pictures. We even color coordinated and took a nice family photo with all of us. It was truly a great time.

Eventually, under stressful and dismal circumstances, we moved to Texas, and I thought that maybe things were going to be exactly as I dreamed. Instead, I felt like nothing but a burden and a disappointment. We stayed with Nana, Bio-mom’s mother, for a few months. One night I got a very stern message from Bio-mom on Facebook. How motherly. Apparently I didn’t watch my kids enough and we made my nana uncomfortable and made her cry. Wow. Way to make me feel like shit. Not to mention the circumstances that forced us to move to Texas had me feeling every bit of depressed already. In fact, that was probably why I wasn’t “watching my kids” enough. Still, I did my best to watch them better because being a disappointment was too painful.

I also had this idea that Bio-mom would want to spend more time with us since we were finally living within an hour of her. I foolishly thought that we enjoyed each other’s company and I was under the impression that they were a close family. I suppose I expected too much too soon though. After all, I wasn’t really “family”, right? They basically just met me. In reality, I recall very rarely seeing Bio-mom at her own mother’s home. She never came to visit us, it seemed. It was always to visit with her mother, and even then, it felt pretty rare. We were just…there. It was just another one of those relationships where I excitedly waited for attention that never came. What a disappointment.

I tried to remain grateful that we had a place to stay during this hard time. I still am genuinely grateful for that. But after a few short months, I think we all realized that we needed to be out of there and in our own place. Bio-mom helped us find an apartment and offered to help with some of the money to get into it. The family seemed to rally together to get us some furniture and things that we could use in our new apartment as well. It was bare-bones necessities for a while as all of our things were in a storage unit in Kentucky for now. We couldn’t afford to rent a truck to bring it all to us. So, the plan was for the family to help us move a trailer of the donated furniture into this over-priced shit-hole that they helped us find because they needed us out of Nana and Papa’s home so desperately. Then, Bio-mom and her sister were supposed to hang around and help clean the new place so we would be all set and comfy in what would now be our home. Well, that didn’t happen. The family did help us move in, but then we were left on our own. I don’t think any of them ever even came to visit us except for when our kids had birthday parties. And even then, it seemed that they were anxious to get out as quickly as possible. Thank goodness they made an appearance, I guess. I’m literally rolling my eyes right now. We did get invited to other family events as well, though. So, at least we weren’t completely left out. Something felt off, though.

Then, Bio-mom bought her own home. It meant that she would be living in town instead of an hour away. Until this point, I had convinced myself that she wasn’t visiting us because she was busy with work, lived an hour away, and often suffered from disease-related pain and fatigue. So, since she was moving only a 15-20 minute drive away, I hoped that we would see her more often. Bio-mom’s new home needed a lot of work. So, just as they had for me, the family rallied together to help get her home ready to live in. However, one major problem was that the family often communicated among themselves and left us out. We were supposed to just figure it out, I suppose. On the rare occasion that they remembered to include us, we opted to send my husband to help with the house while I stayed home with the kids. According to my husband, the home wasn’t really safe for the kids at that time, and our kids could be quite a handful, so it was best if they just stayed home. I thought this sounded logical, considering I hadn’t seen the home yet myself. So I agreed.

Apparently that was wrong. Once her house was ready for her to move in, Bio-mom was mostly nice, but sometimes short and often seemed a bit pissed at me. Still, I tried to show her that I really wanted a relationship with her. Since we didn’t have our own washer and dryer, I would go do our laundry at her home. While there, I tried to help her clean a bit and spend some time with her. In the end, I felt really uncomfortable, though grateful for her generosity in letting us do our laundry at her home. Still, this motivated me to buy our own washer and dryer as quickly as possible so I wouldn’t need to continue feeling so uncomfortable. I tolerated her short and dismissive behavior for quite some time before finally calling her out on it when she made some snarky remark in relation to a washer and dryer she said she would give us and then didn’t. I told her about the washer and dryer that we bought and she commented about how she would have given us hers if we had helped her out more to get her home ready. How ridiculous, really. I hadn’t done anything wrong. Then, we talked it out and explained ourselves and “moved on”. I say it with quotations like that because, in some ways, I have not moved on. We don’t talk about it any more, and she does not seem to hold it against me anymore; however, it was simply another time when I seemed to fail to live up to their expectations. It felt like I was simply not part of their family, even though we seemingly tried to force it.

In May of 2016, I gave birth to my 4th biological child, my daughter MARCY. Once Bio-mom learned that I was pregnant, it seemed like we became a bit closer. She seemed to be excited about the baby and wanted to be there for all of us. So, when I was in labor, I opted to have both Bio-mom and Mom in the room with me. I was really trying to foster the closeness that I desired, and in thinking about this period in my life, I think I may have achieved that to some degree. When I look back on this time, I don’t have any negative feelings about Bio-mom. I think we were working toward a closer relationship, and I think that my lowered expectations of her helped encourage that for me.

Within months of MARCY’s birth, I decided I wanted a divorce from my husband. I quickly pursued a relationship with another man who was moving to Arkansas, and being the absolute fool that I am, I decided to move there as well. That meant that I was moving away from Bio-mom and her family. Bio-mom seemed genuinely sad that I was moving away. I wanted to believe that she was sad because that meant that she cared. So I told her we would be back to visit for holidays. After all, it was only an 8 hour drive straight down 40. Surely, that was doable.

Except it wasn’t. I had so much anxiety about living in a new place by myself and with so many uncertainties, and to top it off, the anxiety made it very very difficult to find a job to support myself and my children. Who would watch them? Could I even afford child care? Back in Texas I was paying nearly my entire paycheck just so I could have a job. So, with my financial struggles mounting, I simply could not go back to Texas for Christmas that year. I think that really disappointed Bio-mom. I hate that I disappointed her. Damn, I really hate being a disappointment. But here we go again, right?

I suppose me moving away and not coming back to visit was the nail that sealed the coffin on our relationship. Since then, we barely talk. Even our Facebook communications are short and often unanswered, or answered with a quick thumbs up because we’re not even worth each others’ time enough to send a real response. I find it incredibly interesting that she still came to visit us in our new home in Michigan last year to take us shopping for Christmas gifts. Let’s not fool ourselves into believing that the trip was just for us, though; Bio-mom has a very close friend that lives in Michigan and she will often visit this friend, so we’re just a side trip. But let me practice gratitude: I’m grateful that she considered visiting us at all. This is especially true since our communications are abysmal at this point. It’s genuinely shocking that she wants to visit at all. Perhaps there is something there that can be rekindled.

So, what does being adopted mean to me now? Well, at this current stage of my life, it means that I was born to be forgotten. Bio-mom does not seem to remember to talk to me. Mom and I barely speak. I might speak to Dad once every 6 months. Sister #1 and Sister #2 never call or text; I haven’t spoken to either of them since Sister #2’s wedding in April.

Now, I’m sure I could take some responsibility here. After all, I’m able to call too, right? Except the problem is that I am always the one to call. Always. And I’m fucking sick of it. If they don’t care, let them make it glaringly apparent by the fact that they never check in on me. I’m mad about it. How can they all be my “family” and regularly forget about me? I’m tired of always putting in the effort to maintain relationships just to be an afterthought. Why the fuck bother?

Over the years, I have constantly wondered why no one bothers to check on me or visit me. Now, instead, I’ve just resigned myself to believe that I am positively forgettable, and I was born to be that way. The sadness that comes with this opinion of myself seems way easier to manage than the sadness I feel every time I think about how I wish Dad would visit me when I know he visits my sister. It’s better than the sadness I feel when I think about how Bio-mom’s nieces and nephew are more like grandchildren to her than her own grandchildren. And it’s way easier than dealing with the sadness that comes with thinking about how I have to seriously limit communication with Mom due to massive toxicity. It is simply easier and better to believe that I am the cause of my own suffering — I was brought into this world so that I could be forgoten. It all started with being adopted at a mere six days old…