Originally Posted by christie0918
I was adopted at one day… well; actually 33 days if you count the first 32 were spent in the hospital considering I weighed in at a hefty 3.02 oz… quite a feat for 1970 in that I survived.
My parents told me I was adopted at about age 5. I remember running across the street to my aunt’s house, bursting through the front door and interrupting my cousins’ board game of Probe, “Did ya’ll know I am A D O P T E D?!?!?!?” My aunt’s jaw hit the floor; apparently my mother had neglected to tell her they were going to explain it to me. I went on to explain, “I am special. I was picked out. They chose me. They had to take Lonnie (my youngest brother) whether they wanted him or not.”
I was the answer to my mother’s lifelong dream of a “little girl.” My brothers, their natural children, were 16 and 15 when I arrived on the scene. You can tell from pictures that it was more that they “put up with me” as opposed to sharing in my parents’ exuberance.
My mother often tells the stories of literally hiding me when strange cars would pull into our drive that first year – because she just knew that my birth mother had changed her mind and decided to take me back.
Two years later, my youngest brother arrived… my mother had thought she was in menopause rather than that she was pregnant. My oldest brother married that same year, and in effect, we had “two families.”
Over the years, my mother (an undiagnosed bipolar) reminded me umpteen times how much expense and effort they endured to have me. It created an unspoken internal pressure in me to excel… in sports, in academics… you name it – I had to be the best.
It also made me feel defective. If only I had been _________ (fill in the blank), my birth mother (unwed teen) would have kept me. Couple this with the early realization I was gay…well, I have spent most of my life trying to be, prove something.
It was also apparent that I was a rotten brat. In as much as I felt at the time there were double standards between what was acceptable for me vs. what was acceptable for my brother, I can look back today and realized that I was just incorrigible in so many ways. If I didn’t get my way, I would merely start to pout and when the crocodile tears started rolling down my cheeks, I would say something about, “If I wasn’t ADOPTED…” O.M.G. I woulda buried me in the backyard.
I found my biological family when I was 23. I was pregnant with my son at the time. I had been on the “list” (in TN, there was (maybe still is) an Adoption Search Dept within the Dept of Human Services) since I was 21 (the legal age to search).
My story is slightly different than most in that my biological parents went on to marry and have two other children. We are all exactly 18 months apart in age. My sister (3 yrs younger) and I are as close as we can be… sometimes more so than others. My brother and I don’t speak at all. Our Uncle had told my sister when she was about 18 that I existed, so she wasn’t surprised when I surfaced. My brother, who up until that moment had been the oldest, would have the first grandchild, etc… well, he was less than pleased. Our noncommunication is a mutual decision. I have met him – even attended his wedding… but the bottom line is that we have no commonalities except we were born of the same two parents.
My birth parents and I… well, its almost like a penpal relationship. We communicate really well through my sister! LOL I think they and I both keep some distance out of respect for my parents.
My sister… oh my sister… She is the living breathing younger (straight) version of me… we look alike… and when we are with my bio mother, its like looking at the same woman at three different ages in her life. We speak alike, using the same patterns and expressions… even though she was raised in Florida and I in TN. My handwriting is nearly identical to my bio mother and even she has trouble telling my sister and I apart on the phone.
I never went looking for another set of parents… or even siblings. I looked for someplace I belonged – somewhere I fit. My parents and brothers… I never “fit” – my brothers all looked like my father… all had olive skin, brown eyes and hair… and then there was me… redheaded, freckles, buck-toothed as a beaver and so very tall…I liked Blues music and have an aptitude musically… They all like old Country or Southern Rock and can’t play any instruments… They all are very gifted artists… can draw most anything and my stick figures look like that of a child’s. They love wet, dripping saucy ribs and I want dry ribs…
Then I meet the bio family. I was born in Memphis. My grandmother still lived in the family home. When I drove down to meet them all for the first time, my Nanny Hazel looked at me, hugged me tight and said that she had waited for that day for 23 years. She then looked at my son’s father and said, “I don’t know who the hell you are but you look like a son of a bitch to me.” HA!!
I FIT!!! She led me to the dining room where my bio father was playing a blues tune on the upright piano and low and behold, there was a platter just overflowing with DRY RIBS from Bozo’s BBQ!!!
I FIT!! I really fit!!
Nature? Nurture? *shrugs*
I know this has been lengthy, but in as much as we have baggage from being adopted… and not all reunions are like Oprah… I think that the mediocre stories need to be told too.
Christie
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