There was a television show called Who Do You Think You Are? that highlighted a famous person’s journey into their ancestry and they would often uncover surprising, exciting, or heartbreaking events. I just loved that show. I often said that I’d find it equally as compelling to watch if they had pulled random Joe Schmoes off the street to highlight their stories. Everyone has a story.
My parents had three biological children and then they adopted three children. My brother and I came from the same children’s home (from different families). When I was 5-years old, my parents adopted a third child, another girl, to complete the family. Between the biological and adopted, we had three boys and three girls. The span in ages, from youngest (me) to oldest, was 12 years.
Growing up in a big family was fun. I have happy memories, though the two oldest of my siblings were out of the house and starting their own adult lives when I was still little so we weren’t very close until later in my adult years. I remember my brother, Kenny, talking about someday finding his biological father. He never talked about finding his biological mother very much, other than to be able to find his father. For me, I never really cared to search for my biological family, though I did wonder (often) if I had ever laid eyes on my birth mom and if I would recognize her. My sister, Mary, never had very much to say on the matter until her adult years when she converted to Mormonism and it was necessary to research her biological family tree. The problem was that her story began as a baby being abandoned in front of a theater in Seoul, Korea. There wasn’t much to work with…
When I was in high school, my mom approached me to let me know that if I ever wanted to find my birth mother, that it was okay and she was completely supportive. My dad felt the same way. I appreciated them saying so — it was nice to know where they stand — but I still wasn’t considering it.
Fast forward many years… In 1993, I was married and had my first daughter, Danielle. My mom and my (ex) husband would talk about my daughter and somehow it would always come back to encouraging me to find my biological family. So as I would look at my sweet baby and think how strong would you have to be to walk away from your own child, I decided I would write a letter to the children’s home. In my mind, giving a child up for adoption just had to come from a place of real love for that baby, or even love for life. There was no other way.
I sent the letter to Waverly Children’s Home in Portland, OR in November of 1993. I was on vacation when I received a call just after the new years from a woman (Kathleen C, a counselor at Waverly) who told me to sit down… She wanted to preface her news with the facts:
- there is often very little medical history to share because the birth mothers are so young at birth that no medical history is available yet, and
- often these reunions don’t work out because there’s too many expectations on either side.
And then she went on to tell me that for six years she had been corresponding with my birth mother, Kathy. Now that I had given my consent, she could finally give my contact information to my birth mother, who Kathleen said was quite persistent. I was 23-years old at the time. I hung up the phone thinking, “wow, she really IS out there”, as if I had been imagining her existence all this time.
The morning after I returned home from vacation, my phone rang and there she was, my birth mom, Kathy. It was Jan 9, 1994. From that point on, we spoke just about every day and talked for a couple of hours per phone call. We wrote letters and exchanged pictures. And then a month later, she and one of his sisters flew all the way from Portland, OR to visit me in Lynchburg, VA. I look a lot like her so there was no doubt. A year or so later my dad went to visit her in Oregon and he said the first time she giggled, he knew then that she was my birth mother. Anyway, Kathy and I were interested in learning about each other and there seemed to be few expectations, other than openness, on either side.
I was born in 1969 to Kathy who was unmarried and whose boyfriend, Bobby, couldn’t handle the thought of being a father so he broke up with her early on in her pregnancy. She was no longer welcome in the home she grew up in so she lived with a friend until I was born. Kathy doesn’t remember a lot surrounding my birth or afterwards but she does remember making the choice to give me away to a family who was looking to adopt a baby.
Kathy revealed more of the story behind my existence, which I will save for another time. It was heartbreaking. Looking back on that time and trying to put myself in Kathy’s shoes, coupled with wanting to know more about the origin of the BRCA gene mutation and straight up curiosity, it makes me want to do more research on my family tree. I have two family trees, adopted and biological, and they are equally interesting to me. So far I’ve been building up on the trees and have reached information based in other countries in some cases but one of these days I hope to delve into the stories behind the ancestors. With technology being what it is today, it’ll be much easier than it would have been before the internet.
Tomorrow, 1/9, will be the 21st anniversary of having Kathy be a huge part of my life and it has been such a blessing. I’m so glad I finally became open to the prodding of my daughters’ dad and my mom because if it weren’t for that, I might still be wondering about her. The truth is that I can’t imagine not having her in my life and I’m still learning about who I am and where my roots are grounded.
Noble things 