Sometimes When You Are Adopted, You Want To Know Who You Are.
Apr 09 '02
The Bottom Line Adoption is wonderful for most children and finding the bio family can be as well. But sometimes not.
When I was three years old I was adopted. And I remember the day as if it were yesterday. I remember the black haired woman who came and picked me up in her black/white car, I remember standing up beside her while she took us to go and meet someone. I had no idea who, but I new I was in for a treat. I remember the dress I was wearing, it was yellow with a white collar and short sleeves. I remember going into this big building with green walls on the inside, you know the color Pea Green; and I remember walking down this hall, going into a room and there sat this family. A man, a woman and a little girl with blonde hair just like mine. They had presents too! Are those for me? I wondered, and found out that they were.
They all smiled at me and I smiled back. I remember climbing up into a chair across from the smiling faces and asking them “Are those for me?” “Of course they are.” Said the man. He slid the packages over to me. I unwrapped one and it was a coloring book, the second was crayons and the third, oh the third was my favorite and I still it have it today, the third was a baby doll. She had on a red dress with white pockets and she had short, blonde curly hair. The little girl had one too and I thought “Wow!” I was happy.
These people took me to lunch. We went to the park. We had a wonderful time together. We did these things for three days. And at the end of the three days they asked me if I wanted to live with them to be a family with them. I remember looking at them with such love and wonder and could only nod my head. Someone wanted me, me! And I was going to go home with them.
Very soon after meeting these wonderful people, these people that I would call mama and daddy and sister I did go home with them. Oh I remember that trip like it was yesterday too! We were in this yellow car (maybe all of this yellow is why it is now my favorite color) anyway I could stand, sit, talk, play, laugh, anything I wanted to do. I would sit in the front of the car or in the back, we stopped and ate, and we played. I had so much fun.
When we got to my new home I found a big brick house with a big yard to play in. I got to share a room with my new big sister, which was good since I was also scared. I now had a mama and a daddy a sister and my own room, new clothes, new shoes, new everything. My own toys!
I remember sometime later I went with mama and daddy to see a judge. Now he was this big huge man who sat way up high. To a three year old this was scary. He asked me if I wanted to live with these people all the time. I jumped up and down and told him yes I did. And of course he let me.
For two years it was just us. Mama, Daddy, my sister and me! Then we got my brother, he was adopted too! And I had someone I could beat up on. This was a very good thing. I had someone I could boss around. You see I learned from the best, my big sister had taught me well!
Oh we all had so much fun while growing up. We went to church, to school, had friends and family. And through out the years I learned just what family was all about. My parents gave me all I needed and sometimes they gave me what I wanted.
I remember my first birthday with them. I was four and I had a cake and presents. I had never had a birthday party before. I still have the pictures in frames in my house. I remember my first everything with my new family.
Over the years as we grew up we were always given discipline, love, understanding, good moral values, the ability to choose for ourselves, an education, compassion and so many other things. We always had things to do. My father taught me how to fish, swim, play ball. We worked in the fields, I learned to string tobacco when I was 13 and worked long hard summers doing so. And I loved every bit of it.
The greatest gift of life that I was given was life itself, but the greatest gift my parents gave me was church. Where I learned about God and His Son Jesus Christ. And when I was 11 years old I was saved and baptized and started my walk with God. I was taught respect and how to earn it and to give it. I was taught that loving myself first made loving others easier.
My father being an Agricultural teacher we had a small farm. We had mostly hogs and cows. My siblings and I would show cows and hogs in the local shows at the county fair or county shows. My brother and I always won with our hogs. Always! Of course most of the time we would be the only ones at some shows during the county fair, so there was no one else to win but us. I still have all those ribbons. To be fair, the judge would always let me win Grand Champion. I was the girl you know! LOL, I did always have the best-looking hog between my brother and me, I took better care of mine. So I should have won over my brother each time.
Life was so good. And today as a mother and a grandmother I instill the same morals, the same raising that I was given into my children and know that my children will be the same with their children.
I had always wondered about my other family from time to time and I always knew that I was adopted and it never bothered me whole lot until I became pregnant with my first child. There were so many questions about health that I had no answers to. My father and I put in a request to the judge to get my medical records. He declined the offer. So I spent the next 8 years looking for my bio family. I knew the last name because of a medication of iron that had come with me and the name was on the bottle. At least part of it was. And I prayed for over 20 years to be reunited with my bio family. And one day, back in 1993 I was reunited with them.
Oh the feelings were so overwhelming. I had remembered playing with my brothers before I was adopted, and then one day they were gone. But I had those memories and those memories are what brought us all together. I found that I had 3 sisters and 2 brothers. I didn’t even know I had the sisters. They had all been taken away from our bio mother due to lack of love and care and the girls had been raised in Savannah Georgia in a girl’s foster home and their dad out had taken the boys to Idaho to live. As they got older they got together. And they searched for over 20 years for me as well. And then one day, our prayers were answered.
The first time I met them I was so nervous. It was so exciting. My oldest sister came to Savannah where I lived at the time; we made the news locally as well as statewide. The story carried nationwide in the newspapers. We had so much fun. It was so cool seeing them, their children, finding out what we had all done over the years. My girls and I flew out to Salt Lake City Utah to meet with my oldest sister once again, and to meet the rest of the family. Except one brother that I met first because he lived in Virginia and I lived in Georgia and I was moving to Delaware and we were able to hook up.
Oh the joy and happiness this has all brought me. I am close to my oldest sister and youngest brother. I do not acknowledge my bio parents as mama or daddy because they are not. They are acquaintances of mine and that is that. They will never be anything but distance friends of mine. But as for my brothers and sisters, all is well. We sometimes write or call one another and of course there is email.
However, this is not a very close closeness because there are just to many lost years. But we do all love one another and there are things they just won’t talk about. Too much pain for them! I could not even imagine living in a children’s home or being taken away in the manner in which they were. I was taken by the state of Georgia, but not snatched like they were by the state of their father. There is difference in my book.
I am one of the lucky ones; my adoption was wonderful for me. So many great times in my life and a life that was full of love, learning and doing.
For those out there who are adopted, don’t give up if you want to find your bio family, if it is meant to be it will be. But remember, there is always the chance of a second rejection and you must be prepared for that.
For me my journey started with that Judge who denied the request for my sealed records. Then my journey took me to Atlanta, Ga. to petition the courts to over rule that decision, but I backed out. I guess at that time in my life I was not ready for what I might find. In fact during that time had I gone through with it I would have became the first adopted child in the state of Georgia to have a Judge’s decision over thrown?
A short time later my journey took me to the town in which I was adopted from. My husband and I checked the local library for old newspaper articles on births in the surrounding area as well as that town during the month and year of my birth. No luck.
Then we went to the Department of Family and Children Service’s and the moment I walked in the door those ladies new who I was. After all of those years, they still worked there and they remember me! One of them even called me by name. I was so shocked! And of course wanting to know the reason why? And that reason was because I had been so sick when I came to them and they all thought I would not make it. Of course they knew that I had. And it was wonderful for them to see me after such a long time.
The ladies led me to my foster mother and her family. Where we went out and visited and had some lunch. Today I still keep in touch with them.
After leaving their home I went to the doctor’s office of the doctor who had taken care of me. In hopes that he would have some type of medical records on me and in hopes that if he did there would be some type of name. Unfortunately, all had burned, and once again it just wasn’t time for me. The doctor turned white as a ghost when he realized who I was and told me that he thought I had died and was buried in the city cemetery, no one had ever told him. And come to find out he was dating my foster sister!
My whole family got into the habit of looking at phone books where we traveled looking up the last name and calling those people in hopes to find my family. And then one year my parents were out west on vacation in a place called Pocatello, Id., and there found some people with the last name.
I wrote to them all. One man passed the letter to a sister in law and she wrote me back. In fact several of them did and come to find out they were all related but not to me. But this one sister in law helped me with my search. And she had put into a family tree book their family information and her copy of the book came in.
One day I (May 18, 1993) I got a call from her. She had found my family in the book! And low and behold there was the information about my family and at the bottom of the page of that particular page was a sentence that read “One sister adopted out possibly in 1965, born March 12 or 17 1962, name Leah Kathleen.” That’s it! But we all knew.
So I went to my knees and thanked the Lord, then I called mama and daddy, then I called my husband, then I called the contact number in from the book. And one by one over the next several weeks we all met. I went to them or they came to me. (And the rest you have already read above.)
Keep the faith in searching. But know this and know it well, you can still be rejected again! The pain is mutual on all sides and sometimes that is to great to bare and the bio mother and family may want nothing to do with you. So you must be prepared for that rejection!
There are also various agencies out there that can help you, check your local phone book. And you can hire an attorney if you have the money to do so. Or you can do as I did and trace back to where you came from during the adoption. There are several choices.
I hope that this has helped in some kind of way.
God Bless!
©LKD 2002
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
meleahk
|
 in Online Stores & Services |
 - Top 100 |
|
Member: Leah
Location: Florida
Reviews written: 445
Trusted by: 455 members
About Me:
Proud Mother of a US MARINE! Love Ya Jeffery!
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.