Luck o' the Irish

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  If you're Irish, have a wonderful day celebrating your pride!  If you're not Irish but adopted into an Irish family (like me), have a great day celebrating your family's pride!  If you're not Irish, then have a fantastic day wishing you were Irish ;-)

I'm hoping that my proximity to real live Irish decedents will cause me to have good luck.  My mom is over 50% Irish and my dad is exactly 50% Irish.  If I was their biological kid, I'd be over 50% Irish.  And lets not forget that my sister is part Irish as well.  I'm surrounded by them.  And I might be English... Hehe!

Some luck might be nice.  I do have some major life events coming up and it's going to take a little bit of luck for them to go swimmingly.  So I need some of the luck of the Irish...  There are plenty of things that could go wrong when I meet my first mother in a little over a week, but so much that could go right too.  I'm going to focus on those things today!

Meeting my first mother could be the best thing that's ever happened.  I might see her and just know she's my mother.  I might feel connected to her in a way I've never felt before, something that non-adopted people take for granted.  Or I might not.  But with some luck, I'll at least feel something towards her.  I could see her and see all these  similarities between us.  Or maybe not.  I am a lot like my first father.  But still, he said there are some decent similarities between us, strong ones even, so perhaps that will be clear to me.  It might be really cool to see my two parents together.  I'm going to ask for a picture.  It might be the only chance I'll get.  Something could go wrong (like that time I forgot to ask for a picture when I was with my first father).  But with some luck Rudy will be able to take a nice picture.  So that could go really really well.  But most of all, I'm really hoping that my first mother and I get to connect as people.  There's something missing from the emails we shared over the past two years, even when things were good, and I'm hoping to find that at our face to face meeting.

With some luck we'll have good weather.  Nice weather as in the we can go for a walk outside somewhere kind of weather.  I don't do well sitting still.  At all.  It seems my first father doesn't do so great with that either. Actually, Rudy doesn't either.  So at least three of the four of us would feel better if we were moving as far as I can tell.  So nice weather would be appreciated.  Also, I can get a bit nervous sometimes, so it would be nice if I was able to control my nerves.  I'm working hard now to prepare.  I'm running, working on being relaxed, and preparing with Rudy.  All of these things are seriously helping my anxiety and I feel ten times better than I did before I met my first father.  I'm hoping to keep these things up.  The last thing I want to do is go to meet her with huge black circles under my eyes, tired and wound-up, and lose my ability to stay present in the moment.  So with a little luck I'll be well rested, calm with an appropriate level of excitement (enough for a healthy glow, not enough to scare her off), and the mental awareness to actually enjoy what's going on and remember it.

I'm not sure if my first mother will want anything to do with me after she meets me.  According to her, it's not me.  So it doesn't matter what I do, she's not going to want anything to do with me.  She's meeting me because she feels like I deserve at least that much.  She's not a bad person at all.  But she's coming because I asked her to.  And once we met, that could very well be it.  It'd be nice if it wasn't, but I have to respect her desire to not have anything to do with me after we meet.  So if that's what she wants, that's what she'll get.  She can control our relationship in the sense that it takes two to be in a relationship of any sort.  She can't control my other relationships though.  Those are mine and mine alone.

With a little luck, next week will go well and things will fall into place.  I hope and wish and pray that it does.  Maybe I'll just borrow some of the luck from my Irish family to get through it :-)

Conversations With Mom

I was thinking the other day about adult adoptees and adoptive parents.  Lots of drama has been happening lately, but what really got to me was the way that some adoptive parents reacted to adult adoptees.  These adoptees, who have been there for me when I was free falling after a stalled reunion a year ago, were dismissed, called names, and told they were unwanted.  By adoptive parents.  I was stunned.  I'd heard of this happening before, but had never witnessed it.  I never thought that adoptive parents would treat adoptees that way.  Adoption is supposed to be about adoptees, isn't it?  Adoptive parent should respect adoptees, adult or not, as someone who was adopted and therefore shares something with their children.  We may not all think alike, but we do deserve to be respected enough as people.

I was blown away.  Mostly because I know some amazing adoptive parents.  My own being some of them.  My mother NEVER would have spoken to these adoptees the way some of the APs were attacking Joy and Von.  She would have been horrified.  My mother is near sainthood in my book.  Not because of adopting me.  Side story time!

A healing statue was brought to a Church near where we live.  Naturally, we want to bring my mother there.  So off we go, even though it's not her best time of day.  We get to the Church, say a prayer, make a donation, have our rosary beads blessed, and sit for a few minutes in quiet reflection.  My mother starts to fade a bit, so it is time to leave while she still has the ability to walk by herself.  As we get ready to go, a family walks in the side door.  They have a little boy who very clearly was sick.  The family is there to pray and hope for a miracle.  My mother sees them walk in and refuses to leave.  She wants to make sure she can say a prayer for the little boy.  She is exhausted.  She hasn't left the house in days.  She feels horrible.  We are drenched from the rain.  But she stays on that uncomfortable Church bench because she wants to say a prayer for that little boy.  He is more important to her, someone she's never met, than the nice warm car.  She's amazing.

Moving on.  Back in July, my mom and I went on vacation.  More like she went on vacation and I continued my attempt at nursing duties.  It was right before the Adoptee Rights Protest, and I was sad to be missing it.  My mother was with it enough to notice I was sad.  She asked me about it, and we had the following conversation.

Mom: Jenn, what's up?  You don't seem yourself.

Jenn:  Oh, I'm fine Mom.  I'm just a little bummed.  My friends are going to a protest in San Antonio but I couldn't go.  I'm just sad to miss it.

Mom: A protest?  What for?

Jenn:  Well, it's to petition the government to unseal birth certificates for adult adoptees.  When you adopted me, my original birth certificate was sealed, and I can't get it without a court order because of the year I was born.  Had I been born before 1972 or after 2008, I would have been able to get that document at 18.  But myself and the majority of adult adoptees in the country cannot access our birth information.  We're the only group in the US who cannot access that information.  I know several people who can't even get passports or driver's licenses because they can't prove they were born in the US.  They need a document for the government that the government prohibits them from having.

Mom:  Well that's… that's just not right.  It's not, you know, fair! (for my mother who suffers from word aphasia, the fact she got these words right is amazing)

Jenn:  I know.  It's not fair.

Mom:  I'm glad your friends are protesting.

Jenn:  Me too Mom.

My mother believes that people should be on equal footing.  She raised me that way.  She believes in equality.  She was the first person to tell me I wasn't "less then" for being adopted.  She taught me to stand up for what I believe in.  She's my biggest fan, and my fiercest defender.  At least she was…  If she doesn't agree with someone, she at least respects the other person as a person, a human, and hears them out.  Without calling them names.  Or telling them they were unwanted. Or saying other nasty things.  I know she isn't the only adoptive parent out there who feels that way.  I've been lucky enough to meet some others floating around online in adoptoland.  And I'm really happy that they exist.  So if you are one of those adoptive parents, thank you for being out there.

I'm very lucky to have my adoptive mother as my mother.  I'm glad that my mother supports me.  She backs me up.  Even when she's sick, she puts others first.  Because that's who she is.  And she's on my side.  For that, I'll always be thankful.

Preparations Part 2

Hope I'm not left out in the Cold!

See Part 1 Here

Yesterday's post was so long I had to break it up in two.  I'm preparing for my third visit with my first father.  Which happens to fall on my birthday.  This could go amazingly well, or really really wrong.  I'm trying to prepare for all the ways it could go wrong.

Now there are several things that could go wrong.  I'm being open about stuff right?  Well I know for a fact that my adoptive father has withdrawn his support.  He's taking everything out on me these days and I hate that, but there's not a lot I can do about it.  I'm the emotional punching bag, the person who stops him from exploding at my mother, and the peace keeper.  I hate that role but it is what it is.

I'm going to tell my mother about meeting up with SinginInTheRain because I promised her that I would.  I'm just going to wait until my dad isn't around.  Mentally, she's a lot more there now than she was a few weeks ago.  Like it's amazing the progress that she's made.  She's almost back to being her old self.  So while she might not remember, she'll almost defiantly remember if I don't tell her. So I'm going to keep my promise and let her know that I'm meeting up with him.  She might freak out and ask that I not go.  I highly doubt it, but it could happen.  More likely than not she'll just be like "Ok whatever" and that will be the end of it.  She might ask to meet him.  If that's the case, things could get complicated.  But we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.  I'm not going to worry about that right now because I actually think her meeting him would be a good thing.  But I doubt it's going to happen.

My grandmother is going to be at my house for the day. You know, THAT grandmother.  Now I've sworn to be honest if I'm asked, but I can't see this ending well for me so I'm going to the "spa" as far as she's concerned.  Which is true because that's what I've decided to do after my visit.  I'm going to need to relax.  But there's a chance she might not come to hang out with my mom.  And because I have the day off, that would be bad because it's a lot harder to find a replacement for her if everyone knows I'm off.  Which they all do.  So if she doesn't show because her leg has been bothering her and she doesn't like driving, I might be stuck.  It's happened before.  The back up plan is to play the birthday card.  Hard.

"It's my birthday and I made plans to go to the spa!  I really was looking forward to this, can you PLEASE help me out and come watch Mom for a few hours?  I just really need a day for myself and it's my birthday and I need to relax."  

It might work.  I hope.  Wow, rereading that I realize I need to clarify.  I love spending time with my adoptive mom.  But it's stressful and challenging.  I don't want to spend my birthday feeling stressed and challenged.  I'd rather be at work than watching my mom by myself all day (she sleeps a lot too so I'd have to keep busy doing other things by myself at my house... not so much fun).  I'm not a heartless witch.  I was told that I'm not allowed to hang out with my mom that day by my aunt who has become like a second mom to me through all of this.  Because she wants me to be relaxed and enjoy my birthday.  It's the one day of the year I get to make it all about me.  So I will.

I could naturally run into problems with my adoptive father.  Who knows where his mind is at these days?  He will probably be coming home to see my mom around the time that I'm leaving.  Because it's my birthday, there's a chance he might want to hang out with me or take me to lunch.  I highly doubt it, but it could happen.  Or he could run to the mall to get something for my birthday and I could run into him there.  It could happen.  How awkward would that be?

"Oh hi Dad.  What are you doing here?  Oh, shopping for my birthday?  Um, cool.  So this is SinginInTheRain, you know, the person I'm not supposed to talk about or mention in any way because you feel threatened?  Well, this is him!  We're having lunch, on my birthday...  So yeah.  Well, we're gonna go.  Me and my birth father [first father].  Love you!  See you at home for dinner!"

Yikes!  That would be bad.  But it's a possibility.  To avoid super awkward situations like this one, I'm going to let him know beforehand I think.  I'm waiting until he's calm.  After I talk to my mom.  So I'll know how she feels first, and then I'm just going to mention it to him.  But he's going to have to be alone.  And I have to have a game plan.  And I need to be prepared to run out of there quick.  And I need to be ready to laugh it off.  I need to be mentally prepared.  And I have to figure that all out QUICK because I'm seeing SinginInTheRain in a matter of DAYS. (Eee!)

Most likely out of all these scenarios is that I'm going to run into someone I know.  This is not just likely, I'd be floored if it didn't happen.  So I'm going to have to introduce SinginInTheRain to someone I know.  Which is going to be interesting because I've never done that before.  And it's going to get back to my parents.  That's just how my hometown is.  You know how there are all these little towns across America where everyone knows each other's business?  I think that we place these towns geographically in our minds in the southern part of the country, or the western part of the country, or at least I do anyway.  Turns out we have them in the East as well!  So that ought to be interesting.  I'm still working on wrapping my head around this one.

Why post about this?  Because I'm preparing for the worst.  I'm preparing for hell.  That way, if something does go wrong, I'll either have a backup plan already in place or at the very least, be mentally prepared for it.  So that's why I'm blogging about this.  Getting ready for failure.  Because then if things go wonderful, it's even better.

Fingers crossed!

Expectations

My first father asked me about expectations last week.  What were my expectations going into reunion?  It got me thinking about what I thought I'd get out of a reunion with him.  I think that so often we focus so much on our mothers, that we forget about the fathers.  I can see why.  Our mothers are the ones who carried us.  They gave birth to us.  It is our bond with them that is debated about in the Primal Wound theory.  So naturally I can see why we so often focus on them.  After all, a woman gives birth so without a doubt she's the mother.  In some cases the father is really unknown, or he doesn't know, or he walks away and can pretend it's not his kid.  So I get it I do.  But I don't think we should always write them off so easily.

I wrote mine off from a young age.  I'll admit to that.  My parents knew about him.  They knew his first name, his birthday (and how young he was), as well as a few traits.  They had family information about both my first parents that they never shared.  Before anyone sees this as an attack on my parents, it isn't.  My parents are awesome.  I love them to death.  And I honestly think they got so caught in in the mentality that I was their kid and nobody else's that they forgot.  They don't see me as anyone else's kid but their own.  So they never looked at the files.  They never thought that I would want to know those things.  And they probably thought it would be harder for me to deal with knowing my first father was in the picture when I was born.  For whatever reason, they kept all information about him from me.  I had to find it on my own.

I never even thought about him until I was a teenager.  I was so caught up in the idea that being adopted didn't matter and hero worshiping my first mother that the thought of him never crossed my mind.  My parents were always really open about me being adopted.  It was never a secret or something to be ashamed of in my family.  But just because it was that way in my family doesn't mean I didn't hear it elsewhere.  Kids can be cruel.  Whenever someone would ask me about being adopted, I'd tell them I was ok with  it.  It wasn't any different, our family just came together in a different way.  And someday when I was older, I was going to find my first mother (who at the time I called my birth mother).  That's when the questions would start.  What if my mother was raped?  What if my father abandoned my mother?  What if she wasn't a good person?  Why would I want to find her someday?  What if she didn't want to be found?  After a while, I started to believe those things too.  I was scared of what I would find, but I searched anyway.

Learning about my first father in my non-identifying information was hard.  I had never truly considered him before.  I never really took the time to think about what he meant to me.  It's silly.  I'm a smart girl.  I know it takes both a man and a woman to make a baby.  I get half my DNA from him.  So I should have thought about it, but I didn't.  I guess it's really hard to picture someone you know absolutely nothing about.  I started digging around online and learned my first parents at some point had been married.  I was thrilled.  I was happy I had come out of something that was good, a real relationship.  Even if they had gotten divorced, they still had a real marriage at one point.  I couldn't have been happier!

Then when I started talking to my first mother, she started to tell me things about my first father.  It wasn't all good.  I know a lot of things about him that daughters don't always want to know about their fathers.  It was hard for me to think about what he would be like when I was hearing things like he was a "player" and wasn't "exclusive".  As we kept emailing, I started asking more questions about him.  What was he like?  What kind of person was he?  I couldn't ask him and respect her wishes to be the one to tell him we were in touch, so I had to go through her.  And she started to tell me wonderful things.  Things like he's a great father and a wonderful husband.  Things like he'd do anything for his family and spends lots of time with his kids.  For someone's who's father wasn’t around all that much as a kid, it was hard to hear but wonderful at the same time.  Yet I had no clue what to expect.  He could after all feel the same way about reunion as my first mother.

I think my expectations have been blown out of the water.  I never ever would have expected that we would have the kind of relationship where we would send text messages back and forth, email and talk once a week, and even that I would have to make sure to check in with him so he doesn't worry.  He's my father and I love him.  I never would have expected that.

Reunion or Relationship?

I've been meaning to write this one for DAYS now but kept forgetting about it. I've been reading a slew of new blogs lately. I found a few new ones, a few older one's I'd missed, and I've been trying to expand on the types of blogs I read (I've been reading blogs over on WP rather than just Blogger, and I've been trying to read more AP and first mother blogs as well). Anyway, I saw the same thing come up on not one, but two of the blogs in the archives. Huh. Interesting. Both of these blogs were talking about reunion. What exactly is reunion? Is it a one time event? Is it more than that? I figured I'd write about what reunion means to me.

I used reunion as a term that represents the state of my relationship with my first parents. I disagree with those who say it's a one time event. I understand where they are coming from. And I understand the need to classify anything after that initial meeting as a relationship, and it is a relationship of some sort. I get it, I really do. But I don't see my relationship with my first mother as just a "relationship". It's not normal. Neither is my relationship with my first father.

I think there are a lot of feelings that go along with searching and then reuniting with one's first family. Those feels have not gone away since I've met my first father. Some of them are less prevalent, but I have yet to meet my first mother. She's not ready yet, and I'm trying to be patient while she works some things out. I'm being respectful, I'm waiting, and I'm praying for the best. A girl can hope right? Anyway, I see my relationships with my first parents (because they are separate which is another post for another day) as being a continuation of reunion. It's been a year and a half and we're still getting to know each other. It's going to take a long long time until I feel like I'm moving past the whole "reunion" experience and get back to normal.

I also think that part of the reason I see it as a reunion and rather than a regular relationship, is because reunion makes it seem more like a special type of relationship. It's not something that most people have to deal with. It's special. It's somewhat unique. Most people have familial relationships. This isn't that because we will never be completely family. We might be sort of family, but I'll never share my past with these people, they did not come to my dance recitals, my graduations, nor did they coach my softball games or put Band-Aids on my skinned knees. Most people have romantic relationships. This is not one of those, although some adoptees do experience this (it's called GSA - or Genetic Sexual Attraction). Most have friendly relationships. We aren't just friends. We are connected deeper than most friends are. We share DNA. We share traits without even trying. I like and do some of the same things as people I've never met because DNA does matter. So it isn't a friendly relationship. Nor is it a hate relationship, which some people do have.

So I struggle as to where to place reunion. I struggle with where it all fits. It's not familial, romantic, friendly, or hateful, so I need some other way to classify it. Thus, it's a reunion relationship. It takes too long to describe a reunion relationship (try saying that ten times fast), so it's easier to just say I'm in reunion. Because that's what I consider myself to be in. I don't see reunion as a one time event. If that's the case, I have not reunited with my first mother. We haven't met, so how could we reunite? And if we didn't have a reunion, then what would you call our relationship?

Thoughts, disagreements, or other ideas?