Hello my Blogville friends, welcome back. Let’s brew a cup of tea and visit a while. You have no idea how much your visits mean to me. Being adopted, as you likely know, creates a trauma. Not every adoptee struggles with their trauma so it’s important to note that my feelings are mine alone and that I do not speak for all adoptees. However, in case other adoptees may feel this too, I feel it is important to say things out loud, so they know they are not alone. I also think it is important that you know I was raised in a loving home with loving parents just as I imagined my birth mother had hoped for me when she chose an adoption option. 

That being said, let’s talk about rejection, real and imagined. This is a tough one for me because rejection has been a big part of how I see the world. Whether how I feel and respond to rejection is part of my psychological make-up, or maybe it is simply because I was adopted, remains an unsolvable mystery really. Like an armadillo, or a turtle, when faced with rejection I tend to curl up and expose my hard shell in order to protect my soft “underbelly”, which is akin to my vulnerability.

When my birth mother agreed to go away to a home for unwed mothers I consider that it was  not a rejection of me, but rather of the concept of single parenting, in that she did not, or could not, even consider parenting me. After all, she had no project manager, aka the position of father, to help her make this critical parenting decision. I will never fully know how much of this rejection was driven by her, and how much was driven by her parents and/or society’s view of single mothers at that time. Ultimately though, she was not able to, or not willing to, apply for the position of mother that I had available. I was not yet born, so at this point I feel that she was rejecting the idea of ‘parenting’ itself, not the idea of parenting me specifically. That brings me some small comfort.

Sadly, there are no words written in my file about whether or not she saw me at, or following, my birth. I do not know if she ever knew, or wanted to know, how long I was or what I weighed. I will never know if she looked into my eyes, her daughter’s eyes, when I was born. I do not know if she held me, heard me cry, or even looked at me. All I know is that she was very anxious to leave the facility and return to her home community to attend an event being held in her parents’ honour. So some days I picture her holding me in her arms for the first, and last, time as soon as I was born, and of course I picture her crying. Other days I picture a woman giving birth, a propped up sheet preventing her from seeing the baby and in my mind I hear her begging to see me. As part of that fantasy the baby is quickly covered with a sheet or towel and whisked away, the last sounds the baby hears are of her mother’s cries. Solely because there are no details available to me about my birth, or any time spent with her following my birth, I am left with only my fantasies, never knowing the full truth. 

It cannot be denied that one confirmed rejection came in the form of the decision to relinquish her right to parent me. When she made that final decision I was already born, so that would have been her first rejection of me as a person. Those consent for adoption forms she would have had to sign required my being given a name, which in turn, gave me an identity. She had given me a name, so I existed now. Sadly, just like the moments following my birth, I have no information about contact, or lack thereof, during the brief time she and I were at the facility together. I often wonder why I can never know any information about whether she and I ever met or spent time in each other’s company when I was born, yet I can know for a fact she signed a form to relinquish her parental rights. Seems unfair.

Once she returned to her home community her family began preparing to move away and have a fresh start somewhere else. Her parents’ goal was to settle in a new community where others would not be aware of her having had two babies ‘out of wedlock’. She had given birth to my half-sister first, born in her home community three years before me, and then gave birth to me in another community. As a result of my birth half-sister and I being born ‘out of wedlock’ she and her family ran the risk of being rejected by their whole community in those days. Instead, they left for a new community, off to a fresh start, our birth mother, birth grandparents, birth aunts and birth uncles; leaving the memories of us behind. 

While my birth family was preparing for their move, I remained in the clinical setting of the hospital, according to my records, rejected by my birth family and abandoned by the agency mandated to protect me and my rights. I was born on the 22nd day of the month and my birth mother discharged herself from the home for unwed mothers on the 26th day of that same month and returned to her home community to get packing. There was a plan in place for a worker from my home agency to attend the home for unwed mothers to pick me up and return me to my birth family’s community to begin adoption planning. My records indicate that three weeks after I was born the Mother Superior wrote a curt letter to my home agency commanding that they come and get me as the facility needed the cot for “other unwanted babies.” It was hard to read those words in my file.

So I think you can see how rejection is my greatest fear. Who knows if it is because the people who created me chose not to parent me or if it is simply a part of my genetic make up. Perhaps it is a combination of genetics and life experience; again, nature/nurture at work. It still affects me, even now in my 60s. I know there are other adopted people out there who feel it too. We are not alone. 

It is important to note that I do not remember any specific feelings of rejection as a young child. I do remember feeling a bit weird when my mother would talk about her miscarriages and her lost dream of motherhood. Then she would retell the story of how she and my dad had attended mass one Sunday when a visiting missionary talked about adoption. He talked about how many children exist in the world waiting for families to adopt them and love them. According to my mom, she turned to my dad and said that maybe they should look into that. I have always felt loved by my parents but somehow always felt a little bit less worthy of their love than my mother’s lost babies would have been. Sometimes it felt like I would always be second place in a bizarre bid for my mother’s affection between me and those lost babies. I want to be very clear here, these are feelings created by my own emotions, not in any way by my parents’ behaviour or their messaging to me. 

As a result of my adoption story I struggle with rejection. Meeting my birth half siblings left me in awe of the people my birth parents chose to raise, and constantly comparing how we are alike and how we are different.  When I am left out of plans by friends, how can I blame them when my own mother did not want me? When my husband and I have disagreements I feel that I’d better change or fix things before he rejects me too. I live in fear that I might do something to alienate myself from my children or their life partners. Even sometimes writing these blogs leaves me feeling vulnerable to the possible rejection of people who may be reading them. But you know what my Blogville friends? You Are Worth The Risk! If you benefit from joining me here then that makes me happy. In closing I want to say, “We are adoptees, we are awesome and we are meant to be here!”

As always, I look forward to your comments here, or via email at [email protected]! See you next time in Blogville! 

Welcome back to Blogville my friends. Today I’m drinking a hot chocolate with a nod to Northern Ontario winter adventures. One advantage as an adoptee is that I was able to be raised in the North by my adoptive parents, as my birth family had moved to Southern Ontario following my birth. Read on to learn what I would have missed out on . . .

My husband and I were both raised in Northern Ontario, and we raised our four children to adulthood in Northern Ontario. We have experienced the benefits of winter activities both as participants and as spectators. Northerners do not let winter travel stop us from driving from community to community for activities like hockey tournaments, curling bonspiels, skiing, swim meets and a myriad of other types of competitions! Therefore, winter stays at Northern Ontario hotels when there is also a tournament in that town are always adventurous.

Just curious, have you ever stayed at a hotel in Northern Ontario in the winter? If you have, you will likely relate to this blog. If you haven’t yet, this blog should help prepare you for your first time. Recently, we took a trip down south with a stop halfway. When we arrived and saw that trucks and trailers had reduced parking spaces by half in the hotel’s lot, that was our first clue that our overnight stay would be an adventure. When we finally squeezed our truck into a remote spot, and exited it, we were immediately surrounded by the distinct smell of snowmobile exhaust, classic Northern Ontario! Bath and Body Works should look into that unique scent for a candle, maybe they could call it ‘Northern Winter ‘. We could gift them to friends and relatives about to come north for the first time. Or gift them to homesick college and university students or former Northern Ontario residents. Just a thought.

Anyway, we hurried towards the hotel building and when the main entrance’s automatic doors slid open to welcome us, we were hit with the unique odours of empty pizza boxes and hockey equipment bags. An odour that can only be found in Northern hotel lobbies! I feel I should note that no candle product should be created to smell like a hockey equipment bag does. Happily, the new smell of pizza made us quickly forget the odour of the snowmobile exhaust.

While my husband checked in at the front desk I took note of the stack of at least 50 pizza boxes in the ‘breakfast nook’ area and the haphazardly placed chairs filled with hockey parents laughing and debating the wisdom of the tournament organizers. Even after a four hour drive south on a snow-packed Highway 11, we were clearly still in a Northern Ontario hotel. It was apparent that we had unknowingly booked ourselves a room at a hotel in a tournament-hosting community so we prepared ourselves for the trek to our room. We shouldered some of our luggage and were wheeling the rest toward the bank of elevators when we suddenly stopped, looked around while listening carefully, and realized that there was not a child in sight in that very busy lobby area. Uh oh.

We loaded ourselves and our luggage into the elevator and selected our floor. After a few moments the doors opened and we instantly realized that we had found the children who had somehow become separated from their parents in the lobby. Here they were in the hallway, just outside of our assigned room. It is a well known fact that hotel hallways are the perfect venue for practicing wrist and/or slap shots. After all, the space at the end of the hallway is just a little wider than the standard hockey net opening. In addition, the walls and room doors act as great sideboards. It is important to note that not having a goalie in net will potentially save any teeth (aka chiclets), from a hallway slap shot. This significantly reduces the risk of having to drag a hockey parent out of the hospitality suite for a trip to ‘Emerg’ to get their child a stitch or two and maybe a dental consult. 

Having had experience with hallway hockey practice during many previous Northern Ontario hotel stays, we planned precise timing for our trip from the elevator to our room while using our wheeled luggage like goalie pads to prevent injury. Finally we were safely ensconced in our hotel room without injury or penalty and we started to relax. Very soon we noticed that the ‘kapow, kapow, kapow’ of the hallway hockey practice was suddenly drowned out by the revving sound of snow machine engines being warmed up outside in the hotel parking lot. To Northerners, this is the ‘white noise’ that helps us fall soundly asleep.

A dedicated Northern Ontario snowmobile enthusiast will often travel to many different regions in the north to enjoy their sport. These adventurous folks load up their snowmobiles on trailers, attach the trailers to their vehicles, and then drive for hours, often on treacherous northern highways, for the thrill of riding on another snow packed, tree-lined trail in a different region from their own. This is a passion I do not totally understand, but, to be fair, my snowmobile experience is rather limited. My last ride was straight up the side of a steep hill, then suddenly falling backwards, machine, driver and me, rolling back down the hill like a sad reenactment of the Jack and Jill nursery rhyme. As a result, I cannot relate to the thrill of the ride, but I do understand that snowmobiling is a great way to embrace our Northern Ontario winters!

Before calling it a night, but to avoid another hallway hockey adventure, my husband and I decided to order a pizza. Sigh, it was a two hour minimum wait time for pizza delivery.  By way of explanation for the unusually long wait time, a seemingly frazzled staff member stated, “Sorry ma’am but there is a hockey tournament in town.” Thinking we might be able to risk going out to pick up some food, we ran to the window and were saddened by the view of a very full parking lot. Driving to find food would likely mean no parking spaces left upon our return, well except for the one or two spaces between the commercial garbage bins in the back lot. Oh, and it had started to snow. Lucky for us there was a Tim Horton’s restaurant (you can’t get more Northern Ontario than that) and a small convenience store within walking distance of our hotel. 

Waiting for a break in the hallway hockey game we carefully made our way back to the bank of elevators. Once the elevator doors opened, we cautiously negotiated around the water puddles left on the elevator floor by the hotel guests whose children were competing in the regional swim meet, also being hosted by this northern community. We waved to the desk clerk and told him that we were on our way for a short walk to go grab some food. Looking appraisingly at our footwear he told us to watch our step as the sidewalks and roads were pretty icy. We thanked him and made our way out of the lobby. “Watch out for skidoos” he called out to us in additional warning as we were exiting through the automatic doors. “Don’t worry, we’re Northerners” we called back as the doors whooshed closed behind us. 

I hope you enjoyed my little Northern Ontario travelling tale. Thanks for joining me for this blog. Please feel free to share your comments with me either on the blog page or more privately by email at [email protected]. I love hearing your thoughts.