Before I Was Me

​Hello everyone and welcome back to ‘Blogville’. This is my place for talking openly about my adoption specifically as well as the practice of adoption in general, with a focus on the impact of adoption on all members of the process. My point of view is mostly from being an adopted person myself as well as my 25 year career in Foster and Kinship Care/Adoption/Adoption Disclosure/Adoption support for birth parents/and a pre-service trainer. Sadly the beginning of my life began with adoption trauma. Let me tell you about it while I sip a green passionfruit tea.

The day I was born, September 22nd, 1958 there were no celebratory cigars handed out. The fact is that my birth father was not even made aware of the event of my birth. The day brought no joyous, welcoming embrace from my birth mother. There had not been months of anticipation of my birth as was the societal norm. In fact, there is no mention in my records of her ever holding me. Imagine never having been held by the woman who created you. 

According to my records, she did arrange that I be baptized into the Roman Catholic Faith; which was done on September 24th, 1958.  However, my birth mother did not finalize plans for consenting to my adoption before she left the ‘home for unwed mothers’ where she had stayed in the months prior to my birth. 

Though my birth mother had already signed a consent on for the agency to make an adoption plan, the witnessing social worker had since left the agency. As a result, the presiding Judge ordered that another social worker locate and meet with my birth mother to confirm that she was still requesting an adoption plan. Given that so much time had passed, and that the worker who had arranged the consent was no longer available to confirm the birth mother’s intent to relinquish her parental rights, the Judge wanted to be sure. After much pleading with her by a worker from my parent agency, and having a judge ordering her to meet with my agency, my birth mother finally agreed to meet with a worker and signed another consent to adoption, relinquishing her parental rights for a second time.

I thought it was important to explain all of this to you so that you understand why an infant whose birth mother never intended to keep and raise her, was being held up in foster care instead of beginning her life with an adoptive family. I thought it was important that you know what happened to that baby before I was me, Lynn Dianne.

I am not sure what the nursing staff at the hospital were calling me while I stayed with them for the first month of my life. So many thoughts roll around in my mind about that. Was I called Yvonne? Was I called baby girl or just baby? Did they just use pet names like sweetie, or honey? There will never be an answer to that question. My first month lived with no identity. Due to shift work, which is the norm for hospitals, each nurse may have even called me something different. It makes me sad to think about how that impacted on the ability of future me to form a secure attachment.

So, to summarize, I was born on September 22nd, 1958. I remained in hospital until October 19th when I was finally picked up by a worker and transported to my home community. This journey took until October 21st due to travel delays, ones that my worker had not been prepared for. Once back in my ‘home community’ I was placed in a foster home, in those days they were referred to as ‘boarding homes’. I was taken to see a doctor as I had been experiencing some medical issues; diarrhea and skin rashes. I was moved on October 30th to another foster home that cared for me until November 14th, 1958. I was again moved to the foster home where I would remain until I was placed with my parents on June 19th, 1959. Remember, at this point I had been cared for by nursing staff, then an agency worker, then two foster caregivers until finally landing in the foster home where I would remain until I was placed on adoption.

Finally, on June 19th, 1959 I was placed with my adoptive family. I am sure you will agree that little baby me must have been confused about attaching to people.  Of note, until my placement with my adoptive family, my workers, caregivers and the Judge had been calling me Yvonne Marie or ‘the infant’. Suddenly people around me were calling me Lynn! 

In those almost 9 months of life I had experienced an extraordinary amount of caregivers. In my next blog I plan to discuss my final foster care placement before my parents got to have me finally in their home. In my case, my experience in this final loving foster home was probably what saved me and allowed me to have a healthy attachment with my adoptive parents. I have met the my fourth and final foster mother and my next blog will talk about that, and what my former foster mother and I meant and still mean to each other. 

Thank you for reading my blog today. I wish I could say that things have improved in terms of multiple placements for infants and children in care, but sadly, this is still not fully the case. I must say there have been improvements but the system is still lacking in many ways. If you think your family might be able to foster a child, you should contact your local Child and Family Services agency and discuss the application and approval process. Maybe you can make a difference in a child’s life. Thank you for joining me today, ‘see’ you next time!