Hello and welcome back to Blogville, my space for sharing thoughts and feelings about stuff. It is often about adoption because, as you know, I was relinquished at birth and subsequently adopted at nine months old. I hold Bachelor of Arts degree in Child and Youth Care from Ryerson University and I enjoyed a multi-faceted career in Family Counselling and Behaviour Management, Adoption Disclosure, and eventually retired as a Foster/Kinship Care and Adoption worker. The feelings I share in my blog are mine alone, though some people might also have experienced similar feelings in their life journeys as well. Today, it is the anniversary of my physical birth, the day I took my first breath. It is also the day I dread all year, and it has never been about my age. Let me share my thoughts.

As I age into my late 60s, my birth-day takes on more significance. I have mentioned before that as a child I had asked my mother if we could celebrate the day they got me (June 19th, the Friday before Father’s Day that year) instead of the day I was born. Not having any training, (in those days they were told to raise us ‘as if born to you’), my mom did not understand the complexities behind my request. Instead, she simply said, “Oh, you just want two birthdays.” No mom, I just wanted to celebrate the anniversary of when I got a mom and dad who were excited that I was born and celebrated that they finally got the daughter they had wished for. I wanted to celebrate being wanted.

When I think of the day I was born I have soooo many questions. Did my birth mother see me, or was I whisked away like I did not deserve to be seen? Did my birth mother hold me, or was I whisked away like I did not deserve to be held? Did my birth mother want to know if I was ok, or did she just feel relief that I was no longer a part of her? If she did not hold me, who did? Was holding me just a part of the job of an exhausted nurse? None of this information was in my file. In my file it simply notes that I was born and she left as soon as she could as she had a family celebration to attend back home. 

In my disclosure file, it is noted that I waited in the hospital associated with the home for unwed mothers for a social worker from my district to come and get me. Outside of being fed, I wonder if I was held while I was there? I wonder who consoled me if I cried. Did I cry? Or did I know no one would be triggered by my cry, that no one’s engorged breasts would tingle or leak milk in response to my cries? Did I wait silently for a bottle of formula that I was scheduled to receive, among a list of other duties as assigned to the nursing staff? Once she left me did my birth mother have to bind her breasts in order to attend that family celebration to avoid leaking milk on her special outfit? Did she grieve? Did I?

People do not seem to understand that it is grief that drives me to want to let the day pass unnoticed, uncelebrated. People mark the anniversaries of when they lost people they loved but they do not ‘celebrate’ them. The day I was physically born marks the anniversary of losing my birth mother, my birth father (unbeknownst to him), and all my birth relatives. I hardly see that as a reason to celebrate. No one cared that Yvonne Marie existed, at least until I was placed with Lena.

Lena was my foster mother. When a worker was finally able to come and retrieve me from the home for unwed mothers I was placed with Lena and her large family. As Lena tells it, she fell in love, but her request to keep me was thwarted by an agency that told her I belonged with a couple who could not have ‘children of their own’ and not with a couple who already had many biological children. When I finally found Lena again, I in my 60s and she in her 90s, she hugged and hugged me, kept kissing my cheek, and gifted me with pictures of myself younger than any I had ever seen before. I consider Lena my first ‘mother’. It is likely she who started the soothing relief from feelings of abandonment, likely she who taught me what love felt like. Though finding out I was loved by a family before my parents got me was special, it did not completely repair the impact of abandonment immediately following my birth. I did not know about Lena’s love and care until I was in my 60s as my mother was never told about how much she had cared about me.

I grieve the lack of information that impacted on me every year on the anniversary of my birth. A baby named Yvonne Marie was born on September 22, 1958 and she had no one; how is that reason to celebrate? A nine month old baby was chosen for a family who hoped for a baby girl, and on June 19, 1959 Lynn Dianne Etmanski was ‘born’. She had found parents to love her; a family to call her own. Now THAT is something to celebrate. My birth parents may have given me life, but my real parents who adopted me gave me a life. 

So you see, not wishing to recognize September 22 is not about my age, it is about celebrating love and acceptance through a family who may not have given birth to me, but who gave me a life. That is what I choose to celebrate so think of me annually on June 19th, when Lynn was born.

Thank you so much for reading my humble blogs. They are often therapeutic for me to write and I always hope that they might reach a person who needs to read my words. Maybe that person is you, or someone you love. As always, you can comment here or you can email me at [email protected]
Take good care and I will ‘see’ you next time. 

Hello and welcome back to my humble blog page. As you know, I am an adult adopted person and a retired adoption worker who has worked with birth parents, adoptive parents, kinship parents and children, including sibling sets, who have been placed in adoption or kinship families. It was my pleasure to have worked for 25 years in this field and I hope I made a difference in my candid approach. 

I have found, and met, many of my own paternal and maternal birth relatives and my former foster mother. One of my maternal birth half-sisters illustrated the book I wrote to help children talk about their adoption and kinship story comfortably.

As you likely know, adoption and kinship used to be ‘taboo’ subjects, so much so, that often families tried to hide the fact that their children and youth were not being raised by their biological parents. Fortunately much has changed, and adoption and kinship families are recognized as simply another type of family. However, though no longer a taboo topic, adoption and/or kinship is often still uncomfortable for many people; sometimes, even the adoptive and kinship parents themselves. My own adoption experience was a strong motivator for me to want to help families learn how to talk with each other about adoption and kinship. I believe being comfortable talking with each other helps family members learn to talk comfortably with others.

As you are probably aware, historically adoptive and kinship parents were often told to forget how the child came to live with them and simply raise them ‘as their own’. As a result, they did not tell the child that he or she was adopted or actually living with kin. Like a domino effect, parents will often talk openly in front of their own children about the adoption of their child’s friend or classmate, risking those children then revealing the child’s adoption or kinship ‘secret’ to others. Sadly this often occurs in an unfriendly or teasing manner that can be a traumatizing way for a child to find out they were adopted. 

Obviously, with many international or interracial adoptions, those parents cannot sweep their children’s adoptive status under the table as easily and, as a result, are often much further ahead in helping their children manage the comments and behaviours of the ‘outside world’ toward their family. Interracial adoptive families prepare their children because they know people will know right away, and want their children will be ready for comments. Often children in interracial families have to be ready for questions like; “Why do you look different from your mom?”, “Why do you talk funny?”, or even, “Where is your real ‘mom’ or ‘dad”?  If the child is prepared with appropriate responses it will help make the interaction less uncomfortable. Another way that children might stand out is that they may have a talent or ability that no one else in their family has. For example, a child may be able to sing in a family where other members are pretty much ‘tone deaf’; or a child may be able to run faster than most of the children in their class, or even their school, when no one in the adoptive or kinship families are athletic.

With kinship families, they may also have had more experience helping their children to manage comments. One example might be when the white haired grandfather arrives with other fathers at an event, and often the child has to manage comments such as, “where is your dad?”, “couldn’t your dad come?”, “is that your grandpa?”. As we know, children are curious and can be brutally honest with their comments and questions. It is only fair to prepare a child or youth living in a kinship family for these encounters. Helping your child prepare is talking about honest responses such as, ‘yes, I live with my grandparents’ and ‘yes, that is my grandfather’ and to be proud that their loved one has taken the time to attend the event.

The bottom line is to prepare your child or youth (and even yourselves) by offering them the proper ‘language’ to respond. 

A good example is the use of ‘real’ in terms of birth parents. Often children are asked if they want to meet their ‘real’ mother or ‘real’ father’. This can be confusing to children as they understand that you (adoptive parents) are their ‘real’ parents even if society does not really make the case for this. When children understand that people asking about their ‘real’ parents actually mean their birth or biological parents I believe it is appropriate to allow children to make a correction during such encounters. With respect, a child should feel comfortable to simply say things like: ‘Oh, you must mean my birth (or) biological parent (birth/biological mother, birth/biological father as appropriate). My parents are actually my ‘real’ parents as they love me, take care of me, buy my clothes and my food, just like your parents do. My parents are sometimes called adoptive, or kinship, or legal guardians. 

In my experience the ‘real parents’ issue does not come up as often with kinship families as the parental figures are often known as, and called aunt, uncle, grandmother, and grandfather by the child. Instead, they are often asked where their mother or father is, (sometimes also referring to their ‘real’ mother or father) or being asked why they do not live with them. In First Nations, Inuit, and Metis Communities often children are living in what is known as Customary Care arrangements. 

Often inappropriate, these intrusive types of questions are sometimes innocent child curiosity while other times they are inspired by comments their own family has made. I think it is appropriate for a child to respond to such inquiries by asking, ‘Why do you want to know?’. In this way your child may find out if it is simple curiosity or if they are asking because of something that child’s own family has asked or said. Once that is established, the child can then decide if they want to answer. In terms of questions as to why they do not live with their biological parent(s) I feel it is appropriate for a child to say that the reasons are personal and should not be shared with other people. 

As always, I thank you for reading my blog and welcome your comments. If you prefer to comment more privately you can send an email to me at [email protected] and I will do my best to respond to you. Take good care and I will ‘see’ you next time.

Hi, and welcome back to my humble blog. I have so many thoughts as an adult adopted person that it just feels good to put them on paper. It is kind of a purge of my emotions and feelings that I benefit from, while at the same time, I believe my thoughts and feelings may resonate other people who were also adopted. Maybe it will help someone to know that they are not alone. Sometimes I focus on the serious ‘side effects’ of my being adopted and other times I am looking at the lighter side of having been adopted. Let’s see where this one goes today.

When I was younger I would have some creative responses to being bullied about my adoption status. As I have mentioned before, as I got older, when other children began teasing me about being adopted, I could use what I call ‘the sex card’. I would look those bullies right in the eye and remind them what their parents had to ‘do’ to make a baby while my mom and dad never had to do such a disgusting thing to become my parents. Luckily both my brother and I were adopted, otherwise that might have backfired on me. I am also lucky that my parents never heard me say that so they never had to make the awkward choice between correcting me or not. Hmmm, as I write this, I also now wonder if that made it easier or harder for my mom to explain ‘the facts of creating a life’ to me when the time came.

When my parents did something embarrassing, as parents tend to do, I was able to remind my friends that I was not biologically related to them. However, when they did something special, like my dad as a volunteer firefighter or my mom’s talent as a seamstress, I was able to proudly remind those same friends that these were my parents. I think of it as a kind of parent claiming. I was too young to have known about the nature/nurture controversy, developed by Francis Galton, who reflected on debates by people like Plato (in favour of nature’s influence on behaviour) and John Locke (in favour of the influences of nurture). If I had, I feel like I would have learned much about growing up as an adopted person by trying to label my specific behaviours. My parents were not as worried about understanding my behaviour as they were about giving consequences for it and/or encouraging it as appropriate. They certainly had no trouble ‘claiming’ me. Like most older adult children, I wish I would have told them how much they mattered to me before they passed away. I wish I would have said that I know now that it must have been hard to compete with the fantasy birth parents I always imagined would have done a better job of parenting me.

I do not think it is unusual for me to have imagined that living with my birth parents would have been a better option, especially if I was grounded at the time. I can distinctly recall pouting in my room, where I had been sent for some infraction or another and sitting there fantasizing that my birth mother, or my birth father would never send me to my room if I only lived with them. I was so sure that my birth parents would be kinder, and more fair than my mom and dad ever were. It never occurred to me that if they were parents to other kids, they would just be normal parents. I even dare to say that, having met their kept children when we were all adults, I now know that they disciplined the children that they subsequently had and kept just like regular parents.

Funny how I did not think about my birth parents when my parents were doing something nice for me. For example, would my birth parents have encouraged and supported my dreams to one day become a famous ventriloquist? Ironically, whenever I performed in public I was always afraid that somehow my birth mother might be in the audience and she would decide to come back for me because I was talented. Even as an adult when I hosted a local television station’s production of a children’s talent show called, “Hey I’m On TV” I would wonder if my birth parents were watching, and if so, would one or both of them recognize some family resemblance and reach out to me? My feelings about my birth parents were always kind of ‘push/pull’. 

I mean they did have an obvious role in that they accidentally created me. My birth mother had created my half-sister before me and chose not to parent her either. When my birth mother found herself in the same scenario she chose not to tell my birth father of her second pregnancy. Instead she left her community to wait out my arrival in a home for unwed mothers in southern Ontario. As I understand it, the umbilical cord was barely cut when she ‘skidaddled’ out of there and made her way back home to Northern Ontario where she moved on as if I did not exist. But I did exist, a tiny little being laying in a cot, amongst other little cots, left behind in a home for unwed mothers. In doing so she unintentionally made my mom and dad proud parents of a little girl.

Thank you so much for continuing to read and comment on my blogs. You can certainly comment here or more privately by sending an email to [email protected]
Take good care of each other.

Hi everyone, and welcome back to ‘Blogville’ which I affectionately think of as our little community where I write about stuff and you read it. Mostly I write about life as an adult adopted person but sometimes I just write about stuff.

Today I want to chat about my recent visit with my maternal biological half-sister. Primarily as a result of the adoption process, I live in Ontario and she lives in Alberta, so you can imagine that we do not see each other too often. We found out about each other and met about 35 years ago. When the Ontario government offered adult adopted people some access to their birth records I requested any information they could give me about my birth family. I remember my mom and I both being shocked to learn that my birth mother had given birth to a baby girl almost exactly three years before giving birth to me. My mom had been told that, three years before I was born, my birth mother had given birth to a baby boy who had been kept by my birth family. As it turned out, that information had been incorrect. All those years spent thinking boys were more valuable than girls driven by incorrect information given to my mom and passed on to me.

Anyway, many years ago now, my adoption disclosure worker excitedly informed me that I had a maternal birth half-sister who had also been adopted. The fact that we had both been adopted outside of our birth families allowed us to be given information about each other which eventually led to our first meeting around 1991. As she and I live far apart we have worked very hard maintain a long-distance sibling relationship. This little blog is about our visit a few weeks ago when my husband and I travelled to Alberta to visit with her.

I sometimes envy people I call the ‘huggers’. I mean I hug loved ones but I am not a ‘hugger.’
Neither is my sister (I’m going to stop referring to her as my half-sister at this point). So once I got out of the vehicle when we finally reached her home, we did the ‘expected hug’ just to get that out of the way. Don’t get me wrong, we were happy to see each other but not in a ‘throw our arms around each other’ kind of way, the way I’ve seen my birth 1/2 sisters comfortably greet each other. To manage this discomfort, we got down to the business of unpacking the vehicle and getting set up in her guest bedroom. 

Oh, yes, I forgot to mention the fact that we are both named a variation of the name Lynn. Ergo the title of this bog, Lynn(e) Squared. Our same name fiasco happened as a result of having been re-named by our adoptive parents. Our birth mother had not named either of us Lynn/Lynne. Some people think that it is kind of ‘neat’ or ‘fun’ or interesting that we both have the same first name. I think it is very sad that two sisters ended up with the same name. I mean it is easy for Lynne and I when getting each other’s attention by using our names but think of my poor husband. Essentially he just waited until he made eye contact with one or the other of us before he spoke. Our children and grandchildren are alright because they obviously call us ‘Aunt Lynne/Lynn’. But there is no denying the awkwardness of often being forced into sharing very personal information; the fact we were relinquished and adopted. 

Anyway, we were happy to see each other as it had been a few years in between our visits. As we visited and did the touristy stuff we started to relax again in each other’s company. Lynne is very athletic, and lets just say, I am not, so she planned most of our adventures accordingly. It was fun going to her grandson’s baseball game and I was able to chat with her son, my nephew, and get to know him a little bit more. As I was watching the game I realized that the boys playing ball were about the same age as Lynne’s sons had been when I met them originally. I felt a little pang as I realized how much she and I missed by only meeting when we were already married with children. We never got to participate in each other’s weddings or eagerly anticipate the birth of our nieces or nephews. Though I was grateful to be in their company at that moment, I felt sad at what each of us had lost. 
Also, as we visited I could see the impact that adoption trauma had on each of us. It was no neon sign or anything but it was clearly there. I saw how each of us compromised with people in a bit of a ‘people pleasing’ way and wondered if it was because of our early abandonment. I think my husband would agree that both of us have somewhat ‘controlling’ personalities but that we were able to find compromise. I believe that struggle for ‘control’ stems from us having had no say in our adoption, or in having been made available for adoption. We talked often about things we have in common as well as how we differ. Each of us have dealt with symptoms of adoption trauma but we are both grateful to have found each other and built a relationship. 

Being with Lynne, walking her beloved dog around her neighbourhood and bumping into people she knows, spending time with her in her community all helped me to ‘see’ my sister’s life. Just talking about our lives, our families and friends, society, politics, and pretty much any topic face to face always makes me feel closer to her. We are very different people and I often wonder if we would be so different if we had been raised together. Obviously this is a question that has no answer because of the fact we were raised separately, but it does sit there like an empty chair. In the few days we had together we laughed, and caught each other up on our lives like many adult siblings do when they are together; like ‘normal’ sisters do.

Thank you for joining me today in Blogville. As always please feel free to comment here or, more privately, send me an email at [email protected]. See you next time.