Unexpected

Hello everyone, welcome back to Blogville. Today I am sipping on an English Breakfast tea as I write to you. It’s funny how I will just be sitting somewhere, minding my own business, when a random thought will enter my mind. For example, I was sitting in the living room this morning when suddenly I wondered, ‘Was I more unexpected than unwanted by my birth mother?” 

Clearly, in the late 1950’s unwed women did not typically plan to become pregnant. It follows then, that I was definitely unexpected. However, my mom and dad’s infertility was also definitely unexpected. Both unexpected events brought some form of grief. I can only assume that my birth mother must have grieved having to go through a second pregnancy and relinquishment of a baby, while I know for a fact that my parents grieved their inability to create a baby and carry it to term. Both scenarios resulted in unexpected involvements with the adoption system. 

I am also quite sure that my birth mother did not expect to find herself pregnant ‘out of wedlock’ for a second time in her young life. I doubt that she expected to find herself subsequently admitted to a home for unwed mothers to be hidden away awaiting my birth. She did not find herself unexpectedly abandoned by my birth father, it was her choice not to tell him of the pregnancy. 

My birth father subsequently received an unexpected call about my existence about 40 years after he had had a brief relationship with my birth mother. Quite unexpectedly, my birth father told the government worker who had contacted him that he was in agreement to speak with me. Now THAT was unexpected. I was pretty sure he would hear the worker out and then deny ever having known my birth mother.

My birth father and his work colleagues of the time had a little tradition. The single men would lend their names to the married men for their ‘romantic trysts’ when working in small communities. As he had misunderstood where I had been conceived he agreed to speak with me to help figure out who my birth father was. At one point in our conversation it occurred to him that it was actually him who had dated my birth mother. Clearly, that was an unexpected realization. He immediately and wholeheartedly accepted me as his birth child, an act I never expected. 

Acceptance by my birth father was never something I expected when I reached adulthood; but then, being rejected as an adult by my birth mother was also quite a surprise. I think I somewhat understood her decision to relinquish her rights to parent me when I was an infant, but I don’t think I ever really understood her not wanting to meet me when we were both adults. Her rejection of me a second time was truly unexpected.

I grew up knowing that my birth mother had had another baby before me. My mom was under the impression that my birth mother had given birth to a little boy and that he had been kept by the birth family who acted as though he had been born to my birth mother’s own parents. I believed my birth brother was being raised as my ‘uncle’ in my maternal family of origin. Therefore, when the adoption disclosure laws changed somewhere around 1989 I started looking for my older 1/2 brother something unexpected happened. 

In 1990 I received a call from a government worker letting me know that my birth mother had actually given birth to a baby girl in1955 and that baby girl was also placed on adoption. Well, that was really an unexpected surprise. Apparently the birth mother and her own mother had given birth fairly close to each other; my birth grandmother had actually had a baby boy, while my birth mother gave birth to a baby girl in close proximity to each other. 

When I told her about it, my mom was surprised to learn that I had a birth 1/2 sister and not a 1/2 brother. This news was completely unexpected. My birth 1/2 sister and I were born almost to the day three years apart. Did I mention that her name is also Lynne (but spelled with an ‘e’)? That was also unexpected.

Again, as the adoption laws changed, Lynne and I gained the right to have our birth mother contacted on our behalf. Independent of each other, Lynne and I spoke with the government worker assigned to us and let her know of our wish to be in contact with our birth mother. Lynne and I had both indicated that we would be willing to meet her privately and not to interfere with her relationship with her adult children. Many birth mothers are afraid of what their ‘kept’ children will think of them when they learn about their mothers’ having had babies before them. Despite our assurances, our birth mother declined to meet us; that was unexpected. 

At our request, she did provide a photograph of herself around the age she was when she had given birth to us, and she gave the worker a medical history update for us. Together with these things she also included a generic greeting card indicating that she cared about us; that was unexpected. 

In my experience, many children who have been adopted make up fantasy birth parents. This is especially true of children who were not provided with much, if any, social history information. 

There is a small part of me that understands adoptive parents making up fantasy stories for their children in the sad belief that this would help their child or children. Therefore, is it so unexpected that children create visions of perfect birth parents who had no choice but to relinquish their parental rights? Often misinformation caused (or causes) a false perception of their birth story, rendering them inconsolable when they learn their unexpected birth story truths. I firmly believe that age-appropriate, true birth history information sharing will actually protect your child.  

Adoption is very different today, thankfully, but there are many shameful historical ‘adoption’ acts such as the 60s Scoop; Irish Famine Orphans; and the American Orphan Trains (to name a few). Learning how these ‘orphans’ were put up on platforms where they could be poked and prodded like cattle was painful for me as an adopted person; as was the fact that siblings were usually separated, never to see each other again. As awful as it was to learn about them, the fact that these orphan trains actually existed until the1920s was unexpected. 

So, all this to say that I firmly believe that a child’s actual birth history should never be made up. Details can be mitigated age-appropriately but the basic story should be true. If you tell your child their whole life that their birth parents sought an adoption plan because they were a young college couple who found themselves pregnant but not ready to be parents, you have set them all up. Imagine how unexpected their true story might be when your child learns it? 

When parents try to protect their adopted children like this, it often causes their children to wonder about other ‘truths’ you have told them over their lifetimes so far. Was it the truth when you said they were smart, or funny, or that you loved them? Their adoption truth, (perhaps mitigated age-appropriately) when they learn it, should never have been complete fantasy. That will make their truth completely unexpected.

Thank you for reading my blogs. I am likely going to be reducing my posts to monthly instead of bi-weekly as I have taken on a short-term work commitment. When that contract is completed I will decide whether monthly works or if I should resume bi-weekly posts. If any of you have any thoughts on this change, please feel free to reach out to me at [email protected]