This is my story, and it's my pain, and my pain is real, and I guess I just have to come to terms with the fact that everyone of us has a sad story; we have all had to try to come to terms with things in our own way-try to get some peace, I suppose.
On the outside, my life looks pretty good. On the inside, I'm only now identifying what's gone on, and coming to some conclusions , I guess. I'm a firm believer in timing.. I wasn't ready to deal with this before, and while it's hard, it's just something I have to do, I know you understand that.
I was born in Kinston (or so I've been told, that really hasn't been confirmed just yet), NC. in December of 1972. They say I was in foster care for 6 weeks before I was "placed." I only wonder what that 6 weeks was like. My mom tells me only now, that I was a sad little baby. I couldn't be comforted, as much as she tried, she couldn't make me feel better, even as an infant. They got a phone call that January, my mom and dad.. she was a stay at home wife.. she cooked, kept the house clean, and in all honesty had been devastated about not being able to get pregnant. She was 24. It seemed my whole life that she was so much older than my fmom-when I was young, anyway.. now I see she was barely out of her teens as well and somedays I wonder what would have happened if she had kept trying to get pregnant..would she have succeeded? My dad was 25, had graduated from the University of Va, married his highschool sweetheart. He went into the USAF as an officer, and was a fighter pilot. He was a major before he even turned 30. Anyway, the phone call that January was a social worker, who had a big surprise. She had a baby "ready" for them. They were through the moon, they really were. I think that they had been deceived at the propaganda of adoption, as well, I truly don't believe even to this day, that they had any evil intention toward me, my fmom, or the process itself, they were just naive.
The lady asked if they wanted me. My mom and dad laughed until they cried-of course they wanted me, I was wanted so very much. That should have made an impact in my psyche somewhere, that I was so very wanted. They went to a 'motel' to see me. The lady told them to sleep on it, and to let her know the next day if they'd like to adopt me. They ran home, hurriedly bought things for their new daughter, didn't tell a soul as they came to pick me up. They surprised all their friends that night, telling them to go look at the new crib in my new room and laughed in delight when people would walk in and be absolutely shocked when they learned who I was and why I was there. In my baby book, there are cards along with pictures. Strangers to me now, these people who wrote "Dear Rachel, you are so very lucky Charlie and Georgianne chose you." The baby shower invitation is the very first thing in my baby book. It says "You weren't expected, you were selected." Being adopted was truly never a secret growing up.
From the time I can remember, my fmom was known as a sad and scared teenager. She lived in a (probably) trailer, with her grandparents. I always wondered why that story never included her own parents, a question I still have. She had diabetes. "Probably," she had many relationships and "probably" didn't even know who my father was. If she did, he "probably" didn't even know she was pregnant. I don't really blame my parents for all of these things. I truly think, now, as I've come to find out more information about that time period, that my parents were told whatever the going thing those days were to get adoptive parents onboard with adopting, so they wouldn't feel guilty-I swear we've all been brainwashed. One thing my parents never denied was how very much she must have loved me to give me to a 2 parent family who loved God and could love and provide for me. Now I know that this was the propaganda of the time-but I still hope it's true. Please God, let it be true. Let me be the one whose mom wanted her, and was gypped out of raising me bc someone didn't give her the choice.
With my father in the AF, we moved around a LOT. By the time I was almost 2, we were in New Mexico, where my parents got another phone call. Another baby was waiting to be a part of our family. She was able to come home straight from the hospital. They got so much more information on her fmother than they did with mine. She has since found her fmom, who put in a letter on the very day my sister turned 18. Ten years after that, my sister decided to find her. She has been in reunion. It's turned out fairly well. What I can only admit now, even though I was so happy for my sister at the time, I was jealous. I never ever at that point in my life (late 20's) figured I would ever be that lucky.
My sister was my best friend, we were all we had moving around all over the place. Rachel and Stephie, the 2 adopted kids, the "lucky" ones. She's my very best friend to this day. To say I have some issues, though, is an understatement. Even though I'd die for her, I still have intense rage at how the whole thing played out. Apparently, I was a "handful." I am reminded of this constantly. Even though I'm almost 40, it's still hysterical to sit around the dinner table and talk about how bad I was. How good my sister was. In the PW book, it says that in the environment where there are 2 adopted children, always, the author's experience is that one was the one who acted out, had extreme emotional issues, was the "bad" kid, while the other was sweet and docile and accommodating. It fits us to a T.
By the time I was 11, they could NOT understand what they had done wrong. I never wanted hugs, I never wanted peace, I lied, I cheated, I stole stupid stuff like Lee Press on Nails from Kmart. My grades started slipping. We always went to private schools, so that was a double whammy. To not do well in school that they were paying so much for. Eventually, in my teenage years, I would get into hanging with the wrong crowd, taking entirely insane risks, NEEDED boys to make me feel loved, experimented with drugs and alcohol. Had 4 friends I had been with the entire night die in a car accident ten minutes after they dropped me off, none of it phased me. Fact of the matter is, I so wanted hugs. I did want peace. I wanted to feel like I belonged. Many many times I just wanted my mommy to hug me and not let go, but I couldn't tell her that. I kept it inside, and she didn't offer because by then, I think she was just so tired. That Russian boy that was sent back by his amom a couple of months ago breaks my heart, because I have a feeling that my parents would have done the same thing-I was that 'bad.'
Still, though, they tried. Horseback riding, swim teams, dance, they tried to give me all I deserved. I never followed through, I quit riding horses. I quit swimming. I was on my way and I just quit. I had no desire to be anything. I think I was grieving my entire childhood. They took me to counselors, got me tested,I laughed at the psychologists, told one I hated his stupid hair. I was tested and had an extremely high IQ. They couldn't for the life of them figure out why I was the way I was. Meanwhile, my sister was the golden child. She finished her swimming career at the University of Kentucky. in tenth grade, at the end of my parents rope, they sent me away to an all girls school for a year. I ran away the first day I was there, and I swear, as I was trudging through the woods, all I wanted to do was find my fmom and tell her what was happening to me. They found me 4 hours later, and back to the school I went. I begged my parents to come get me. Now, my mother apologizes often for leaving me there. Since she has read PW, she realizes that is NOT what I needed. I was abandoned, yet again.. I was terrified of life, terrified of everyone. I trusted no one, and yet, underneath this tough exterior, this teenager who had the most beautiful clothes, and everything I should ever want, I just wanted my mommy to come rescue me. I knew, even back then, that none of this was right and the reason I felt like this was directly due to the fact that the one person who should have loved me so much didn't really love me at all. How could she? She didn't want me. That's what they always said. She loved me, she just didn't want me. Insane.
When I was 19, I found out I was pregnant. I had been dating this boy for a lot of my high school years. I thought we'd get married and have babies and life would be wonderful. He beat me up several times, and yet I still loved him. 3 months later, when I was still getting promises of love and change by him, I found out that news, and told him. He hung up on me. Never ever, have I felt so alone. To say that this was a monumental rejection would be an understatement. I was completely devastated. I laid on the floor in my room and wept, curled up in the fetal position. The only comfort I had at that moment was my mom. She would come in and just play with my hair and tell me how sorry she was and how she and daddy would do anything to help me, she just wanted me to get up. I laid like that for weeks, only getting up to take a shower, before I was right back down again. To say I wanted to die is another understatement. Little did I really understand then, was that it was his rejection of me that hurt me so bad. I was a wounded soul. I kept getting left, and I didn't understand why. I was a beautiful girl, I was smart, funny. Why was it okay that I was so disposable? I knew then that there was no way this precious child growing inside of me would ever have this problem. I loved her immediately, she changed my life in so many ways. Scott, the father, never did come back. I eventually got up, started college pregnant, and went on to graduate. In the meantime, I had this precious little Lindsey Christian. I wanted a girl. I didn't want a boy, so that one day he would think of himself a bastard. I fought tooth and nail to give this baby so much love, she would never ever feel the way I had to feel.
My mom was in the delivery room when I had Lindsey. I finally, after years and years, started to develop a good and healthy relationship with my parents. I gave my mother a "gift" that day I had Lindsey. She finally got to see and experience what giving birth was like. Lindsey is still her pride and joy, 17 years later.
I got married, to an amazing guy who adopted Lindsey. Ironically enough, he was the brother of the best friend I had made in that school my parents sent me away to in tenth grade. I guess God still had hands in my life plans-It was a Cinderella story for sure. We went on to have 2 more children, and I swear on my life my husband has never ever even thought of Lindsey any differently than our other 2. She's always known she was adopted , bc I couldn't lie to her. I felt like I could help her navigate through this, because I did have answers for her that I never had. I still had huge hurt and pain from Scott leaving me. I was an eternal victim. I took on the role of taking away my child's pain by making sure she knew that it wasn't because he didn't want her, it was because he didn't want me. At least my baby had her mommy.
I have to get into what eventually was the most defining moment in my life as it is huge, and as an adoptee, I hope you can see where this would be monumental in the breaking down and destroying me, which would eventually lead to my healing, and to where I am now, ready to face these issues and try to find my fmother.
I never had any contact with Scott after the adoption was finalized. Lindsey was 6 months old when it was. I was for the first time in my life really, feeling somewhat normal. I had this beautiful baby, and I was incredibly happy to be a mommy. I finally had someone who looked just like me.. It wasn't that I loved Scott, I know this now, it was that he left me. I never dealt with it. He was another enigma, a mysterious person who was out there, somewhere, and to be honest, I thought one day he'd come to his senses, just like I thought my fmother would. It was crazy, I had this man , this husband who loved me and accepted me (much like my aparents did) but for some reason, that couldn't matter to me, what mattered is the rejection. I wasn't good enough to stay with.
In the summer of 2006, I was on the computer when I accidentally came across news that changed our entire lives. I saw that a local "hero" in a tiny Georgia town was dying with the worst kind of brain tumors imaginable. He was a firefighter who had grown up, gotten married, and truly was the hero of this tiny Georgia town. It was Scott.
I didn't know what to do. I was home sick that dat., Lindsey was in 8th grade, Casey was in 6th, and Kayley was in 3rd. My husband was at work that day-I remember it like it was yesterday. I almost fell on the floor. I don't know how I managed to get the strength to find the phone and call my husband. That was the hardest day of my life so far. I hurt so bad for my husband, because I knew what we had to do. I knew, bc I had been adopted that I couldn't not tell Lindsey what was happening. She knew when she was 18 that we would help her find her ffather. Little did we know that our time had run out and we had a precious 13 year old who was about to get her world knocked upside down.
I called my mom after that, we cried, she knew also what we had to do. In those moments, I think, without saying so, that we all figured out that it was accepted that I needed to find my fmother as well. My mom called down to Ga, and talked to Scott's mom. She told her we knew, and that if Scott wanted it, we needed to defy time, space and distance to get these two people reunited before it was too late. I knew Lindsey would never forgive us if we didn't tell her. It was important for my husband to be the one who broke our baby's heart that day, and in turn, his was broken too. I sat outside the bedroom door and just cried, praying for this man who loved this child as his own, praying for this child who I loved more than my life, knowing it had to be done.
She met him. He told his wife, after he found out he was dying when answering the question of did he want her to find me and Lindsey, and let us know. His response chills me to this day. He said "Rachel was adopted. She will find me, she will know." And I did.
Theirs was a beautiful and sad reunion. It wasn't supposed to be like this. I spent weekends and months that fall, leaving work on Friday, driving 5 hours to get to GA to this man who had betrayed me. All for my love of my child, leaving the rest of my precious family home to deal with us not being there. It really affected us all so very deeply, but it simply HAD to be done.
My precious mom meanwhile, had another whammy for us all that fall. On Halloween night, as I was getting my littlest trick-or-treater ready to go out, my dad called. My mom had been rushed to the hospital by ambulance, after having a seizure. She was diagnosed with the very same disease. They both had brain cancer. I leaned against the wall in the hallway, slid down it, really. 2 days later, I was sitting in a waiting room in Savannah, Ga. her oldest child doing the oldest child thing. Keeping everyone else calm while she was in the OR with half her skull laying on a table, while they tried to dig out the cancer invading that brain that had all her memories, so many of mine, a lifetime being cut out with the cancer. They couldn't get it all. It had "weeds," and the very hard fact of the matter was that the one woman who HAD wanted me had the same fate that the one man who didn't did. They were both dying.
Scott died that January. He and Lindsey packed a lifetime of memories and happiness and sadness in 4 very short months. The last time I took her to see him was the week before he passed away. He held on, for Lindsey. His best friend told him I was on the way, Scott had told me he'd wait. He finally told me he was sorry. He told me he was proud of me for being brave and raising this child. That last week, his brain was liquified, spilling out of his nose. One of his eyes tracked my precious daughter as she would walk around the room. I promised him that my husband and I would take such good care of her. Later, Lindsey would tell me that she thought I needed that more than she did. Another adoptee, so precious, so understanding of the pain we go through, without me even having to say a word. I was able to forgive Scott in those moments. Not for him, but for me. I learned in that time (albeit, I didn't recognize it until very recently) that it wasn't my fault-he didn't know the fabulous woman I had turned out to be. The fabulous wife, the mother, the pillar of a community who did volunteer work, made brownies and worked tirelessly with special needs children. In that moment I guess I figured out that my fmom didn't reject Rachel. How could she know? Her decision wasn't a personal attack on this person who was named Rachel and was taken home on that cold January day from a motel. She didn't reject the person I was. She just didn't have the time or the resources to be able to wait and find out what type of person I would become. After I got my non-ID stuff.. it said she didn't want to see me. She signed the consent forms without" ever even" seeing me. My heart is broken.
A miracle happened that spring of '07. While we were waiting for the latest MRI results, to see what amount of time intense and horrible rounds of radiation to my mother's brain had bought us, my daddy called me like he did the Halloween Night a few months before. The brain cancer was gone. She had been diagnosed with a deadly disease, and somehow, against every single odd, it simply went away.
My family has started the long process of healing since then. I went through a horrible couple of years, only to find my way out of it recently. I had been diagnosed with PTSD, and almost had a nervous breakdown. I had been so strong, this oldest child. I had kept it together for my family, for my parents, then I finally just had to let go.
This sweet, precious woman that I knew I had become was losing it all. Everything I had worked for, everything I loved was in jeopardy because my pain finally just manifested itself. Everything I had ever pushed down, had ever locked away, every ounce of pain I had from that one moment in time that I was taken away from the woman who had loved me enough to let me go, came out.
And so it begins, we have started down the path to find my beginning. We are healing. My relationship with my parents has begun to heal.. See, it doesn't matter anymore why she gave me up. It can't matter if she never wants to meet me. I will find the answers for that little baby who grew up to be an amazing , caring, compassionate and loving woman. I am not that baby anymore, but I'm the woman she has become. It has to matter and it has to be time for me to let the love that I DO have trump the love I've never been able to feel. It's time to have compassion for my fmom, after so many years of anger.I want to tell her I've always loved her, that I've always missed her. We were all victims, of this game called adoption. As hard and emotional as this journey has been, I have to live it. I have to experience all the pain, all the anger. You see, it's not for anyone else, just me. I can't be defined as that baby anymore. I have to be defined as the woman I am today, and no matter the outcome, I will fight for my answers, and fight for others to find theirs as well. Good or bad,that's life.
