My Adoption Story

I was adopted.  I've known this for what feels like my entire life.  I vaguely remember being around 5 years old, having a conversation with my mom and my younger brother about us "growing in mom's tummy".  My mom carefully explained to me that while my brother did grow in her tummy, I did not, but I had grown in someone else's tummy, and then her and my dad were blessed with me being able to come into their family and be their daughter.  It was a simple explanation, and I simply accepted.

I was 19 days old when I was adopted.  I remember hearing the story multiple times of what happened the day I was placed with my parents.  My mom had been working about an hour away, and had called home before leaving work to let my dad know that her car was making some funny noises and she may end up being late. (Seriously, what did we ever do without cell phones?!) My dad told her that it was definitely NOT the day to have car trouble or be late, as the adoption case worker had just called and told him they had a baby girl for them.  (Me.....just in case you hadn't caught on.)  My mom rushed home, they hurried and got everything together, and had me in their arms a couple hours later.

Now, when I was placed, my mom was about a month and a half pregnant with my younger brother.  He and I are 7 months and 1 day apart in age.  To this day, I still get a kick out of telling people that, and watching them try and figure out how that logistically works.  If you look at pictures of the two of us together growing up, we seriously could pass as twins.  Coincidence?  I've never thought so.

To be honest, I can't remember ever having an "issue" with being adopted.  Call it religious beliefs or whatever you want, but I've always felt that I ended up where I was supposed to.  Sure, I had questions at times, and my parents were always willing to answer anything they possibly could.  Back then, though, open adoptions weren't really heard of.  Since mine was a closed adoption, there was never much information given about my birth parents or the situation in general.  

I need to be sure to mention that I had a wonderful childhood, with wonderful parents and siblings.  I have a dad who worked tirelessly to provide for our family.  We grew up in a nice home, and always had everything we needed.  My mom is the person who has always been there.  She was there with me at every doctor's appointment, by my bedside when I woke up from every surgery, and encouraging me through all of my physical therapy visits.  As a teenager, she was always welcoming to all of my friends, and our house became the "hangout place".  My friends could walk in the door, call out "Hey Mom!", grab a snack and head down to the basement.  My parents taught me right from wrong, and are still teaching me today.  They are wonderful, supportive grandparents to my kids, and provide them with the same love and teaching that they provided me.

Growing up, all I knew was that at one point, my birth mom had planned on keeping me, and her family and/or friends had thrown her a baby shower.  She had obviously made the decision to place me for adoption, and when I was adopted, some of the gifts from the baby shower were sent with me.  My parents were given specific instructions not to take me out in public with any of those items, because my birth mom had family that was local and someone may recognize the items and put two and two together, I suppose.

One of the items that came with me was a yellow and white crocheted afghan, which currently resides in my closet.  The most significant one, to me anyway, was a blue and pink baby blanket.  One side of the blanket was a light pink silky material, and the other side was blue with a Holly Hobbie pattern on it.  I slept with this blanket every night.  Literally. Every. Single. Night.  I loved it so much that I eventually wore through the pink silk material side of the blanket.  Luckily, my mom replaced it with another piece of light pink fabric, so I could still have my blanket every night.  I never told many people this, but part of the reason I was so attached to this blanket was because I felt like it was a piece of both my mom and my birth mother that I could keep with me.  This blanket came with my everywhere.  It accompanied me in my pillow on choir tour every summer - all the way to England and Scotland - to sleepovers, and even on my first honeymoon. (That's a story for another time....don't judge!)  When my apartment building caught fire a little over six years ago, most of my belongings were destroyed.....including my baby blanket.  I was heartbroken.  Nothing else that was lost in that fire devastated me more than that.  A little over a week after the fire, I was at my mom's house celebrating Mother's Day, when she handed me a package.  I opened it, and found a piece from my original blanket inside....pink silk and all!  My mom had had the foresight to cut a piece off of my blanket and save it once I starting wearing through the fabric, and I am SO grateful she did!

Most people who are reading this blog, know that I have a genetic neuro-muscular disease called Charcot Marie Tooth Disease.  In most cases, this disease is passed down from a parent, as is the case with my daughter.  Then there are obviously cases of random genetic cases, called "de novo".  Even though I've always been okay with being adopted and always felt as though I was where I was supposed to be, I couldn't help but wonder if there was someone else genetically related to me who also had CMT.  I didn't start personally learning much about my own CMT until I was about 18, and the curiosity about where my CMT may have come from got the better of me.  So I made an appointment with LDS Family Services (the agency my adoption went through) to meet with their director and receive some non-identifying medical information on my birth parents.

I remember being SO nervous walking into that building!  I sat down in the director's office, and he handed me a few papers that had been stapled together.  It was then that I first learned anything about my birth parents.  I learned things like their height, stature, hair color, hobbies, etc.  When I got the page that had family health history on it, there was no mention at all of CMT. I'll admit that I was a tad bit disappointed at that moment.  However, that all changed when we moved onto the last page of notes.  When my birth mother was going through the process of choosing an adoptive family for me, her caseworker took some notes on some of the different comments she made, and these were included in the papers I was being given.  I'm not going to write what those comments were, because they are extremely personal.  But I will say this....I could feel her love for me through those words on that paper.  I knew that she hadn't placed me for adoption selfishly, and that she loved me enough to want a better life for me than she could have offered me at that time.  I sat in that office and sobbed, and the director sobbed with me.   I hadn't gotten the answer I had originally gone looking for, but I got something much better that day.

After that experience, I always knew that one day I would try and search for my birth mother.  The official way to search for a birth parent or child is filled with a bunch of paperwork, a bunch of waiting, and a bunch of chance.  I knew that once I made the decision to do it, I would probably be on an emotional roller coaster for a while.  I don't like waiting!  Anyway, fairly soon after receiving the information I got, life got busy.  I got married, had a kid, divorced, dealt with single-parenthood, got married again, had more kids, etc.  Taking that step was always there in the back of my mind, but I guess life just took priority.  Little mentions of it would come up here and there, like this last November.  I was heading to a CMTA Support Group Facilitator Conference, and I was so excited to get to be with so many other people with CMT for 3 days!  Zuke made some random comment about how it would be funny if one of my birth parents had CMT and just happened to be at the conference and I got to meet him/her.  I laughed at his remark and knew what a long shot that would be, but that didn't keep me from scrutinizing everyone at the conference.

Fast forward to the beginning of February this year.  There seemed to have been an outpouring of people on Facebook posting pictures of themselves with posters detailing how they were searching for their birth parent, sibling, etc.  There was even a local news story about someone who had managed to connect with the person they were looking for through those means.  One night, Zuke and I got into a discussion about whether or not I would ever consider doing something like that.  Emphatically, I said no.  He wondered why, since I had always wanted to locate my birth mother.  My reasoning was that I felt like that was a much too public way to go about it, that I was afraid that it would just open me up to a bunch of messages from crazy people.  We dropped the subject, and I thought that was the end of it.....boy, was I wrong!

A few days later, we were getting ready to go to dinner with my family for my sister's birthday.  Zuke was sitting with his laptop on the couch, and as I walked into the living room, I heard him say, "Oh my gosh!"  I asked him what was wrong, and he said, "Nothing is....wrong."  Real convincing, huh?  I pestered him a bit, and he finally looked and me and said, "I think I just found your birth mom."  I think my jaw literally dropped to the ground in that moment.  There are a million other things that I thought would have been more likely to have come out of his mouth.  I guess our conversation from a few days before had been on his mind, and he kept asking himself how easy it would actually be to locate a birth parent.  So earlier that day at work, he had spent about 20 minutes doing a search, and miraculously came upon a profile on an adoption registry of a woman, searching for her birth daughter, and whose information matched all of the information that I had.  

After pouring over the information on this profile, and doing a million google searches, we were 95% confident that he had actually found my birth mom.  I was speechless, and probably said a total of maybe 5 words at dinner that night.  I couldn't believe it!  Zuke and I both sent her messages through the registry, and sent her messages on facebook.  Then, we waited.  Remember how I said I was horrible at waiting?  Yeah, it was torture!  After a couple attempts and a few weeks of waiting, I had hunted down what I believed was her email address and decided to just send her an email.  Unfortunately, the email was immediately returned, saying the address was invalid.  I started to panic a little bit, and called Zuke, wondering what in the world I was going to do.  His answer?  Just call her.  Um, yeah right!  There was no way I could just call a total stranger and tell her I could possibly be her daughter, right?

It wasn't until the next day that I actually got up the guts to call.  I mean, what other choice did I have?  So, on the afternoon of February 26th, I dialed her phone number.  My heart was pounding out of my chest, and I was shaking like crazy.  And then....I got voicemail.  I hurried and hung up, called Zuke, and he asked me if I had left a message.  No way!  You don't just call and leave that kind of message on someone's phone, especially when you have no idea who might get the message.  I calmed myself down, and about 45 minutes later, I called again.  This time someone answered.

2 minutes later, I found myself talking to my birth mom for the first time!  It was surreal and amazing all at the same time!  We started out comparing stories about the adoption, making sure we were both talking to who we hoped we were talking to.  Thankfully, our stories matched, and it was all smooth-sailing from there.  We talked for nearly an hour, asking questions, sharing feelings about the situation, and just started getting to know each other.  Quite a few happy tears were shed on both ends during that phone call!  We've talked a few times since then, and chat online often.  It's been wonderful getting to know her!

As it turns out, I also have a biological half-sister and half-brother.  We were lucky enough to host my half-brother here for a couple days back in April while he was here for a mission reunion.  That was nerve-wracking, probably on both ends, but it only took a couple minutes with him before we both felt completely at ease.  I haven't yet met my half-sister, but we chat from time to time, and I'm excited to get to know her more.  And in just 10 days, my birth mom will be here to spend a week with us!  I am so excited.....and nervous!  I'm positive that once it's here, all the nerves will melt away and we will have a wonderful time.

As cliche as it sounds, it feels like some pieces of the puzzle that is "Melissa" are being put into place.  I wouldn't change how things have turned out for anything.  I am happy, and I've had a wonderful life and upbringing full of love and lots of blessings.  I am also relieved to know that my birth mom and her family are happy as well.  I feel so blessed and lucky to have been raised where I was and with the family I have.  And I am so excited to get to know these new members of my family and build lasting relationships with them as well.