A Different Kind of Anniversary

5 years ago this week, I talked to my mother for the very first time.

I'm sure she talked to me some time during the three few days we had together in the hospital---she was a young woman not knowing what lay ahead of her, and I was the baby she was saying goodbye to.

But that was long ago and buried in memories I can't access.

After 4 years of searching, amidst the fog of the moment during our first conversation, I think I said, "I've been waiting to hear your voice for my entire life."

I'm not sure. I was trembling uncontrollably and a little buzzed, because I had just downed two shots of brandy (in the AM!) and three pep talks (one from a fellow adoptee, one from my husband and one from my Mom) before I actually dialed the number given to me by the intermediary from the agency.

Before I get anybody's panties in a twist over my use of the word "mother", let me assure you that I'm not disrespecting my adoptive Mom at all. This is how she has always referred to the woman who gave birth to me---as my mother. Unlike many adoptive parents from the era, Mom never felt the need to obliterate my mother's role in my life.

She just scootched over on the "Mommy" chair to make sure there would always be a seat in my heart for the both of them.

Those who like to think they are, but really aren't intimately involved in adoption (like friends, neighbors, siblings, people on the street, etc) don't always "get" this.

For many decades, our society has told us that infant adoptees are blank slates---just waiting to be molded and melded into the perfect [koff] two-parent adoptive family. Luckily, in the last couple of decades, practices have evolved to understand that "nature" is as equally as important as "nurture".

Unfortunately, many Muggles (pop-culture term for those who mistakenly think they "get" it) still hang on to the stereotypes.

Let me set them straight.

I had a great adoption. I wasn't looking for a new family. I wasn't searching because I was ungrateful to the family who opened their home and hearts to me. I have a mom, a dad (now deceased) and brothers who I'm pretty damned attached to. They're my family. We have a shared history, and I love them deeply.

Both of my guys were born with "supposed" genetic disabilities. At the time they were diagnosed, genetic testing only identified 17% of known disabilities.

Those of you who have intact families probably never think twice about this. Why should you? I had no problems myself, but on every medical form I've ever filled out, my family history has been a blank. A zero. The more cynical of you might say that adoptees just need to be tested more often for diabetes or breast cancer or heart disease, etc .

Yeah, maybe so.

But it's a bit too little, too late when adoptees have already had children who have inherited something that there's no test for and is practically impossible to diagnose without a family medical history.

Tell me to my face that I should be grateful for the adoption secrecy, especially when my mother tried to alert my adoptive parents a few years later through the agency that there might be medical issues, and the agency told her take a hike.

I'm not kidding myself, and I'm not ashamed of this either:

I had questions I needed answers to. I needed to know if my mother was ok, and I wanted to let her know that her decision to relinquish me was ok. I wanted her to know that I'd had a good life. As a mother myself, I think the question would have haunted me for the rest of my days, and I wanted to let her know that I was well.

I'm not going to get into the Sturm und Drang over emotional issues for pity, but for those who've been raised in their biological families, I can only say this:

I no longer have to consider myself the top and only link of my genetic chain.

I no longer have to look to my children to feel a biological tie, or to find a glimpse of myself in them to see if we share any attributes, just to have someone who looks like me. I now can see that my oldest has inherited his beautiful eye-shape from my mother, and shares a unibrow (there should be two!) with my biological brother.

Ok, I personally inherited her long and creepy toes too.

To my Mother, on our 5-year anniversary.....

Thank you for being so accepting of my search for you.

Thank you for being so open and honest in answering my every question.

Thank you for being so welcoming and paving the way with the rest of your/our family over my existence.

Most of all, thank you--thank you so much for being my close friend!

I can't tell you how much my life has been enhanced since you've become a part of it.

Happy Anniversary!