Does Mother's Day make birth mothers blue? YES.

Lorraine

Mother's Day, that extra holiday from hell for many of us, is Sunday. And in some cities and places a new holiday the day before has sprung up: BIRTHmothers Day. (BTW, when is Adoptivemothers Day? We are waiting.)

I've made myself pretty clear about how I feel about "birth mother * celebrations" and "birth mother" cards (nix to both, see links below) partially because they are generally the misguided concoction of adoption agencies to "give back" to the wholesale suppliers (that would be mothers) of the commodity they deal in, babies. I say this with the understanding that the Birthmother Day to be observed the day before Mother's Day was the brainchild of birth mothers in Seattle in 1990.

Part 5: A (birth) granddaughter's rejection turns into a YES!

So, continuing the story of my other granddaughter, the one who was relinquished to adoption. The story so far in brief is this: My daughter, Jane, whom I gave up for adoption, had a daughter almost twenty years to the day she was born (see Learning my daughter had given up a daughter for adoption) and relinquished her to a closed adoption (Part 2: The daughter I gave up for adoption had a daughter she gave up for adoption. As the years passed, she did not want to talk about this daughter, her first, see Part 3: A granddaugher adopted by strangers, the years tick by. Her name is X and the last installment is about how I had reached out to her through the Wisconsin Adoption Search Registry, but got the word back from the state-appointed searcher, Jacy Boldebuck, that she was not interested in meeting me. Part 4: Reaching out to my missing (birth) granddaughter but being rejected....

I failed to note in the last post that I had also made one step in finding her: I listed her birth information that I recalled on the International Soundex Reunion Registry (ISRR) even though I was not sure if her birthday was April 2nd or 3rd, 1986. Shortly after that I got an email from a Mary Wielding, saying that she could find her for me. But it was not my granddaughter herself, and so something pulled me back from telling Mary to go ahead. So I let it be. I understand so completely how it feels to have a fear of searching, thinking that rejection may be at the end of the line, and perhaps I was still raw over the loss of my daughter, who died by her own hand, in 2007. If Lisa was not searching for me, I was not ready to search for her.

And I will add that the need to find my granddaughter was not as emotionally pressing as it was to find the daughter I had surrendered to adoption. That was a killer, and I would have climbed over any legislator's body to get her records, if necessary. I had put all the clues about her birth and relinquishment (date and place, etc.) in my memoir, Birthmark, and hoped that she would find me that way, but it did not happen. I did hear from one young woman who hoped I was her mother, but I was not; an adoptive mother also called me thinking I was her daughter's other mother, but I was not. Time passed. Actually a few years went by, as my daughter was in her early teens in 1979 when I published Birthmark.

With my husband-to-be's and a male friend's encouragement, I put the "order" in to find my relinquished (birth/first/only) daughter shortly before I got married in the fall of 1981. "You're never going to be able to put this to rest until you find her," my friend Peter had said. "You aren't going to go in a grab her, so what's the problem?" The fee was $1,200, which I gladly paid.

But as I said, finding the missing granddaughter was different, and I felt rejected--hell, I was rejected! Because of my daughter's severe PMS and suicide during an episode, she had been contacted but turned down the opportunity to know me. It stung. I retreated.

So, nothing happened for about a year. Then after I began writing about the low rate of reunions effected by the Wisconsin program, and wrote Most Birth/First Mothers Want Contact but still the secrecy lingers on with information on what other women and searchers reported, I again got an email from the same Mary who had contacted me a year earlier. She was reading the blog and wanted again to know if I had changed my mind about locating my (birth) granddaughter. Mary lived in Wisconsin. She assured me she could most likely find her. Linda and I emailed about it. Finally, I said, What the hell, I might as well take this opportunity, maybe it won't come around again. Find my granddaughter, I said, she was born in April, in Madison, in 1986, on one of two dates.

Two days later Mary called me with her name and probable whereabouts! Within the next couple of days I got pictures of her from her high school yearbook and some other basic information, including what appeared to be a current address. She was living in Minneapolis and had graduated from St. Thomas University in St. Paul. She had kept the name--Lisa Marie--that my daughter Jane gave her. I was pleased with that. Because Lisa is biracial, Mary and I were pretty sure we had the right person at her nearly all-white high school. But--now what?

Do I contact someone who has told the official state worker she does not want contact with me? Do I "interrupt" her life? Do I bother her? Am I stalking her? Do I upset her? What? A first/birth mother searching for reconnection and reunion with their "birth" children is what so many people find so upsetting, it was the cause of the recent blowup with my friend, Yvonne. What do I do here? My granddaughter has actively turned down knowing me....

Lisa Marie was on Facebook but oddly enough, neither my husband or I could see her page, or even

that she was there, though other people could. My nephew in Tampa could. My brother in Michigan could. Fellow blogger Linda could. Mary Wielding could. Had she been given the name of her mother when Jacy called her, and looked up Jane's obit? And now, had Lisa simply blocked me and my husband, whose name was also in the paper? That seemed the only logical explanation I could think of.

Nothing again. Months went by--let me see, probably five or six or seven. But Lisa was not exactly an invisible presence in the world. Of course I Goggled her and found that she tweeted, but you had to be invited; she had spoken at a conference on social work in Chicago when she was in college and her picture was on line, she had some poetry in an on-line magazine. I learned that she had supported Obama, been involved in a dance group of some sort in high school, and the theater. I'm a dancer, can't carry a tune more than three or four notes; her mom went from being terrified of speaking to joining Toastmaster's and winning at least one trophy for one of her speeches. I saw that Lisa followed Time magazine on line--hey, I'm a political junkie, to some degree, used to be a newspaper reporter; my daughter's father--her grandfather was Irish--a newspaper reporter, a political columnist and a terrific writer with real flair. All signs pointed to someone--a granddaughter--I'd really like to know. Someone who was, er, more than a bit like me.

Every now and then I'd google her again and one day I discovered she had started a blog. Well, blow me over. The kid writes! My granddaughter is a writer! So I started following the blog, 2speakease's Blog. She writes about the music scene in Minneapolis/St. Paul (her grandfather, Jane's dad was a huge jazz fan, had a collection of hundreds of early jazz records when he died), about her struggles with being an artist, her poetry. I see a link to an adoption site: Adopted & Fostered Adults of the African Diaspora...certainly a political adoption site, something her mother was never interested in except as something I was involved in. She's applying to writer's retreat; she's involved in the black writing scene in Minneapolis; she posts news about readings and publishes some of her poetry. I'm amazed, but still keeping my distance. Incidentally I have very little information about her birth father, so I can draw no parallels to him or his family.

Then on the anniversary of Kurt Vonnegut's birthday, November 11 (and also my deceased father's birthday) she writes about how much she likes Vonnegut and puts in a plug for her favorite bookstore, Micawber's. Well, blow me over. Jane, her mother, worked for Kurt and his wife, Jill Krementz, for a short time one summer as a nanny taking care of...their adopted daughter, Lily. I knew both Kurt and Jill, had lunch with them several times, they came to my house; Jane and I are featured in Jill's book, How It Feels to Be Adopted. This is now getting really freaky, right?  

I left a comment just before Christmas, wishing her a Merry Christmas and adding: I've been thinking about you. It's posted there. At the end of the year, she writes about people using her blog to tell their stories...and she posts her email address. I think about contacting her for a few days, and one night before I go to bed, as I'm drifting off, I know that in the morning I will write her and tell her, in brief, her story as I know it, and about the similarities in our interests. And that is what I do in the morning.

I hit send, and wait. Four or five days later, I get an email back from her.

Dear reader, she is coming to visit in two weeks. --lorraine

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Note: Mary Wielding has been ill and is dealing with cancer. Prayers wanted. And note to Laura, I did add Mary's name in the notice about her on the right in the sidebar, but you did not leave your email that day you contacted me through the comments section.

If you are interested in transracial adoption, you might find In Their Own Voices: Transracial Adoptees Tell Their Stories thought-provoking.

Rachael's Visit

As readers of FMF know, my surrendered daughter Megan and I have had our differences, and we have not been in touch since August. However, several weeks ago, her oldest daughter, Rachael, emailed and asked if she could come for a visit over President's Day Weekend. You can imagine how thrilled I was! Yes!

I first met Rachael, now a college sophomore, when she was nine, a day after I reunited with her mother after a separation of 31 years. Rachael does not consider me her grandmother, however. In answering the question "Who Am I" on her blog, she described her mother's adoptive family as her maternal line, omitting her mother's biological family entirely.

Megan, a devout Mormon, believes that her adoption was God's plan; her adoptive family, the family to which she is sealed for eternity, is her only family. After a public disagreement over whether adoptees had the right to their original birth certificates, Megan (who had searched for me) emailed me and asked me not to send birthday gifts to her four children. (A Daughter's Change of Heart)

So you can imagine my surprise when I heard that Rachael who attends Brigham Young University wanted to visit. I waited anxiously for Rachael at the airport and when I saw her I tried to hug her but she turned away. (I'm actually not a huggy person. The first time I met Megan, I tried to hug her in an awkward sort of way and she turned from me. At our next meeting, I kept my hands at my sides and she reached out to give me a hug.)

Rachael and I came back to my place for pizza and lots of conversation. Rachael told me about her work on an Indian reservation last summer, her roommates, her classes, her ham radio club, what her brothers and sister were involved in. All the things that interest grandmothers.

Saturday, we toured an exhibit about 18th century French art and Mme. Pompadour at the Portland Art Museum. We lunched at a Portland institution, Dan & Louis' Oyster Bar. Trying to sound casual, I mentioned that I had not sent birthday and Christmas presents because her mother had asked me not to. Rachael said she hadn't noticed. Hmmm.

I asked Rachael if her if she had told her mother she was coming. She said she had mentioned it just before she left. She did not seem to be aware -- or at least concerned -- that there were issues between her mother and me.

Over the weekend we soaked in the hot tub at my condo, and had dinner with my husband, Jay. Sunday Rachael went skiing -- her first time -- with my husband, our raised daughter Amy, Amy's son Chris and Amy’s husband Geoff.

Dinner at Amy's (take out Indian food). Back at the condo, we watched part of Edith Wharton's "Age of Innocence" (the Martin Scorsese film) and agreed it was slow. Monday, swimming and a trip to Powell's Bookstore, the largest independent bookstore in the country and another Portland Institution.

Rachael is shy, yet self-contained; like me she wears no makeup and dresses casually. Like her mother and my raised daughters, she is willing to try new things – calamari (aka squid) for example. She seems unconcerned with where I fit into her family or how she fits into mine--maybe that's why it all felt so natural. There was no questioning as in, What am I doing here? There was no reason for naval-gazing about anything because the whole weekend felt so natural and normal, as if we were a typical family, who had not been separated by adoption. We talked about literature, travel, history, even religion and politics. She asked if she could have one of my Hillary buttons for her paternal grandfather who collects campaign buttons. She likes Hillary although none of her friends do.

There were some differences of course, particularly religious beliefs. Differences exist in all genetic families. My raised daughter Lucy loves the Clinque counter at Nordstrom's and raised daughters Julie and Amy prefer action thrillers to dramas which Lucy and I enjoy. Overall, however, our similarities, Rachael's and mine, in style, likes, and personalities outweighed the differences by a long shot. Rachael's visit seemed so normal because it was so natural.

When we were in the hot tub, another resident asked if I was Rachael's mother; "No," I said, "grandmother." I looked for Rachael's reaction but she showed none. Amy introduced her children to Rachael as "Your cousin, Rachael" (sounds like a Daphne Du Maurier book?). Again no response. A note about Amy. When she and Megan met back in 1998, they were wearing the same Birkenstocks and had the same hair style. They sat in the same position and had the same "what's this to me?" look.

When Rachael left, she said she would keep in touch. I haven’t heard from her but kids today are not schooled in manners. Both Rachael and Geoff, Amy’s husband have Facebook pages. Geoff received an email telling him that Rachael would like to be his friend.

I’ll email Rachael in a few days. Perhaps I may even venture into new territory and sign up for a Facebook page.