Will the Real Birthmother Please Stand Up?
by Adoptee Louise
The nonidentifying info on my bparents was that they were struggling students, married but with no support from their parents, and they just couldn’t keep me and continue with their studies. I was relinquished for adoption at 18 months old. I had this image in my mind that they were young and passionate and independent, and that the times (1968) were not kind. I hoped maybe I had siblings, and we would all have a lovely reunion.
When I got the original birth certificate, my parents’ ages were 31 and 45! And they were Canadians. The man, R., was pretty easy to track down in Vancouver, and he was very kind about talking to me, but he isn’t my bdad! It seems that Bmom is a little careless with the truth when it’s inconvenient. R. explained that he had been separated from bmom for more than a year when I was born. I have two half-brothers, 4 and 5 years older than me, whom mommy abandoned when she ran off with my bdad. She was never a student in CA; I don’t know where the agency got that fantasy. Apparently when I was born she was trying to get more money out of R. in their divorce settlement, and thought she could pass me off as a third kid, so that’s why she put his name on the birth certificate.
Anyway, he had a current address for my bmom, he still sends her gifts now and then and hopes that she will have more contact with the sons. But he told me that I should try my grandmother first. Like, he was gently trying to warn me that bmom was a bit flaky. I really wanted to meet my mother, so I ignored his advice. I had a friend call her for me, so as to break the news gently, but she freaked and told my friend that I should leave her alone. I let this sit for almost a year, but finally I thought I should at least get her to tell me who my bdad is, I had a right to know that, so I phoned her myself. She didn’t freak but she was very cold and said she couldn’t talk. I figured I had caught her in a bad situation.
Next school break I went up to San Francisco, where she lives, and walked past her apartment building a few times, and finally phoned her and said I was so close, could we meet? She was in a pretty good mood this time, and offered to meet me for lunch at a restaurant nearby. You know how you have fantasies that some day you’ll pass your bmom on the street, your eyes will meet, and there will be instant recognition Mother! Well, I think I could have passed this lady a thousand times and never guess that we were related. There is NO resemblance; I am tall and fair, while she is short and dark. But she saw me and immediately knew who I was (maybe it was the lost and abandoned look on my face?).
So we met, but I was feeling really confused because she was so different than what I expected. If her age on the birth certificate is right, she should have been 52 years old, but she looked thirty-something, and her face and body seemed quite youthful. She was dressed in a classic, elegant suit and wore a lot of jewelry, and she chain smoked during our whole interview. She was quite reserved at first, but quickly warmed to telling me about herself and her life when I was born. But I’ll spare you the details because, to make a long story short, she contradicted virtually every detail of the story later on.
We met 3 times during that weekend, and by Sunday evening I felt as if I had met 3 different women. She is either schizophrenic or a pathological liar or maybe a repressed character actress! Mom#1 was a serious student whose parents had never taken her studies seriously and just wanted her to get married; they always pulled her out of school and finally `made her’ marry R. When she met bdad he rescued her by taking her to CA and helping her `get away from them’ (R. & her parents… & her kids, I presume, but she didn’t mention her sons). Bdad was quite a bit younger and helped her catch up on the childhood she never had (shy smiles). Then I was born and made life too difficult for them, and she ditched me to keep him, but it was too late. She said wistfully that she had lost contact with him long ago and that I would never find him.
Mom#2 was a pretty normal kid of the `60s, smoking a little pot, hitching her way through Europe, thinking that `fatherly’ R. would make her a mellow life. No mention of studies or stifled career; and still no mention of her other 2 kids (I didn’t tell her that I knew about them). Then she met bdad and was `swept off her feet’ in love `for the first time!’. But bdad kept running away from his own life, had abandoned his other partners before her, totally disdained his own parents, lost his job, tried to go to law school but couldn’t do it, started beating her — she really got into her anger over this. Her parents had to rescue her, found her with a shattered arm and broken jaw, but insisted that she leave the baby (me) in CA if she was going to make a new life for herself. She didn’t want to leave me, but her parents made her do it (more anger, no sorrow). She said that bdad ran off to Asia to avoid criminal charges, and (with a disdainful toss of her head) that I would never find him.
Mom#3 was a feisty street smart kid, who defied her parents, trashed school mistresses in several countries, traveled the world, married R. for his money, ditched him because he wasn’t sexy enough, etc. (She smoked and chewed gum during this meeting.) In this version, she rescued bdad from his first wife, and `set him up’ in law school, and she even gave up her two sons (! big eyes), all to set bdad’s life on course. But he wasn’t as smart and successful as some of the other students, so she dumped him (and me) and ran away with another guy. Bdad tried to keep me for a while, and then he put me up for adoption. Mom#3 reassured me that bdad was really sexy and told me several intimate things I really didn’t want to know. And she said that I look a lot like him. Joy. And she again said that I would never find him.
To her credit, she never said that she loved me. She never said that it broke her heart to leave me behind at 6 months, or was it 12 months? Or was I 15 months old when she last saw me? She never had to wipe a tear in telling me these stories. She hadn’t saved any photographs of me as a baby — I don’t know why this chokes me, but it does. She acted like she wanted me to be her new pal. On the third visit I started asking questions about some of the inconsistencies, and she got quite mad at me for asking. She insisted that everything she had said was true, and that she was a very honest person who never lied her defensiveness alone was pretty damning, and what about R.’s name on the birth certificate? Oh, well.
The only thing consistent in her stories was her insistence that I would never find bdad, and her complete lack of interest in me or my life. She didn’t want to hear about my aparents, my studies or my social life. If she felt any guilt or remorse, for me or my half-brothers, she didn’t show it.
I went home, confused and overwhelmed at first. I was so disappointed. I had wanted to find a mother who looked like me, who would hold me in her arms, who would connect me with my female heritage, and what I found was a self-absorbed, lying twit!
I’m glad to say the story doesn’t end there. Last summer I contacted R. again and asked to contact my grandmother. He said he had told her about me (she also lives in Vancouver) and she was eager to meet me! With great apprehension, I finally called her and we had a wonderful chat. She told me my real history, as much as she knew it. We had a number of long phone calls, and finally she invited me to come up to Canada and spend a few days with her and meet my brothers and my other grandmother(!). When my plane arrived, I was met at the airport by two ladies in their 70’s, both tall and fair like me. I walked into their arms and got the most wonderful 3-way hug of my life! It was the most natural thing to do!
It turns out that bdad was an adopted child! He had searched for his bmom while upset over his first divorce, and he had found her in Vancouver and was visiting her when he met my mother. Both of my grandmothers didn’t like this new romance (for its timing) and argued with their children about it, and only succeeded in pushing the two lovers closer together; `the kids’ ran off to CA. The grandmas were completely cut off from communication for more than a year, but during this time they got to know each other and became good friends. When they heard that there was a baby and things were going badly they went down to CA to try to help. Bmom and bdad wouldn’t have anything to do with them, even tho their lives were in total crisis by this time. Both my grandmothers wanted to take me home and raise me, but bparents would not consent.
I told them about the amazing tales of bmom; bits and pieces of each of her stories are true. The part about getting beaten that was her first husband, in Italy, and she had abandoned another baby there! (I love Damsel’s expression, `Oy fucking vay’. What else can one say?) So I have a half-sister as well! R. was her second husband. Bmom and bdad never married each other, although each has been married at least once more since. Bdad does live in Asia now, and travels a lot; I may get to meet him some year when he visits, but I’m in no rush. As far as I can tell, both of my bparents have spent their lives slamming doors on people: their parents, spouses and children. In the emotional sense, they are armed & dangerous!
What gets me most in this whole revolting story is my bdad. I guess I’ve come to the conclusion that bmom was (and is) a nut case. So I’m prepared to accept that she is not in control of her own life. But bdad was a little more lucid and intelligent. Tell me, how could an adoptee, who is clearly suffering from all sorts of personal problems himself, choose to conceive a child that he could not expect to keep? With a lady who had already abandoned 3 children! [Bmom’s comment was that she was `so fertile’ and he always said that `birth control is for losers.’ Hello?] And I’m carrying the genes of these people? Makes me afraid to have kids!
