I have asked a few questions on this forum over the last 3 years while taking care of my parent's issues. It has been very helpful reading all the answers to mine and other's questions.
As of last week my last remaining parent passed away. I am sad they are both gone but also relieved that the toll it took on me is now over.
Now the catch. While cleaning out my mom's room at AL I came across some hidden papers in her dresser. They were rolled up and doubled bagged in her sock drawer. I almost just threw them out with all the other items I was getting rid of but decided at the last second to open the bag. It turned out they are adoption papers for me and my brother. I am 57 years old and never once had any idea that I was adopted.
I'm not mad, not sad, not happy, not anything. I'm just numb. I don't really expect many answers on this forum for this particular subject since it's not really care giving related but I just had to get that out.
I did want to say thanks for all the help over the years.
I have a friend and colleague (also 57, by the way) who had a cousin's child visiting recently from their home country.
The cousin's son (an adult) said, well, it's really nice of you to let me stay here seeing as how we're not really family.
My friend said "come again?" The guy said , well you're adopted. Wait, you didn't know that?
No, my friend did NOT know that.
He's taking it well; immediately went ot 23 and Me to get his DNA done. Is researching possible relatives, to see if he can find out who is bio parents were. But he says that he had the best possible adoptive parents (they apparently realized he was gay before HE did; loved him unconditionally and allowed him, always, to be who he was. Protected him from bullying by children and teachers (he says "I was always a little fairy") and launched him into the successful human being that he is.
Just big (((((((hugs))))))) from me. I hope that you can find your way through this; if you find yourself having difficulties, please seek out counseling; there is NO need to suffer this revelation alone.
Now that you are free of caregiving, do not let this be an anchor around your neck. Now is the time to take care of YOU. Seek the counsel of a good friend, counselor or pastor. I have found a few weird things when cleaning out paper work as well, but I have decided to shred it and move on....as we cannot fix the past. We can only work on today and tomorrow. Hugs to you.
I'm fairly new here and don't know your story with your parents, but I'll assume unless you say otherwise that they were good and loving parents. I'm sorry for your loss, but glad the toll of caregiving is over.
I wonder if your mom kept those papers because she intended to tell you one day?
Did you tell your brother yet?
I don't know what to say except to offer you a cyber hug, and remind you that adopted families are real families. Your parents chose you and your brother with the desire to love you and raise you. They will always be "your parents" just as you were always their child. Nothing changes the love you all shared for a lifetime.
Please be extra kind to yourself during this time of grief and shock with this news.
Yes, I agree with others who state that adoptions--to many families--were top secret. I'm so relieved for you that you had such loving parents! And you continue to be considerate to your brother.
I hope you can find peace in the coming weeks with finalizing your mother's business, taking care of you, and coming to terms with your news. {bigger hug}
I heard a very wise woman once said: "The real parents are the ones that raise you and love you, not the ones that gave birth to you."
From the view of the parents, I think there is a fear that the child will not love them as much once the child finds out he/she was adopted. Perhaps, your parents had this fear and didn't want to tell you.
Er, Mike, just in case you're inclined to try to take this on the chin - don't. It IS an enormously big deal, even if you do think you're old and big enough that you ought to be able to cope.
What are you going to do about telling your brother, just for example? Presumably he was as much in the dark as you.
I should get professional advice sooner rather than later. Adoption agencies can point you to experienced counsellors.
My Mother is my mother but my Dad adopted me. Never knew my bio Dad. I was not told this till I was about to be married. A lot of things made sense. My daughter was adopted by my now DH. We went over seas just after my daughters adoption. To receive a passport, you must prove every name you went by. So, I sent daughters old birthcertificate, her new and adoption papers. No problem. Didn't think to do that for me until the letter came that there was a problem with my birth certificate. It was dated five years after my birth. I then had to ask Mom for my adoption papers. She had destroyed my original birth certificate. The papers were excepted and I received my passport. Do not get rid of those papers. They are legal proof of a name change.
At one time there was a stigma that went along with adoption. I had an elderly Aunt that felt her granddaughter was the way she was because she was adopted. The GD is your age. So, your Mom was probably protecting you.
Just curious, are u and brother full siblings?
One other thing I found out is Mike is not my birth name.
Oh I forgot to answer about my brother. He is 3 years younger than me and was adopted from a different agency in a different state we had moved to. So it seems like it would be almost impossible for us to be connected by blood in any way.
But, as others have mentioned, they came up in the era of adoption being a family secret or even shameful. I can't imagine why it was like that... what would ever be wrong about giving kids a good home they otherwise wouldn't have?
When a friend and her husband were looking to adopt, they had wanted a closed adoption-- no contact at all from birth mother. They were told that would be almost impossible, as they're not done much anymore. In this case, the agreement was birth mom (age 16) could visit once a year with adoptive parents present in a neutral location (they lived in different states). Birth mom knew what state they lived in, but not their address. Adoptive parents could send her photos. Over time the birth mom drifted away and is no longer in touch. Birth mom then had two more kids in as many years. :(
When I was growing up (70s-80s) I had friends who were adopted and the common story was "I don't remember being told; I just always knew."
I don't know if they did this to protect you, somehow, adoption, at least when I was a kid was a kind of "stigma" although I never saw why! I had one friend who was adopted and she lorded it over the rest of us as she was CHOSEN and we were just whatever our parents' DNA made us.
Sounds like mom wanted you to know, but didn't want to tell you. This sounds like something my mom would have done, and I imagine our mothers to be of the same generation.
The 23 and me thing--amazing. My BIL had it done and found out he (so my husband also) was >5% Malawi--so BIL was thrilled to tell his mother (an enormous racist!!) and she flipped out. He doubled down and told her he also knew he was a '9 lb preemie'--meaning his parents "had" to get married. She about passed out, thinking she had kept this secret for 70 years. Big secret; his parents married 33 weeks before he was born and MIL hated FIL with a grand passion---so we all knew long before she knew we knew.
Yes, there is your DNA, which makes you who you are, but your true parents are the people who raised and loved you.
Having said that--my world would be spinning too. We ALL have skeletons in the closet. Luckily, things that were once considered taboo, or embarassing are not even blinked at.
If you choose to seek out your "birth parents" I would caution you that there may be a great chance that their family never knew about you--or it was hidden away. A friend of my daughter's "broke through" a closed adoption and showed up on he birth mother's door one day--no announcement, nothing. The woman's husband didn't even know. It has not ended well and the woman who was adopted felt twice "thrown away" although he adoptive parents could not have loved her more. Tread carefully in that arena--although sheer curiosity would eat at me!
In the 1950's, 1960's and early 1970's, there was still a BIG stigma regarding out-of-wedlock pregnancies, so often the unwed mother would "go visit" an aunt or other relatives because she (the unwed mother) was "sick" and would have the baby while "visiting the aunt". (Or the unwed mother would go "on vacation" or took "another job" way across the country until the baby was born.) Once the unwed mother had the baby, she would return home "cured" of her "infliction". In some cases, the aunt and uncle or friends of the aunt and uncle would "have a baby" (in other words, they would adopt the baby secretly). Only the aunt and uncle and those adopting the baby knew where the baby went to, often the unwed mother did not even know where the baby went. It might be that your mother is/was a close friend of the family and your parents adopted you without telling anyone else. So it is possible that very few relatives even knew that you where adopted.
"Closed adoptions" were normal and "Open adoptions" were frowned upon. It is also possible that other relatives knew that you were adopted, but everyone agreed NOT to talk about the fact that you were adopted. It all depended on the circumstances.
I know of adoptive parents who did not tell their children that they were adopted because they were scared that the children would hate them, the children would love them less, or afraid that the children would feel less loved or even unwanted by both their birth mother and their adoptive parents.
You have some wonderful memories of your adoptive parents. Now that they are gone, it is time for you to take care of yourself and to be kind to yourself.
I'm sorry for your loss.
We had planned a trip to New York and just before leaving I was going to mail the final paperwork for our second child. I didn’t have a stamp and figured as soon as we returned home I would mail it.
We were in NY for 10 days and we attended mass at St. Patrick’s while there. During the prayer intentions I prayed that we would be able to adopt another child soon. I have no idea why I did this, absolutely no idea! I stopped in the middle of my silent prayer to God and told him that I was not going to limit Him, that if He wanted me to have a baby, no matter what I had been through medically (I went through hell and back, told I would never have a baby) that I was open to an adoption or biological child. Then after mass I burned a candle in church as I always do.
Absolutely loved NY, had so much fun but later became very irritable in NY! Nothing tasted right, smells got to me, etc. My brother was living there and suspected I was pregnant because I wasn’t acting like myself but didn’t dare tell me knowing all I had been through.
Came home, my friend came over to visit and told me that I looked awful, exhausted and so forth. She is a very close friend so she is comfortable being honest with me. I said to her that I was tired from the trip. She looked me dead in the eye and told me I was pregnant! I thought she was crazy. She insisted I go to the doctor. I bought a pregnancy test, was pregnant and was in shock! 7 years of fertility issues! I remembered my prayer in mass. I feel God was preparing me for being pregnant. I was already 3 months along when I went to doctor.
Horrible high risk pregnancy, I almost lost the baby, I almost died but we made it!
I volunteered at highscools to speak about adoption. I served on my local auxiliary board for years with an adoption agency. I allowed the students to ask me questions after my presentations. I wanted them to feel comfortable with me. I told them they could ask anything they wanted to ask.
Great questions from those kids! One girl said, “My aunt is 40 and having a baby. Isn’t that too old?” Haha! I was 40 but have never looked my age. I giggled and told her, no! and that I was 40 when I gave birth to my child.
But the best question that day was from a young man who asked me if I loved my biological daughter more than the one I adopted.
At first his question crushed me, (I didn’t show him his question hurt) because love is love to me and there is no difference if a child is adopted or not. I love my kids the same. I was so glad that he asked me that because I had the opportunity to share that with the class. I told him it was a smart question and I was glad to tell him the answer and that I appreciated that he wanted to ask me instead of assuming or wondering.
I miss my outreach work. I also worked with birth mothers and had them tell their side. It was healing for them. They were comfortable with me because I knew both sides, adopted a child and gave birth to a child. My love is absolutely the same for both!
You sound like an amazing son and I am sure your parents loved you. I told my daughter very young. I wish you and your brother had been told.
A long time ago some adoptive parents did not know how to handle it. People are better educated now.
I had a closed adoption because open adoption wasn’t legal then. I would have welcomed an open adoption and told my daughter if she wants to meet her birth parents that I would never see it as a threat. We are secure in our relationship.
There is no right or wrong here. Follow your heart. Be at peace.
You don’t say how old your mom was or what her life was like, but for some reason, some parents of a certain era thought it was a great idea to have family secrets, especially from their kids. Nowadays, 11 year olds, like my grandson, are a whole heck of a lot more savvy and aware than we were at that age. We were kids longer if that makes sense. Adoption now is touted as a wonderful thing, something to be proud of. It’s common. But back then, apparently you needed to be very secretive about not being able to bear children. No one even considered letting the adopted child know just in case there were genetic conditions and diseases that should be passed along. I remember I had a friend back in the late 50’s and 60’s who was adopted. She was actually pitied by my parents and their friends. Now, it’s like “Oh, you’re adopted? Wow. Cool. Let’s go play Legos.
Right now, you’re grieving your mom’s death. You are understandably numb. But don’t discount these papers. There may be people out there who want to meet you, you know? And some day you may want to meet them.
Just one more thing. I’ve shared this before. When my mom was in the midst of a delusional episode in the nursing home,she made a comment about my grandfather’s death and how he “had the right idea.” “Huh?” I thought. Dying of a heart attack was the “right idea”? But it bugged me so much I went home and found his death certificate. And found out he’d committed suicide by hanging himself. It had been hidden from me for 50 years. Even as an adult. I was very angry at my mother and my relatives for hiding this from me for all those years. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself becoming angry as well. They had their reasons for hiding these things, and to them it made sense. Took me a long time to realize this.
I “lost” an adoption when her birth mother decided to give her to another family, and the loss was like a death to me.
Breathe easy, Good Child, and cherish memories of those who loved you!
My DH donated sperm for artificial insemination when he was unmarried in his thirties, and the ‘contract’ was that it was never to be revealed. When the ‘contract’ was overturned legally, he found that he had fathered twelve (over the limit, but apparently he was a great donor). We started to find out about that when the first child contacted him from another country (she sent him a pair of socks with New Zealand sheep on them!). Many donor children find out in difficult circumstances, when their parents’ marriage breaks up or when there is a genetic health issue. For children who have difficult teenage years, the knowledge that they are ‘not really’ their parents’ offspring can make their rebellion even worse. I wrote to one teenager who was seriously upset, saying that stories about the princess in the swineherd’s cottage are part of folk lore, because so many people have that ‘I don’t really belong here’ feeling. For some, not knowing at that stage might actually be the best option.
None of us live in our parents’ world, or completely understand what and why some things seemed best to them. Focus on the good bits, and treat this as just one of the things that have made you unique. Yours, Margaret
And I'll throw this in too. She kept those papers. 'Double bagged' in a sock drawer? May be going to far, but maybe she, on some level, wanted you to know? But maybe loved you so much she was afraid she'd hurt you? I don't know how your relationship was with them. Just a thought. (that maybe I should have kept to myself)! I wish you well.
Dad was the only child of immigrant parents from two different countries. He grew up without any family other than his parents. 6 months after his Mum died we got a phone call, "Is this the Tothill residence?" And the man at the other end pronounced the name properly.
Long story short, Dad discovered his father had had two other families and abandoned both of them in the UK. Dad had two sisters and a brother, but did not find out until he was 54 years old. It is unlikely that my grandparent's marriage was legal, (no evidence that grandpa divorced wife number one nor wife number 2).
To make it worse my grandfather always told people how he wished he had more children, as if my Dad was not enough.
Dad was gutted to learn his parents had lied to him to their death beds. It was too late for him to connect with his oldest sister, but I am in touch with her grandson. He was able to meet his younger sister and brother via phone calls before they passed away.
I know this is not the same as learning that you were adopted, but family secrets can be devastating to learn at any age, and it is so much harder when the parent is no longer there to answer questions.
I wonder if they had intended to tell you guys and trying to find the appropriate age so you could understand and then life happened and then they felt that they waited to long and didn't want to disrupt their loving, happy home. Just a thought.
I always planned on adopting a half dozen children, from the time I was 15. I always felt that I had enough love to share with very special children that The Lord would give me. I married a man with children and decided that I would never make them feel like he left them to have another family, I don't have a heart to hurt children. I am happy that we didn't have children to interfere with their lives and make them feel less to their dad. However, I would have loved to be mom to little people that needed a mom.
I am happy for you that you were loved and cherished by your parents. The information you found really changes nothing as far as your life goes, what a blessing to be raised by people that sought you out and loved you unconditionally.
What a tale you have to tell.
Again, I am sorry for the loss of your mom.
Now you have to think about whether or not to seek out your biological family, and consider the implications of that. And wonder about siblings, as well.
I cannot imagine the inner turmoil you are experiencing. I hope you are seeking counseling to help sort out your feelings about all this.
Im sorry for your loss. You were loved enough to be adopted by these people and raised by them. It seems they wanted the best for you, they must have done what they thought was right.
Ill be keeping good thoughts for you.
I remember my shock at age 10 when my parents revealed that Mom had been married before marrying our Dad, and that our older sisters were hers, but not his, and that he had adopted them. This meant they were not our full sisters. (We also had another brother being raised by her brother, but that's another chapter!) It took some getting used to! I wish counseling had been an option at that time, back in the 60's. Instead it was, Welp, your whole lives have been based on a lie, happy birthday, now go play.
I may be romanticizing your story a bit, but here's my take on it. I think your Mom meant for you to find those papers. The fact that they were double-wrapped indicates the care she took to protect them. But it seems to me that she must have promised someone never to tell you that you were adopted, and she kept that promise. Who was so important to her that she kept that vow to her dying day? Surely it could only have been your birth mother - someone who held a deep hold over her. Someone that she loved dearly. A sister? A friend? Or was making and keeping that secret a condition of the adoption? In any case, your mom was a woman of her word, an honorable woman. How blessed you were to have been raised by her! She never *told* you. Yet she knew you and your brother had a right to know. She has trusted you with this information. Now it's your turn to do the right thing.
God bless and guide you going forward, my friend.
I find out from my eldest sister a few years back now that my dad had been married previously before he met my mom. I had assumed everyone else in the family knew but found out they didn't.
When my mom passed four years ago we were all freely discussing stuff and everyone was in shock when they found this out. My mom never liked to discuss personal things and I often wonder if there are other things I don't know. Not that dad being married before was a big deal as I never got to know him anyhow.
I think it's good that you know maybe. Was it a private adoption? The reason I ask is there may be medical history things you may need to know one day perhaps. If someone has already asked this, disregard.