Writing My Wrongs

More Freewriting Drawn from the Past

“We cannot change our past. We can not change the fact that people act in a certain way. We can not change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.” - Charles Swindoll

The talk had begun to fade by the time I returned. But I knew what they were talking about.

Me.

They always talk about me when I leave the room. In hushed whispers, with their eyes cast down, their cheeks away from me, they converse. I know what they say. I have overheard their muted mumbled tones. It is the same way they talk about the Big C. Cancer. As if a quieter tone somehow protects you from the reality that you could one day get cancer.

"Did you hear Martha has…..cancer?", says my aunt, making a point to whisper the "C" word the same way they whisper the words they use to refer to me.

Slut. Whore. White trash. Sinner.

I have heard every single word. Those I have not heard, I have imagined on my own.

A few friends and family members are bold enough to confront me personally. I respect that. Even with a snide or offensive tone they had the strength to ask me about my child. A few will dare to ask me what I did and why.

"How could you give your daughter away? Who DOES that? (Oh, right, YOU)"

"Why were you sent away?"

"Where did you live? Was it awful there?"

"Why didn't your parents help you?"

"Where is the father? Do you KNOW who he is?"

"Did your father beat you when he found out? I heard he called you a whore."

"What did Father Pcolka say to you? Are you allowed back in church?"

"Why didn't you have an abortion? You should have just killed her. No one needed to know"

"Did you know that Sarah isn't allowed to be seen with you? Her parents worry that being sexually active and getting pregnant might be catching."

But these people in front me, this family of mine, these brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles, they prefer to whisper. They whisper as if I cannot hear or as if I am not present.

Unfortunately, I am.

A Freewrite Based on Experience

"Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away." Elvis Presley

And then it all came rushing back. The smells, the sounds, and the temperature of the maternity home.

I stood across the street from the grey stone building and was transfixed. I felt as though I had been thrown back in time.

As the door opened on the building that was now the Depaul University Theatre Annex, several students exited.  I stood and watched them. Instead of seeing young, vibrant college students, I saw the ghostly apparitions of the unwed teenage mothers that had once called the building "home".

Molly, from Michigan, was returning home from the hospital. Clad in dark leggings and a dark black oversized shirt, she was helped from the car by her social worker. Her dark eyeglasses and the cane she carried gave her the appearance of a blind person. She wasn’t blind of course. She was three days post partum.  Three days had passed since her hip had been dislocated during the birth of her son. She looked terribly sad. She could barely walk and if you looked closely you could see the tears that fell from her puffy blue eyes. The eyes, now flecked with red from the strain of crying, were a stark contrast against the glasses and long mane of blonde hair.

A jovial, Lorna Jean, 8 months pregnant, rushed by Molly. Lorna had to work at the consignment shop to pay for her stay at the home.  She was often late and this frustrated the other shop workers. She had no time to stop and talk to Molly about the birth of her son. She yelled a quick “hello’ followed by a wave and waddled down the street towards the shop.

Patsy, the house mother, appeared on the scene and was startled to see Molly. As Molly struggled with the door and her social worker struggled with her bags, Patsy attempted to make small talk.   Would that make things better? Would that make Molly forget the fact that she had just given birth and had surrendered her son? Would that silly chit chat from the mouth of Patsy help Molly’s broken hip (and heart) heal faster? Would it make her forget what had been done to her and son?

More images flashed before me.

One student left the door open and I could see inside. The plush dark blue carpeting suddenly morphed into the old grey and blue vinyl tile of twenty years ago. I could hear the clack of my wood soled silver loafers I wore during my pregnancy. I shuddered at the sound of Sheree’s shuffling her feet on the stairs above.

Peering in and down the stairs I recall the dining room and the box of fuzzy oranges.  Food was regularly delivered to the pantry and overflow was left in the dining room. It was always cold in there. It was Chicago in the winter and it was a basement. You could leave food out for days and it would be chilled.

A box of oranges was left there. Abandoned, like a mutant fruit bowl on the floor, for the expectant mothers to take from. Only no one saw the mutant box of fruit and within a few days the oranges turned fuzzy with brown mold.

I can smell them now.

Join Us and Meet Me!

Honored to say that I was invited to participate in the "Meet The Bloggers" session at the Adoption Ethics and Accountability conference on October 15th, 2007.

I have the priviledge of joining ThirdMom, my girl Claud, Mirah, my friend Bernadette and many others at this conference.

Give me a shout out if you will be there! Would love to meet you!

Click the animated badge to the right to get more info on the conference.

I am so pleased to be able to share, network, talk with everyone, anyone, that will listen. As a mother who lost her child to a notorious baby broker, known for coercive and intimidating tactics, it seems only fitting that I should attend a conference on Adoption Ethics and Accountability.

If the loss of my daughter, my pain, my horror can help one baby stay with his/her mama, then I have not only helped myself, but generations of that family.

See you in DC.

Caramel Colored Eyes and a Heart of Gold

"What children take from us, they give…We become people who feel more deeply, question more deeply, hurt more deeply, and love more deeply. " Sonia Taitz, O Magazine, May 2003

Curriculum night. Magnet school. Mom and Dad on scene. Kids in the school provided childcare for the evening.

Mom visits the Essentialists while Dad visits the kindergarten. Swap time. Mom visits grade 4 while Dad visits Essentialists.

Mom walks to class room. She is early. She admires the kid’s artwork on the walls of the hallway.

Silhouette cutouts and stories line the wall approaching the fourth grade. Instructions are posted directing parents to find their child based on the silhouette and the anonymous story.

I am Mom. I find my son. I smile. I recognize his hair, the little scoop of his cupids bow upper lip. I smile and for a moment the beautiful face of my son flashes across my mind.

I begin to read his “anonymous” description of himself.

“I have caramel colored eyes…” (He does).

“I love hockey, football and watching Dale Earnheardt..”

“I love my cousins, my parents, my brother and my sister” (I gasp. He always, always remembers her in all his school projects. How can he love a sister he has never met? ).

“I am the middle child”. (I start to cry. Technically, yes. He is the first child for his father and I but he is my second. He is very aware of this).

My son. My darling, amazing, beautiful, caramel color eye son.

How much time does he spend thinking about his absent sister? How is he affected by her lack of presence? What does he feel that he does not share with me? How it is that validation comes from the most unexpected places?

On the way home, I compliment him on his silhouette and his description of himself. He is in the backseat. It is dark. He is prone to talking a bit more when it is dark and I am not looking right at him.

“I love how you mentioned your sister” I say.

“Of, course I wrote about her. I always do. She is part of the family. I always include her”, he says.

(I start to cry).

“That’s sweet. I am sure if she knew she would appreciate that” I say. I don’t really know this but I am secretly hoping it would be true.

“It means a lot to me that you think about her, write about her and talk about her. Thank you for that.” I continue.

“MA! She is MY SISTER! Its no big deal”, he counters.

Maybe not to you sweetie. Maybe not to you. But to me, the mom, the mom without her child, the mom who had her motherhood taken from her, its huge. Thank you for giving it back to me.

I love my son.

Content Warning

"Always go to the source and discover what the truth is."- Anon

I am not one to get all bent by the birth, barf, birfmudder, labels. I know who I am to my daughter and your labeling or demonizing or dehumanizing me to the level of an incubator reflects more on you than me. Those slurs and associated vitriol generally roll off the tongues of adoptive parents who refuse to accept that they profited off of someone else's trauma. I get that. Guilt is a bitch to deal with.  I get that too. But again, it rarely phased me. I just write off those people and don't let them bug me.

For this reason, I have often felt confused when other mothers did get all up in a hissy about the BM (not to be confused with Bowel Movement) terminology. My sisters who dislike it will say the term is triggering to them. Again, I scrunch up my face and go "huh?" cuz it doesn't phase me. It is not triggering to me (altho I don't use it). However, when they say it bothers them I respect it and I do understand what they mean behind the intent. One person can say "birth"mother and mean it with the utmost respect and the other can say "just" the birth mother with total venom. Its the latter folks that usually need to be slapped. (By the way, its no different with "adopter". I use it as a verb, one who adopts, others use it as some sort of slur. I have adoptive parent friends who aren't phase by the term and agree, they are an adopter and then I have adopter friends who despise it. As always, I say use what you are comfortable with. Facts are fact. Mothers, Fathers, Adoptive Mothers, Adoptive Fathers)

But again, for me, truths defy labels. I am my daughters mother AND she has an adopted mother.

However, tonight, I came to understand the concept of triggering in an entirely new way. NOW I may understand my sisters mean by being triggered by the bmom term.

It hit me so badly I cannot even embed this here. I must provide a link and give one old huge content warning to any mother who watches this youtube video. You will watch a sobbing mother have her baby taken from her and wheeled away. If you are like me, you will have massive flashbacks of your own experience. You may lose your breath, cry, get a ringning in your ears and fear you will pass out. I did.

I found it on the blog of the amazing Julie (whom I adore). I kinda wish I hadn't (and thats no slam towards Julie).

But alas, in the words of Olympia Dukakis in Steel Magnolias (right?) "that which does not kill us makes us stronger".  Since I am not dead, I will assume my viewing that video made some part of my being stronger.

Jayni Anderson

Press release, Sept. 2007

OriginsUSA advocates family preservation, and provides justice, emotional support for families separated by adoption and public education on issues related to adoption.

As such, OriginsUSA is proud to have been in part responsible for the recent reunion between a Salt Lake City mother and her two sons separated for three decades.

Jayni Anderson surrendered a daughter and two sons for adoption. She worried about their well-being and returned to LDS Family Services who placed them in order to update her contact information.

On her most recent visit to the agency, Anderson was told that her daughter died at six months of age of SIDS. She was not told whether the adoption had been finalized, or where her daughter was buried.

OriginsUSA read about Anderson’s plight and on September 13, 2007 publicly declared support for her efforts to sue the agency to open the records in regards to her daughter.

The press release produced by OriginsUSA was seen by a man who believed he was Anderson’s oldest son. Many of the facts fit what he had been told: that his mother was herself adopted and was part Native American. He contacted OriginsUSA who in turn contacted Anderson.

That very day Anderson met her eldest son whom she had named Joshua, now 30 years old, married and expecting his first child very shortly. Placed for adoption when he was three, he is the department manager of a security systems company, and is a military intelligence officer with the Utah Army National Guard.

Anderson, shedding tears of joy, was also quickly reunited with his brother who had been placed with the same adoptive family shortly after his birth, though their adoptive parents were not the attorney and physician Anderson had been told they were. Anderson’s middle son is 26 years old. He is currently married and is a successful electrician who works throughout several western states.

All three had been living in the Salt Lake City area.

Anderon’s sons will be assisting her in her efforts to uncover the truth of their sister. Anderson reports that her youngest son, who she raised, is thrilled to have two big bothers.

Joshua, who had been searching since he was sixteen, and has the support of his adoptive parents said: “I inherited her persistence….I have to tell you that I am very grateful for organizations like yours, for if this story had never occurred, I would never have met her. Thank you so much.”

Contact: OriginsUSA at www.Origins-USA.org
PR@Origins-usa.org

Adoptee Rights Protest - July 2008

A new MAMA

"History must be written of, by and for the surivors" - Anonymous

I wonder if such a thing exists. Or if it could exist?

It came to me in a dream over the weekend. I have been having lots of adoption related dreams lately and I am beginning to think the triggering event is that I am finally seriously working on an adoption related novel. I believe mulling over the many years of adoption trauma is causing more memories to surface.

I am managing them okay. Sleep can be fitful and I am bit distracted at times but so far, I am doing okay. It is not like days gone by where I was unable to eat, function, sleep and worse. I don’t have that waking terror feeling. I can put the feelings into an invisible fanny pack and go on with my day.

Over the weekend I dreamt of an adoption museum. It was odd, interesting, and I found myself waking and wondering if such a thing existed. In my dream I was walking right through it…looking at all the visual displays of adoption trauma. Thankfully, I awoke from the dream.

The more I thought about it afterwards the more I realized it should not be called Adoption Museum. Adopters and politicians would jump on it and use it as a chance to rant about the wonders of the American adoption machine. It must show the horrors of the machine much like the Holocaust museum in DC shows the horrors of that time in history.

Perhaps Family Preservation museum? Rape of the Soul Museum? Museum for Mothers and Children? Perhaps some variation of MOMA (not to be confused with Museum Of Modern Art. Maybe MAMA as an acronym for something?)

I see it full of Fesslers exhibits (quite powerful), Celeste Billhartz work, adoption music, Lina Eves work, my friend J’s exhibit that did interesting things with her birth certificate(s)…..poems, stories, pictures, music, for all to see. How about a single registry that you can walk into and do a look up on?

Do tell me, is there such a thing? If not, there should be, don’t you think? As a communications professional, I believe we need to utilize a variety of mediums to appeal to people. Some people are auditory, some are visual, some need to touch, feel and experience.

Hey, I heard the “Back to the Future Ride” was being shut down at Disney.  Imagine if we could give a person a VR ride of what it feels like to lose your child? Or how about the experience of having multiple names and identities?

The difference between the adoption VR ride and real life adoption is that the VR ride you can get off of. You can walk away from it. Its not real.

Adoption trauma never leaves you. And it is very very real.

Now about that museum…..

Gee, what a novel thought?

Helping mothers keep their children? Raise their children? Get educated? Brilliance. Why didnt anyone else think of that? (Sarcasm intended).

I wish I still lived in Chicago! I would help this organization. (Seeing what I can do remotely!)

The A-Files

"History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are." - David McCullough

The "home" for unwed mothers I was interred in is no longer in existence. It was run by St. Joseph Hospital and located near DePaul University in Chicago. I am still amused by the fact that it was also once a convent. Convent, turned home for "bad" girls, turned Theatre Annex for Depaul. Jesus, Pregnancy and Acting.  Hmmm, interesting.

I had to be interviewed and accepted to the "home". Never knew what it was what they were checking for. Was I desperate enough? Alone enough? Abandoned enough? Perhaps pregnant enough? Was I feeling bad enough for my "sins"? Did I look like I might produce an attractive healthy child that would fetch a good price on the adoption market?

I wonder what the file they kept on me said. Did I classify as a pathetic slut who deserved to have her child taken from her? Was I one of the ones who had "potential" that would be better off without my child?

What exactly DID the director write in my files? What did she say about me? Is there a document somewhere in some ones archives or basement that talks about the 17 year old girl that came from 900 miles away, alone, wearing black stretch pants and a black and red checked over sized shirt? Did they notice my clothing? My eyes?

Did they notice ME at all? Or was all attention on my bulging stomach? Did I even exist? Did they look right through me?

I know now that every one around me in the home (except me) knew there was something "wrong" about the "agency" I was working with.  Of course they did not tell me but did they write in my file?  Did they make a notation, perhaps in number 2 pencil, that said "another baby to be sold by Kurtz? Another clueless mom?"

What did they know? What did they write about me?

A friend of mine, who also lost her child to Kurtz in the same year, stayed in a Crittendon "home" in southern IL.  She recently got copies of her twenty year old file. Complete with assessments, intake forms, letters and notes.

I cannot imagine how triggering that must have been for my friend. Yet at the same time, I suspect it would also be healing. To know, finally, what had happened to you when everything was being kept from you. When mail was being withheld or opened by "house" mothers, when calls were screened, when your whereabouts tracked.  To finally be able to read, see, find out the truth of what others were doing to you when you were completely unaware and totally vulnerable.

I think I want to know. I want to see my own file.

I wonder where it is?