At 9 years old, I understood that I had been legally adopted the year before. I belonged within my adoptive family as recognized by law. I logically realized that there was no turning back, but my longing for my ‘real’ family continued. I wanted to be with my mom and sisters and no court, judges or signing of papers could change my desire.
Unfortunately, others didn’t see it that way. In fact, in light of recent revelations, my biological family thought I was living a charmed life with my adoptive family where I couldn’t have been happier. All of those times where I was busy convincing everyone how happy I was had worked. Nobody doubted that I was content to be with my adoptive family, and I never expressed anything different so why would they?
My adoptive mom knew better though.
As always, I wanted to hear from my biological mom as often as possible. She could have called me every single day and that would have been just fine with me. But she didn’t. In fact, I now heard from her less.
Within the next year and half, my biological mom gave birth to two more children.
So now, I had two older half siblings and two younger half siblings that all shared the same mother and father.
I do not remember the younger two being born, as I now entered a time period of 10 years or so of blocked memories. Things that were hurtful to me, I simply do not remember a lot of them. This included the birth of my younger siblings that I now love with all my heart.
I just remember them being around during my visits occasionally. But at the time, I did not feel a connection to them. Mostly, I considered them an annoyance as they were taking my already busy biological mom away from me even more.
And these two were cute as hell. First came my sister Allie. Adorable. So adorable in fact that she was placed in numerous pageants and won many. So when I visited, the thing I remember most about her was the trophies in the living room that she had won and the elaborate dresses she had.
Seeing the time and attention that my mom was placing on Allie left me more than jealous. If I could have received a tenth of that, well, I would say how thrilled I would have been, but honestly, I don’t know that there would have ever been enough attention that would have fulfilled what I wanted from my mom.
My little brother, Chris, came next. Another adorable child. My mom was proud of him. He was quiet, but he had one of those contagious smiles that make you smile even if you’re in a bad mood. He still has that same smile.
So when I complained to my adoptive mom that I hadn’t heard from my biological mom, my adoptive mom replied, “She is busy. She has four other kids to take care of and she can’t just stop and call or write to you.”
As always when her patience wore thin with me, she had that tone that implied that I needed to face facts. All I could think of was that it didn’t take that much effort to pick up the phone and call someone. I had no understanding of the time and effort it would take to care for two babies.
This led to incredible frustration for me. My adoptive mom would go round and round on this subject. As I would be promised, time and again by my biological mom that she would call or write, I would believe her each time and then be crushed as it didn’t happen.
Eventually, my anger became evident. If my adoptive mom had no time for my whining, she definitely had no time for anger. I announced that I was mad at Gabriella and I was going to call her and tell her. My adoptive mom said, “No, you will not! I have taught you better than that.”
“Fine,” I replied. “Then I am never speaking to her again.”
Each time, my adoptive mom would say that I couldn’t do that either. “You will need your mom and sisters one day.”
It was an endless merry go round of promises, build up, let down, sadness and anger.
Endless.
Commentary
There are complex emotions for adults in open adoption. As the child in the middle of two families, the push/pull was definitely present and resulted in my isolation from both families.
I have read numerous accounts of open adoption from the adoptive and biological parent perspective where each recounts the success of the blending of two families. From these perspectives it sounds great, and there is much pressure for the child to reiterate what is being said, but I have to wonder, what is within the child’s heart that he or she may be too scared to say.
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