My Story
By Tiffany
Labor for 11 hours… a chord wrapped around a neck…jaundice… a head full of hair… and that first piercing cry. Most can tell you their birth stories, those who have no doubt heard their mothers tell and re-tell the experience. I am no different. Only instead of a labor and delivery room story starts with a phone call. "We have a little girl for you."
My parents had a day to get ready. They had been waiting for five years to have a child and had been on the state's adoption list for months. They were initially told by the agency they could have to wait around five years to get a child, but being open to a child of any color gave them an edge. So, they had no idea that 48 hours was all the time they would actually have to prepare to bring home a four month old baby girl, who would not only be their first child but also a first grandchild.
I was carried in by Jody in a green floral dress. I had "oversized blue eyes that seemed to take in everything." Jody, my foster mother, had tears in her eyes, that matched my new mother's. I "talked" the whole way home from Boise and on arrival was met by my grandparents, cousins and aunts and uncles.
"When did you know?" It's one of the first questions people ask when my adoption comes up. I never didn't know. To the disappointment of those who brace themselves to hear of a defining, life changing moment when my parents sat me down and told me I was different, I have known my whole life.
I've even known the not-so-pretty part.
My birth mother was 21 years old. She had a drug problem that she tried to kill as soon as she found out she was pregnant, and I was her second child, second daughter, that she gave up for adoption. She was 140 lbs., 5'7" and "moderately attractive." She was a twin, had blonde hair, blue eyes and liked the outdoors. My father was dark and tall, 6'4," with brown skin, and dark brown eyes. He was married, a mill worker with a high school diploma, had six kids of his own, and disappeared after I was born. He was supposed to come to the hospital to sign away his rights but he didn't show. I was told that he didn't want to put his name on anything for fear that his wife would find out about his infidelity. So after a month of trying to locate him they decided to advertise. The ad read something like:
"Baby girl Jacelle born Jan. 17 in Boise ID. Paternal rights will be relinquished on (given date)."
He never came.
And nearly four months to the day after I was born, Jody carried me into that waiting room and handed me to my mom and dad. About two years later my parents adopted my brother, their second brown baby. And six years after that they were finally able to have another three kids of their own.
Our family picture may not be typical, with two brown kids peppered into what would otherwise look like a typical Caucasian Idaho family. But inside the walls of our house growing up, it was probably as typical as it gets. My mother took what negative judgments and eyebrow raising there was for having a mixed family with a grain of salt, while shielding us from any negativity there might have been. And to us, our adoption story was just as uninteresting as our friends birth stories
When asked, my take on adoption simple. In most cases it's an enormous amount of sacrifice that generally results in improving the quality of a child's life. In my case, I know for a fact that my life would be vastly different. Being raised with two loving parents in a stable home allowed me to grow up knowing that I could do, become, or accomplish anything I set my mind to, and be supported in whatever I chose. I grew up happy, well adjusted and secure like any normal kid. Given the plight of my birth mother she couldn't have given me a fraction of that. And I am humbled that I was given such a profound blessing of such magnitude
There was, however, curiosity from time to time. As a child, on the rare occasion I would see someone with my honey colored-eyes or my curly hair and my mind would race, wondering if that was my mom. Once, at a city pool in a town in Nevada where we lived for a time, I somehow had myself convinced that a lady in a leopard print swimming suit that smiled at me on my way to the diving board was my birth mother. She wasn't with anyone else and she seemed to be watching me the whole time, so I was certain she just stopped by to make sure I was ok.
Moreover, every once in a while, starting in my late teens, there was pain – and not the kind you talk about. It comes from out of nowhere and is triggered by random things. Perhaps it is simply the recognition of the situation through adult eyes, or maybe it's the fact that there are people out there that you were born to love, but you aren't with. Those pangs don't happen often but in honest disclosure they are there, and are occasionally debilitating. But they are also short-lived and a very small price to pay.
Over the last decade I have had friends, or friends of friends, find themselves in an unplanned pregnancy. Many of them refuse to consider adoption regardless of how difficult their situation – absent father, minimal means and support, young age, addictions, etc. They view adoption as one of the worst things they can do. What would people say? How would it look? How would I live with myself? Because it is such a hard decision that can be made by a mother alone, I refrain from asking the question: Who would it be "the worst" for? Placing a baby in a loving family with two parents who are aching to have child to care for as their own would be a blessing to that family. Allowing a child to grow up in stability and love is a gift to that child. And giving your baby up and facing enormous amounts of pain, judgments and heartache would be one of the largest sacrifices a woman can make. Hard? Yes. Nonetheless, endlessly valuable.
I don't have a good impression of who my birth mother was. I look at her as weak, flighty, promiscuous, irresponsible, unintelligent, unsophisticated, and we would not have been friends if we had been peers. She gave me up and didn't look back. She gave up a sister that I will never get to know. She split up a family, and I will probably never embrace anyone of my blood until I have children. I don't want to meet her, or find her, or tell her that I have turned out better than I ever thought I would. She doesn't get to know that I was a precocious child, that I went to prom and wore a purple dress, made it through college on a massive scholarship and became an award winning journalist. She doesn't get to know that have the best friends in the world, have traveled, have loved, have been loved and have had enough laughter for two lifetimes. But I will say that I owe her a great debt for making such a valuable decision to place me into the arms of nurturing, loving and capable parents, regardless of how easy it was for her at the time. And for those mothers who have made such a difficult decision and sacrifice, thank you.
