I didn't know the first name until I was in my 40's. Sandra J was my adopted name.
Growing up, I'd try to imagine where I came from. My usual imagination was that they were royalty and had to flee from their home country. So, I was placed with adoptive parents to hide my identity so I wouldn't be murdered. Maybe that's where my love of mystery novels comes from.
I read that the famous author James Michener was left on a door step, he never knew his actual birthday nor anything about his biological parents. Does that explain why he wrote long sagas about generations? He was trying to find his own roots.
Sometimes, I imagined I was the daughter of a movie star. As I got older, I imagined my dad was my real dad and he'd had me through an affair. I tried to get information from relatives but no one could help me. It was really awkward trying to pry out information about my dad's imagined affair. He had a laundry route during the war and took clean clothes to the houses out in the country and picked up dirty laundry. I'm sure he visited and stopped for lunch or coffee. Daddy was always a talker and quite handsome in his youth. It was easy to imagine an affair especially since mother was not my favorite type of person.
Through the years, I became involved with adoption services. Through the job, I found a judge in Austin who would open adoption records. I wrote to him and he ordered the Bureau of Birth Records to open the sealed file.
I couldn't wait to get it in the mail and promptly drove over to Austin. A young clerk probably 10 years younger than me looked at the judges letter in my hand and grudgingly brought out a large envelope that was sealed with red wax on the back. She opened it and said I'd better not lose the copies or they'd not open the envelope again.
I thought that was rather snippy. The rudeness couldn't erase my excitement to see my real name. I had been named Mary Elizabeth C. It had the name of my mother but no name for a father. It had my adoption papers and the name of the town my mother was from.
Let's say the name was Gobbler. I was amused and said "I'm a Gobblerite!" I sat down in disbelief that I actually knew my real name. My birth name. I was by myself but savored the moment like I'd found a pot of gold.
Later, my brother (adopted) wrote to the judge and had his records opened. I helped him find his mother and family.
I called the first C in the Gobbler phone book. There were several names but I wrote to one and hoped I'd picked the right one. It was some time before I got a reply. I'd picked a distance elderly cousin who was in a nursing home but her daughter knew immediately who I was and called my mother who lived in another state by then. She wrote that she was contacting my mother and would get back to me.
The ending/beginning was when I met my mother and brother and sister and their families. We have had a good relationship and I think that it would have been such a waste of a life never to have known my sister and brother and families.
My mother has since passed away. But, we had a great relationship and I am thankful to the Austin judge who had the courage to open the records.
Genetics is a powerful force in families. My mother and I shared many similarities. We both were/are pickle fanatics. Mom even ate pickles for breakfast. She made delicious pickles and canned them as sweet pickles or dill pickles.
I do not have her green thumb. Mine is a brown thumb from all the plants who have had the misfortune to darken my door. We were both athletic and were active in sports. We looked enough alike to be sisters.
A lot of adopted kids miss not looking like someone. We may not resemble our adopted families at all. I remember as an adoption worker, we'd try to match hair and eye colors between the adopted child and adoptive parents.
Sometimes, it's obvious about an adopted child's love of education. You often find a child that doesn't like school and his/her biological parents didn't like school either.
Addictions are passed on from parents to child.
I had a love of horses from an early age and found that my biological father raised quarter horses on his ranch.
Open adoptions should be practiced. It isn't natural not to know your biological family and promotes almost a schizophrenic personality split between the biological and adopted personalities. The unknown of a person's life is far worse than not knowing what happened. Also, as health knowledge evolves, it's important to know one's genetic inheritance for future health problems.
When I was younger, a doctor took a blood sample and got all excited because he thought I was anemic (ie: leukemia). I didn't feel bad but he still put me on vitamins with iron. I felt so bad taking them that I stopped and immediately felt better. Years later, I found that I had Thalesemia, an inherited blood disorder that had been passed down in the family. Without family history, it would have been a rare diagnosis and I wouldn't have known what I had.
Now, good or bad, I know my families medical history.
What an absolute relief.
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