Thoughts on my adoption
My sister's biological mother is coming for a visit today. It's kind of a kewl event, since I don't believe that any of us have physically met her yet. Kelly has been in contact with her mother for a couple of years now, so this is a pretty momentous event.
It's just left me thinking about my own biological mother. Her name's Kathryn and she lives in Colorado. Finding her was a bit of a fluke. According to Colorado state statutes, an adopted child is not able to request information on his or her biological parents until their 21st birthday. I found my biological mother when I was 18. Actually, I should say my sister found my biological mother.
Colorado (like most states) has a special two-way registry for adoptees and their parents to find each other, if both parties so wish. My sister, when she was 22, decided that she wanted to find out more about her biological mother, so she registered herself with Colorado's service. She spent a few months checking the boards routinely trying to see if her biological mother or father had registered themselves. It's sort of a matching system. Both child and parent(s) place their info up. Then, the adoptee can search through child donors, looking for a match to their info, and vice versa. My sister was having no luck, so she randomly decided to look for registrations specific to my info. Lo and behold, when she pulled up the results... there was only one entry. That entry belonged to my biological mother.
She called me and asked me if I'd like to be put in contact with Kathryn. I said yes. A counselor from the service Kelly as using also called and told me a few things about first contacts. She said that usually they don't make contacts between child donors and their children at such an early age. Her reasons were that usually an 18 year old is not equipped with the emotional and/or psychological stability to meet their biological parent(s) and maintain a healthy relationship. In my hubris, I believed that I was more mature than the most part of my peers and said that would be no problem. Turns out I was wrong. Kathryn and I talked via email and AIM for a couple of months, but then I started to feel disinterested. I'd spoken to cousins and my half-siblings as well. I just couldn't feel any connection with them. I haven't spoken to any of them for over three years. I kind of feel bad about it. I even deleted my email account that Kathryn knew about (frankly, she was sending me an average of six forwards a day, and they were cluttering up my mailbox), so she no longer has any means of getting ahold of me.
I'm just caught in this weird conundrum. I really don't have any particular emotional attachment to Kathryn or my biological family. I feel grateful that she gave me up instead of aborting me, and that she allowed me to have the life that I've had. This is about the only gratitude I have for her. I feel no ill will towards her, mind you. I just don't feel anything beyond that gratitude. Yet I feel like I should have kept some lines of communication open to her for her own sake. She seemed so ecstatically happy to finally be able to speak to the son that she gave up almost 19 years ago (@ the time). I feel like I let her down in some way by ceasing communication.
I don't know. Being an adopted child is a wonderful thing, but it comes with some drawbacks like these.
I hope things go well for my sister. I hope she's happy with the arrangement she has with her biological mother. I wish I had been older and more capable when I had finally contacted Kathryn so that maybe I wouldn't have to feel so guilty about my choices.
Maybe I can take corrective action in the future.
It's just left me thinking about my own biological mother. Her name's Kathryn and she lives in Colorado. Finding her was a bit of a fluke. According to Colorado state statutes, an adopted child is not able to request information on his or her biological parents until their 21st birthday. I found my biological mother when I was 18. Actually, I should say my sister found my biological mother.
Colorado (like most states) has a special two-way registry for adoptees and their parents to find each other, if both parties so wish. My sister, when she was 22, decided that she wanted to find out more about her biological mother, so she registered herself with Colorado's service. She spent a few months checking the boards routinely trying to see if her biological mother or father had registered themselves. It's sort of a matching system. Both child and parent(s) place their info up. Then, the adoptee can search through child donors, looking for a match to their info, and vice versa. My sister was having no luck, so she randomly decided to look for registrations specific to my info. Lo and behold, when she pulled up the results... there was only one entry. That entry belonged to my biological mother.
She called me and asked me if I'd like to be put in contact with Kathryn. I said yes. A counselor from the service Kelly as using also called and told me a few things about first contacts. She said that usually they don't make contacts between child donors and their children at such an early age. Her reasons were that usually an 18 year old is not equipped with the emotional and/or psychological stability to meet their biological parent(s) and maintain a healthy relationship. In my hubris, I believed that I was more mature than the most part of my peers and said that would be no problem. Turns out I was wrong. Kathryn and I talked via email and AIM for a couple of months, but then I started to feel disinterested. I'd spoken to cousins and my half-siblings as well. I just couldn't feel any connection with them. I haven't spoken to any of them for over three years. I kind of feel bad about it. I even deleted my email account that Kathryn knew about (frankly, she was sending me an average of six forwards a day, and they were cluttering up my mailbox), so she no longer has any means of getting ahold of me.
I'm just caught in this weird conundrum. I really don't have any particular emotional attachment to Kathryn or my biological family. I feel grateful that she gave me up instead of aborting me, and that she allowed me to have the life that I've had. This is about the only gratitude I have for her. I feel no ill will towards her, mind you. I just don't feel anything beyond that gratitude. Yet I feel like I should have kept some lines of communication open to her for her own sake. She seemed so ecstatically happy to finally be able to speak to the son that she gave up almost 19 years ago (@ the time). I feel like I let her down in some way by ceasing communication.
I don't know. Being an adopted child is a wonderful thing, but it comes with some drawbacks like these.
I hope things go well for my sister. I hope she's happy with the arrangement she has with her biological mother. I wish I had been older and more capable when I had finally contacted Kathryn so that maybe I wouldn't have to feel so guilty about my choices.
Maybe I can take corrective action in the future.