Kids these days know way too much about the world, at an inappropriately young age.

Not that it’s better to be blindly naiive, the way I was until my 20’s.

Here’s an example: I didn’t know what a “boner” was until I was 14. I had just moved to Wichita, Kansas from a very small baptist town in Oklahoma. Sex was never, ever talked about. No one had it. (Except cousins; it WAS Oklahoma, after all! Hee!)

I knew it took a man and a woman to have a baby. I didn’t know the engineering behind how that happened. I had some idea that something had to be inserted somewhere. But I didn’t know that something else became hard and grew in size, like it was a Saturday morning cartoon super hero with amazing abilities so it could fight crime! (”Wonder Twin powers — ACTIVATE!”)

I finally learned about boners from a friend during the first week of Catholic high school. A group of us girls were gathered around Terry, fixated and repulsed as she explained what a “boner” was. We almost didn’t believe her. But she spoke with such authority, it had to be true.

I remained naiive (read: stupid) for many many years. In 1989, I was 21 and in an EMT class at college. There were 50 students, 42 of them male. (YESSS! THANK YOU, JESUS!)

But one day during a class lecture, I totally humiliated myself. We were in a big lecture hall, the kind you can joke around in and the teacher wouldn’t hear you. My instructor Craig was in the front of the classroom teaching about emergency response to hemorrhagic shock.

Now Craig had “been there, done that”. He came from the “Mother, Juggs and Speed” days of EMS. He had a story for everything, so of course he had a story for non-traumatic hemorrhagic shock.

Craig told us about a patient who wanted to refuse treatment. He was an alcoholic transient staying in a run-down hotel. Craig said it was lucky he and his partner hung around, because the patient finally agreed to go to the hospital. Little did they know, the patient had a GI bleed just cookin’ away inside him. (That’s where either the esophagus, stomach or the intestines is bleeding. If it’s bleeding a lot, it can be fatal very fast).

So Craig is talking to us (the class) about how he and his partner and the cops got the patient and loaded him into the elevator. And the patient started having “the worst flatulence” on the way down.

I was shocked he was telling us this! He went on and on about how everyone noticed the patient’s flatulence, tried to pretend they didn’t, and how Craig was getting sick because of the flatulence.

I was shocked, but started rolling with laughter. Others thought the story was funny, but I was freaking out! Laughing, saying “oh my God”, everything. Poor Craig, having to be in the elevator with this guy and his blatant flatulence!

Did I mention I thought “flatulence” meant a raging, hard-on BONER? (I think I had “flatulence” confused with “priapism“.)

So 49 students and Craig think they’re partaking in a story about heinous farts. I’m the only one in the room who thinks Craig is bragging about a transient having a hard-on over him.

Some guys around me asked me what my problem was, and when I told them my take on the story, they nicely explained to me what flatulence REALLY meant. When I said, “Oh, I thought it meant boner!” that whole corner of the room started laughing. So, as Craig went on with the story about how the flatulence got worse when the patient was in the ambulance, and about how it was brought about by a condition that caused a loss of blood volume, everyone around me was now picturing the transient dying from hypovolemic shock because all his blood was diverted to his penis. The entire corner of the room was laughing hysterically, and Craig just thought it was because he was a master storyteller, so no harm done.

And that, my friends, is how at the age of 21 I learned the difference between farts and boners.

Epilogue: The story did end with the patient surviving, despite shitting blood and feces all over the back of the ambulance and the paramedics, in case you’re wondering how things turned out. A happy ending.

Please read these entries first (or just scroll down ) Clicking opens the posts in a new window:
Adoption Part 1
Adoption Part 2
Adoption Part 3
Adoption Part 4
Adoption Part 4.5
Adoption Part 5

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Last story!

I was adopted in Missouri, which is a closed adoption state. Basically, that means that I would have never known I was adopted if my parents hadn’t told me, because the birth certificate has their names on it. It also means I have no right to any information concerning my adoption.

It’s a controversial issue. I recognize this. So please save your comments regarding the rightness or wrongness of my decision to search for my biological relatives. My business, my choice. Not for anyone else to judge.

I found information in a variety of ways. Things the adoption agency told my mother at the time of my adoption proved useful later in my search to verify I was on the right track. I bribed a state employee to get the name and birthdates of my mother (Natalie) and my older half brother. ($45 — an odd amount, but I paid it.) I verified the last name this worker gave me against a last name I “uncovered” on a document, and they matched.

It is interesting how I “uncovered” the last name on a document. My parents had some letters and such from my adoption. One of them was an old Xerox copy of a form. One blank of this form had a line that said “Baby Girl Drunken Lagomorph”. The name was written in pen on top of a thick layer of white correction fluid. Remember how old xerox copies used to be made on paper with a shiny surface? I carefully erased off the white correction fluid and could see my birth name. The last name of my biological mother.

However, I could not find my biomom through searches. She was obviously using a different last name now, decades later.

I had researched information on and off for 15 years. Through an adult adoptee support group’s connections, I found out my grandfather’s name. Using Ancestry.com, I got his social security number and date and place of death.

I called the library in the town and state where he died to get his obituary, which would list his surviving relatives. I was so excited because I knew this could be it: the breakthrough I’d been waiting for!

The librarian was nice but said I’d have to go to my library and give them a cashiers check and they’d fax the request for the obituary to them, then they’d fax the obituary (after the check had cleared) back to my library and blah blah blah. Then, after approval from the Poop and a resolution by Congress, I could have a copy of the obituary.

For the first time in 15 years, I was actually close to finding my biomom, and to have this thrown in my path was a bit too much. On the verge of tears, I explained why it was important and asked her if she could just read it over the phone to me. And she did! God bless that librarian!

Out of the list of survivors, the only one I could find a number for (yay interweb!) was a step-aunt half a continent away. I called her immediately. She was suspicious of my phone call. I told her that I was Natalie’s daughter who was given up for adoption. (Natalie was her stepsister). She said she didn’t know Natalie had given a baby up for adoption. Then she said:

“You know that Natalie is dead, don’t you?”

Um, no I didn’t.

For some reason, I wasn’t surprised by the news. Disappointed, but not surprised. Weird.

My step-aunt said she’d call my aunt (Natalie’s sister) and call me back.

Within 15 minutes, my phone rang. It was my very excited aunt. Her first words to me:

“We’ve been looking for you!”

It was the greatest feeling.

Over the next year and a half, my aunt and I spoke often. I never got to meet her because she lived so far away. Last time I talked to her was 10 days before she died.

She had some problems (bipolar with poor disease control), and it was at times difficult to maintain a relationship with her, but she ended every phone conversation with “I love you.” I said it back and meant it.

Because of her health and emotional problems, it was difficult to get information about my mother from her. She promised to send me pictures of herself, my mother, and their family, but she never did.

I got in touch with my half brother Michael, who is four years older than me. He was receptive, but we lost contact. I also got in touch with both of my mother’s ex-husbands, and a few close friends. Very interesting information. Every one of them said I had her laugh.

I am still in email and snail-mail contact with one cousin and my younger half brother. I have yet to meet any biological relative.

(How scientology killed my biological mother is written about in this post.)

Please read these entries first (or just scroll down ) Clicking opens the posts in a new window:
Adoption Part 1
Adoption Part 2
Adoption Part 3
Adoption Part 4
Adoption Part 4.5
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As mentioned before, over the years I’ve heard comments. You wouldn’t believe the crap some people say. Like my neighbor four years ago. I had just located my biological family and was telling her about it and she said, “Oh, I could never love an adopted kid like my own. In fact, my grandson is adopting a child, and I don’t even want the kid over here. I don’t consider it my grandchild.”

This from a lady who I knew for five years and considered “nice”. Hey, at least she admits her heart is closed to, um… “it”.

Sometimes, even well-meaning comments were over the top.

In the 5th grade, I was getting ready for a talent show. Me and my friend Laura were dressing up like cats and singing “We are Siamese.” I was in the bathroom applying my whiskers with eyebrow pencil when our teacher Mrs. Rush came bursting through the ladies room door. All the girls crowding around the mirrors stopped what they were doing, sensing something was horribly wrong due to Mrs. Rush’s demeanor.

Spying me, she hurried over and grabbed my shoulders. Wide-eyed and upset, she said, “I just heard you were adopted. Is this true?!”

Bewildered, I said, “Uh… yeah?”

With tears in her eyes, she pulled me to her bosom and held me tight. “That just means you were SPECIAL. You were CHOSEN!”

Poor, well-meaning Mrs. Rush. You could tell she felt sorry for me, an emotion I’m wholly uncomfortable with. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I didn’t FEEL “chosen”. Hell, I didn’t even remember the goddamn audition!

Besides, I wasn’t chosen. It was the throw of the dice, the luck of the draw. If I had been born a few days earlier or a few days later, I would have gone to a different family. In fact, if my adoptive parents had the ability to choose a baby, I would have been the LAST one they chose. As mentioned before, I was far from a perfect, pretty baby. And I was not a boy. Back then, it was an unspoken rule that if you asked to adopt a certain sex, or refuse to adopt a baby with cosmetic problems (which I had), then you probably would be turned down as a prospective adoptive parent. (Nowdays, you’re allowed to be much more specific on your “baby order” when adopting. People have become more open-minded about adopting different races, but they still want that baby to be a pretty and perfect one.) Bottom line: my parents had to agree to take what they were handed, or they wouldn’t make the list of suitable parents. And they certainly couldn’t take one look at me and say, “Uh, thanks but no thanks!” because they would have looked like assholes. They had already bragged to family, friends, and church members about the adoption process, and let everyone know when they got the call from the adoption agency that they had a baby for them. My parents had to take me; there was no backing out.

At the time of the fifth grade incident, we lived in a small town in Oklahoma. I used to walk home from school, since the bus took just as long, and I was getting bad headaches by then.

One day, my mother’s car was parked outside of my elementary school. I thought it was a treat; maybe she wanted to take me somewhere and do something, just the two of us. As she started driving, she threw a letter in my lap. It was a letter I had written to the advice lady of Seventeen magazine. I don’t recall what it said, but it spoke of trying to find my “real” mother. My mom had dug deep in my dresser drawers to find the hiding place I had for that letter.

I don’t remember what she told me, but I do remember she pretty much went off. It was basically a speech to burst my bubble about any romantic notions of replacing the mother I currently had. That if my bio mom had wanted me, she would have kept me, and she didn’t want me now, and I couldn’t find her, etc. She made me feel like a criminal for being curious.

She grudgingly told me as much as she could remember about what the adoption agency said about my biological mother. Hair color, etc. Apparently, she didn’t think the information was important enough to write down for me, so she was going off of memory. She talked as if every bit of information was doing me a favor, yet she was irritated about it like she had sand in her panties or something.

We didn’t speak of my biological background again until I was 18 and pushed her on it. Until then, I was left to fill in the blanks myself.

Thanks for all the positive comments guys! I just want to make it clear that I’m not posting all of this to feel sorry for myself or have others feel sorry for me. Really, I know very few people who had a perfect childhood, so I’m no different than anyone else in that respect.

I just wanted to let you know what adoption can be like for some kids.

I posted this on a popular internet message board, and I couldn’t believe how I got reply after reply where people said, “I’m adopted and was treated that way too.” It’s horrifying.

I think it’s so important to talk about because people who are thinking of adopting need to really search their souls about why they want to adopt, what would happen if they got a girl and not the boy that seems to be such the deep-down preference for so many parents (whether they admit it to themselves or not), and what they would do if the kid didn’t grow up to be perfect.

You’re not leasing a car. You’re taking responsibility for a child. And unless you can embrace this child as 100% yours, even if you have your own children in the future, then PLEASE DON’T ADOPT!

Two more stories to go.

Please read these entries first (or just scroll down ) Clicking opens the posts in a new window:
Adoption Part 1
Adoption Part 2
Adoption Part 3

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My parents adopted me when I was 9 days old. They had tried for four years to have children of their own, but couldn’t conceive. They adopted me, then within four years had two sons of their own.

Did you know adoption was a cure for infertility? It is sometimes.

Problem was, I was an ugly baby. Holy god! I’m talking strangers-smile-politely-then-turn-away ugly. As I mentioned before, my parents had to take whatever baby came up on the list. Even if it wasn’t a pretty baby. Even if it had medical problems (I needed eye surgery by the age of four). Even if it wasn’t a boy.

Here you can see the bloom is quickly coming off of the rose of this “adopted brat” thing. And these are the best of the best - my mother gave them to me to include in a slideshow to be shown at their 40th anniversary party. I can’t imagine what facial expressions of disgust are in the pics she decided to keep for herself. You can see in the pictures below that she is clearly contemplating roasting me, and my dad is thinking of tying me to the hood of his car. Just kidding!

My mother is Ms. Sorority. Everything is about her, and her getting attention and looking good to others. She got plenty of attention for adopting a “poor, unwanted” baby. (An unwanted baby that there was a 2 year waiting list for! ) After the adoption and the attention she got for it, she was in her element for a while, I would imagine.

But then she found out she could have her own. She had two beautiful baby boys born 13 months apart from each other, cute and perfect in every way.

But yet she still had me, and she had no way to change that.

Growing up, my brothers didn’t like me. At all. I’m not talking normal sibling rivalry, I’m talking hate and resentment that little children just don’t normally have. It was like I was living in a clubhouse, but I was never invited to join. My two brothers were their own club. My parents were a second club. All four of them together were a third club. By God, I was going to join their club!

My childhood was spent trying to win approval, and withdrawing in despair when I couldn’t get it. I shared my toys. Some days I’d spend all afternoon cleaning my brothers’ rooms (to try and get in good with them AND my mom). I remember sitting and thinking, “How will I get them to like me?” I’d follow them around, even spy on them, to try and figure it out.

Spying became my favorite game. Usually my brothers were the focus, but one day I overheard a conversation between my parents that I will never forget.

When I was in fifth or sixth grade, my younger brother Mark got sick with stomach pains. He even went to the hospital for it. The doctors couldn’t understand what was causing it. He ended up being fine, but for about a week we didn’t know.

One afternoon, I was in the living room while my parents were in the kitchen, talking about my brother’s condition. They must have not known I was home, and me being a super-awesome ninja spy, I was not going to alert them to this fact.

The spying game took an unfortunate “bummer!” turn when I overheard my mother saying to my father that it was my fault my brother was sick in the hospital. That I “kept the house in turmoil” and “made” my brother sick. (Yes, now you know my secret. I was the most powerful and evil sixth grader ever to exist. Bow down before me!) She spoke of me with such contempt, it made my blood run cold.

I don’t remember how she rationalized blaming me, nor do I remember the rest of the conversation. I do know it involved me, and regret that I was in their household. It was pretty ugly. I stayed in the living room and hid behind the piano until I could sneak away, feeling like the world had come to an end. I had made my brother sick, and I didn’t even understand how I did it. Also, it was the first time I had heard my mother confirm what I felt all along: that I was an unwelcome burden, an intruder.

I must emphasize that overall I was a good kid. Annoying yes, but I almost never got in trouble, I made good grades, I had plenty of friends. To this day I can’t see how my parents could blame me for making their house one of “turmoil”.

When I was about 21 or 22, I had it out with my mother about a lot of things. One of those things we discussed was why my brothers had hated me all my life. I told mom it was because they picked up on my parents feelings towards me, and imitated them. She acknowledged that my guess was probably true. It was a victory for me.

Read these first (or just scroll down ) Clicking the links will open new windows:
Adoption Part 1
Adoption Part 2
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One of the things that pisses me off most about being adopted is the comments I get. (Not blogging comments — people say these things TO MY FACE!)

One comment that is consistently in the top ten:

“You must be so GRATEFUL to your adopted parents for taking you in!”

Translation: You’re a charity case, and a burden, and I’m superior to you because my parents wanted me.

I’m as grateful to my parents as any child should be to their parents for the time and money it takes, and general pain-in-the-ass it is to raise a child.

But this expectation of society (and of some adoptive parents) that adopted children should be MORE APPRECIATIVE than other children is just one big, gigantic crock of steaming horseshit.

For God’s sake, I was a 9 day old baby! And there was a 2-4 year waiting list for babies at that time. So don’t canonize my parents for taking in this “unwanted” baby. They were blessed with a new member of their family; they did not volunteer for a lifelong case of charity work. They do not deserve the admiration and awe of others who say, “How wonderful of you! I know I couldn’t take in someone else’s bastard child and raise it as my own!”

Sorry, but I don’t care if society, or even my own parents, see me as some sort of “second quality” person who should be eternally grateful for everything that everyone else gets as a matter of course. Like I’m some horrid person that was a huge burden that mooched 18 years of handouts from my parents, yet my brothers were gifts from God to my parents.

I’m grateful I had parents and a home. I’m grateful I’ve never known abject poverty or physical abuse from my parents. I’m grateful for the exact same things that everyone who was raised in a decent home should be grateful for.

But do I owe a bigger debt than those who were raised by their biological parents? No, and fuck anyone who thinks so.

Second most popular quotes (a tie, boys and girls! How exciting!) :

“You went looking for your biological family? How UNGRATEFUL of you!”

“So, your parents loved you and raised you your whole life, and this is how you show your APPRECIATION?! Searching for your *gasp* ‘real’ family?”

AGAIN with the “grateful” and the “appreciation”! Jesus, but people love to point fingers and tell you that you’re not deserving of what you have, and should make amends immediately.

I found (what’s left of) my biological family (maternal side) in 2001. (My biomom was killed by the church of $cientology in 1995. I found two half-brothers, an aunt, a step-aunt, and a second cousin).

When I told my mother that I had found my biofamily, she began with the theatrics and hurt feelings. I stopped her cold.

You see, my mother is way into genealogy. Around that time, she had discovered in HER family heritage an uncle that had fought in the Civil War. She found his gravesite and some stories about his life and everything. It was interesting to me, and she was incredibly excited about it.

So when she started her pouting about my seeking out my relatives, I explained it to her this way:

“You know when you found that Civil War uncle, and all the genealogy stuff you’ve dug up over the years, the stories and the pictures and how interesting that is?”

Mom replied, “Yes?”

I explained, “Well, that man is someone you never met. In fact, most of the relatives you’ve found information on are people you’ve never met. But it’s INTERESTING and important to you, right?”

“Well, of course it is.”

“So, why are adopted people not allowed to have the same curiosity? Why are WE not allowed to have an interest in our blood heritage?”

It shut her up, because she realized she was being hypocritical. She dropped the hurt martyr thing immediately.

A select few in this society truly believe that adopted people have less rights and more obligations than other people. I don’t know if it’s because they think only horrible people would be rejected by their own parents, or maybe they think only horrible parents would “reject” their child (and since we are related to these irresponsible people, we as adopted children are guilty by genetic association). I really can’t say for sure what it is. And the bad attitudes are certainly the exception, not the rule.

Know this:

I’m grateful and appreciative for all my life’s blessings. But, despite being adopted, my debt to the world is no more and no less than any other person on the face of this beautiful earth.

If you haven’t already, read Adoption, Part 1

The concept of “home” has always been my Holy Grail. I have spent my whole existence focused on obtaining a home, even though I technically had one. Why did I feel this way?

My mother says that I was told I was adopted “all along.” But this is not true. I remember the first time I heard it. I remember the day because it was also the first day I realized that my mother could lie to me.

I remember I was in kindergarten. My younger brothers weren’t in school yet. I looked like my brothers, except for the eyes. Mine were brown, theirs were blue-gray; a good blend for my mothers’ hazel eyes. My father had brown eyes, but we were all brunette. I blended.

One afternoon, my mother had our baby books and was showing us pictures and locks of hair from our infanthood. The cover of my baby book had writing on it, and I asked my mom to read it to me. She read: “Our Adopted Baby.” I remember the sensation of all the blood draining out of my head, and asking her, “I was adopted?!” She was incredulous. “Yes, we’ve always told you that you were adopted!” she snapped at me angrily. I was unprepared for this sudden anger and it scared me. Then she got even more pissed and said some stuff in a snotty tone. Then she dismissed any questions I had and changed the subject.

I may have only been six years old, but I knew bullshit when I heard it, even if I didn’t have the vocabulary to articulate it. I knew that my parents had never told me I was adopted.

But yet, mom just said they had told me “all along”.

Either she was lying, or I was mistaken and had “forgotten” I was adopted. Parents don’t lie, so it had to be my fault, my mistake. That was my first lesson. Tis’ far better to accept responsibility for situations for which you are not culpable, than it is to admit that you can rely on no one. I decided I must have forgotten. But, how does a child “forget” they were adopted?

Even at that young age, as my mother sat in her tacky green ’70s chair surrounded by three children hanging on her every word and dying to have their sticky fingers touch the black and white photographs — even then, as I made the decision to accept her hint that I was somehow feeble-minded for forgetting such a fact, I knew somewhere deep down that I had never heard that I was adopted until that day.

That has always been my family’s way of handling things. Or one of the top five ways:

• Deny, deny, deny
• Find a way to shake any responsibility
• Quickly change the subject
• Refuse to admit anything is “wrong”
• When caught in a lie, stick with it and accuse the other person of needing “psychological help” (that one rang big in my teenage years)

I came out of the proverbial adoption closet on the playground the next day, telling all my friends about me being adopted as I swung on the swingset. I remember one kid saying, “that means your real parents didn’t want you!” but comments didn’t phase me. I just said, “Get off my case, toilet face!” and kept swinging.

I was happy and full of hope. I felt special. At that young age I couldn’t understand why, but I felt like it explained everything.

Just an aside question from the adult Mary: What kind of attention-seeking fuck buys a baby album with the title “Our ADOPTED Baby”? Danger, danger, Will Robinson!

Say the word “adoption” to people and you get a very interesting array of reactions.

Adoption is portrayed in the media in one of two ways: Either the adopted child is embraced wholeheartedly and lives an idyllic life, for which they are expected to be eternally grateful to the parents who were kind enough to take their charity-case ass in, or the opposite extreme — the noble and saintly parents who adopt a kid and get a “bad apple” and suffer the rest of their lives.

No matter how you view adoption or adoptive children, for some reason, there is still a stigma about it.

Although I’ve written my adoption tales, experiences, and opinions elsewhere, RisibleGirl’s recent reunion tales were so touching, candid, and revealing that I’ve decided to re-post my stories and experiences here for some of you who may be new. I’ll break them up a bit because there’s a lot to read in one chunk.

:deep breath: Here we go.

The sound of his fist striking her face made a dull thud, which surprised her. She had known for months this moment was coming; it was just a matter of time. She had thought about how it would feel, but never did she wonder about how it would sound.

Really, it didn’t hurt. In fact, she didn’t feel anything at all. It was like it wasn’t even happening to her – she was just an observer, watching. She viewed the action from above as the man told the woman she deserved it, because she was a selfish, spoiled bitch. She watched the woman crying, asking “Why?” over and over. She – the observer — wanted to help the woman, but what could she do? She didn’t have a job, no family to turn to, so how could she help the woman?

The man had the woman on the floor next and was crushing her face into the carpet. He was telling the woman what hell it was for him to live with such a self-centered, know-it-all cunt. She wondered why the woman didn’t fight him, why all she did was sob.

If only she had done better, then the woman wouldn’t have to be treated this way. She should have thought more carefully before she spoke. She should have made sure dinner was ready on time last week. She should have done his laundry before hers. It was her fault that the woman she was observing was going through this.

The counselor had explained that she was suffering from depression caused by “battered women’s syndrome”. She couldn’t accept that; everyone knows that a woman isn’t abused until her husband leaves a mark on her: black eye, broken bones. And even then, that’s only her side of the story.

“What did you do to provoke him?” her mother had asked when she finally had enough courage to tell. It was after the fourth or fifth time he had thrown her around the house. That time he had held her down to repeatedly spit in her face. “Well, he didn’t hit you or anything. Don’t you think you’re being just a bit melodramatic? After all, you’re not that easy to live with…”

The counselor told her to be careful if she decided to stay with him. “You’re just going to have to go along with everything he says and does. Watch what you say, and don’t talk back. If you’re going to stay, it will be a real effort to keep him from going into a rage and seriously hurting you someday.” But she knew she could do it.

She was wrong. She continued to watch as the woman laid cowering on the floor where she had been thrown. The man grabbed the crying woman’s hair and started dragging her towards the bedroom. “I hate you! You’ve ruined my life! I’m going to get my gun and blow my brains out, and you’re going to watch because YOU are responsible for it! My brains will be splattered all over you, and you’ll know it was all your fault!”

Suddenly, she wasn’t the observer anymore. She had again become the woman being dragged towards the bedroom she had shared with her husband for only seven months. She was appalled to find herself actually praying for him to go through with his threat, thinking, “Just please do it and leave me alone!”

(more…)