ON A FOOTNOTE

As I was driving into town today, I thought about the hints that this was my destiny. Hints that God put in my path.

When I was a teenager, I remember a family friend's daughter getting pregnant. Oh I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall. Needless to say that adoption was what happened. Do I and the rest of my family wonder about her emotions? Yes we do. I got both of the talks. You know the ones. The sex talk and the adoption talk. Here I was just being a kid. Sex was still beyond my scope of things.

In college God pushed the issue again. I met Victor, an Irish Mexican. His father was a prominent police officer who helped a woman in trouble. After we had dated for a while, he told me that he was adopted and had reunited. It was until we broke up that I told him that I too was adopted. It was then that I asked him his feelings about it. I was more interested in the emotions of this concept called adoption. During this time, I also ran into a high school classmante, Fonda. She had gotten pregnant the year that I graduated high school. She and I also spoke of adoption. She lost her son to adoption. It was an open adoption at the time. This is when open adoption just came into being. She showed me pictures of her son. I wonder at times about these two. I wonder how they are. I wonder what they would think of me now.

When I was in the army, I met a couple through my husband, then boyfriend. He was adopted. He had also reunited. I spoke with him on his reunion. He gave me sound advice on possibly searching. When you meet her, you want to do it alone. It becomes about the two of you catching up on everything that you two have missed. I have long since read that it is a trip that all adoptees and natural must travel alone to each other. His words will forever ring in my thoughts. No I don't wonder what they think of me. His wife thinks adoption is a win/win/win situation. I wonder now what she thinks after reading this blog and her grandchildren. I hope that she is helping both of her children raise their children.

Adoption didn't hit me again until I had my first child. The doctor initially involved in my pregnancy was later indicted, tried, and sentanced for drug usage and black market baby trafficking. The other oddity was a dear friend. She was the city of Del Rio's city treasurer. Sandy came to visit me the day after Dakota was born. I can't remember how we got to talking about adoption. It came up though. She asked me if I had ever searched. I said no but I thought a great deal about it. This is when she told me that she was a natural mother. I asked her the same question. That was when she told me that she felt like she didn't have the right to search. She held Dakota and gave me a hug. I always wonder about her. Oh what I would tell her now. Lady you do have the right to search. You were young but not inhuman. I know that you couldn't forget. I wish I could help you find. I wonder what she would think of me now as an adoptee/natural parent activist.

Sandy planted the seed. My mother and I checked into it. The last ten years my adoptive mother has pushed me to search. We first check into it when Dakota was almost a year. I had a cancer scare. It pushed the issue to the forefront. I felt that my natural mother had a right to know just as I did. So did my adoptive mother. We called the state about it. We received forms giving us some information. We called the agency. It would cost 250.00 at the time to search. I didn't have it and neither did my adoptive mother. She wanted me to contact my first adoptive father about it. I never wanted him on that part of me. I still to this day could not tell you why.

I had put my name on several registries. I never got anywhere with it. I knew in order to do something I would need a computer. When I resigned from the postal service, I put my retirement money to good use. I bought a computer and paid the fee for a search (now 325.00). The rest is all history on this blog.

Do I feel God is directing me? Yes I do. I believe that God wants me, all of us to change adoption as it stands. It is not based on families. It is not based on a child's needs. It is based on the adoption agency's ability to make a buck. That is why they want to control it so much. They make a massive amount of money off of us.