For me, I “always knew” I was adopted, but my parents didn’t have any contact details.
Bio Mum proactively looked for me when I was around 21 (I think maybe that is the legal age for the adoption agency to approach without going through the adoptive parents)
I was surprised to find out that bio mum had been given a couple of photos of me as a toddler.
My step-mom was adopted and she waited until after both of her adoptive parents passed away to start searching for her birth mother. She met my dad in 1990 and they married in 1991 and her adoptive mother was still living. I offered to help her start searching for her birth mother then, but she refused to consider it out of love and respect to her ‘real’ (adoptive) parents!
Her mom (adoptive) died in 1997 and I waited for almost a year before mentioning it again. I told her when (and if) she ever wanted to search for her birth mother, I’d be a phone call away. She had three much older brothers, the youngest one being 14 years older than her. The middle brother died in a car accident before she and my dad met, then the oldest brother died in 1999 from cancer. In 2002, the youngest one passed away, also from cancer, and it was only then that she asked me to see what I could find out about her bio-mom. But she only wanted information and didn’t think she would ever attempt contact, even if the woman was still alive.
My step-mom has lived here in North Georgia since 1966, but she grew up in Muscle Shoals, AL (in the NW corner of AL where it meets TN and MS). She was born in 1944 but she knew that she wasn’t adopted until she was 22 months old. It took me almost two years to figure out that she was actually born 120 miles away in Birmingham, AL. I eventually found an adoption record for a female child with her DOB and her first name (Linda), but a different middle and (obviously) last name. I used that to track back to a birth certificate with her birth mother’s first and last name listed, but the father was ‘unknown’.
I shared that information with her and she asked me to stop searching any further. She didn’t want me to try to find her birth mother or find out if she was alive…but she asked me to hold on to what I had found so far. I didn’t tell her, but I went ahead and tracked down her birth mother, confirmed that she was still alive and she was still living in Birmingham! The woman had just turned 15 the week before she gave birth to my step-mom, so she got pregnant a few months after turning 14. It seemed obvious why she gave her up for adoption, but I couldn’t share any of this with my step-mom for almost three more years when she asked me start looking again! I confessed that I had been sitting on her birth mom’s name, address and other information for three years. She laughed and said that she and my dad had $100 riding on whether I had stopped when she told me to or not…she won the $100! =)
She was surrendered to the ‘Baptist Children’s Home’ (orphanage) when she was three days old, but I always wondered why she wasn’t adopted until she was 22 months. I finally asked her about it and it was because of World War II. Duh! Her adoptive parents had three grown sons, but they always hoped for at least one baby girl. Her mother had major complications during her youngest brothers birth and the doctor performed a radical hysterectomy the day after he was born, so a fourth try for a girl wasn’t in the cards. In 1941, with two sons married and out of the house and the youngest son in high school, they decided to pursue adoption. They started searching and quickly realized that babies always found homes, but the ones who weren’t adopted by the age of 9-12 months were much more likely to grow up in the Children’s Home instead of being adopted. They decided that it was meant for them to find a girl who was at least 18 months old to adopt and they kept searching until December 1941 when the U.S. entered WW2.
Her dad had just retired in 1940 from his job as manager of a factory that supplied parts to Bell Aircraft (now Lockheed) in Georgia. After Pearl Harbor, her dad AND her mom (who had always been a homemaker) went to work in that factory until the war ended in 1945. Her mother was 49 and dad was 58 when the war ended, but they were still determined to adopt a little girl. They started searching again but this time they knew they needed to look outside of their county and the rural counties surrounding them. Birmingham was/is the largest city in the state, so that’s where they went. The moment he saw my 22-month-old step-mom, he walked right over to where she playing in the floor and she instantly reached out her arms for him to pick her up! They had to wait until the following day to sign the initial documents to begin the adoption process and allow them to take her home with them in the interim. So they slept on a sofa in the Children’s Home with my step-mom stretched out across both of their laps asleep for the entire night.
The next day, they took her home and the adoption was finalized about four weeks later. They kept the first name her her birth mother had given her, but changed the middle name to her father’s mother’s name and, of course, gave her their last name. She grew up with a mother and father who loved and treasured her and made sure she new that every single day. Her dad always told her that she was more special than every other child she knew because God picked her to be their daughter. That was the reason her mother had never given birth to a girl, because she was always meant to be their child, long before she was ever born! =)
She has always joked that she grew up with FOUR dads, because her three brothers loved her just as fiercely as her father and mother! Unlike many people who were adopted, she never even wondered about her birth mother or questioned why she was given up for adoption. It was only when my step-brother and step-sister grew up and started talking to her about it that she realized that most adopted folks have questions and wonder about their birth parents…
In May 2006, my step-mom asked if I would be comfortable making initial contact with her birth mother and, if she was willing, arrange for them to ‘meet’ by phone. I couldn’t find a phone number to call and I was too impatient to wait for snail mail, so I drove 218 miles from my house north of Atlanta to the address I had for her birth mother in Birmingham. I took a few photos of my step mom and her kids, grandkids as well as my dad and went to knock on a strange old woman’s door!
I had her address plugged into my NAV system and I started to get concerned when it had me exit the highway in the bad part of town! But I was slightly relieved when it was still showing almost 10 miles to go after I passed thru the ghetto and into more semi-rural territory. The ‘red flag’ went back up when I arrived at her address and it was a trailer park. Trailer as in mobile home, with wheels under and usually sitting up on blocks…and park as in dozens of them cramemd onto a few acres covered in gravel. The address was for the entire trailer park and I didn’t have a ‘lot number’ to figure out which of the 20+ aluminum dwellings she lived in!
I had two choices, turn around and go back home and try to make contact by mail…or start knocking on doors and asking if anyone knows her…in rural Alabama after dark! I don’t think I’ve ever been more thankful for the Glock 17 (with carry permit) in my glove compartment…but I felt confident that there were shotguns and hunting rifles sitting inside the door of every single trailer in the park and a handgun was sort of like bringing a butter knife to a gun fight! Still, I slipped in the back of my jeans and untucked my shift to hide it as I got out of my car and headed to the first trailer that had any lights on. Before I got more than a few steps away from my car, three men sitting on the front deck of one of the trailers got up and started heading my way. I later found out that they weren’t planning to assault me, they didn’t even notice me- they just wanted to check out my ride! I drove my mom’s (my real mom) '04 Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland with chrome wheels and chrome tubular side step bars (running boards). It also had the factory grille guard and skid plate, which are for hardcore off-roading but also just looked damn good. (I don’t think she ever even hit a mud puddle in it)…but they were just interested in my 4x4 vehicle!!! They were very friendly and told me how sharp the Jeep was, then they started asking how it was in the mud, etc. I bs-ed my way thru that part of the test and told them it the 4.7L High-Output 260hp V8 was a lot of fun on the road, too…that either impressed or confused them because they introduced themselves and we shook hands. I had bonded with the natives and suddenly felt like a huge city-boy douchebag with the muzzle of a Glock poking my ass crack! :eek:
Only one of the guys lived there, but he knew the woman I was looking for. I briefly explained to him that I wasn’t there on behalf of my step-mom who was related to her and had lost touch many years ago. Once he was convinced that I wasn’t a bounty hunter, process server or bill collector (his words, apparently trailer parks see a lot of those people), he pointed me to her particular mobile home. I walked up to the front door and, before i could knock, a woman in her mid-late 70s opened the door with a friendly smile on her face. She heard me walking up the front steps and figured it was one of her neighbors visiting since it was almost 9pm on a weeknight. I introduced myself to her and asked if she was (insert name here) and she said she hadn’t used that last name in over 50 years but that was her maiden name. Then I asked her if she had given up a baby girl for adoption in 1944 and she instantly started screaming out loud and sobbing uncontrollably! She sank down the ground and tried to speak but couldn’t get the words out because she was crying so hard. My kinder, gentler, compassionate alter ego took over my body (I rarely allow him to be seen) and I sat right down with her and put my arms around this obviously heartbroken old lady!
After a few minutes (and several neighbors running over to check on her after hearing her screaming and crying), she looked at me and asked, “Do you know my Linda Lee??? Do you know what happened to her???” (Note- Lee was the middle name that was changed when she was adopted). I told her that Linda had been my step-mom for the past 15 years and that she and my dad lived about 30 minutes north of Atlanta. I told her that Linda was the one who asked me to find her and that my step-mom understood why she gave her up, because she was so young!
That was when she started telling me how she got pregnant and how my step-mom was put up for adoption and I felt like a freight train had just plowed me over! She was raped by the 19-year-old son of a very wealthy attorney in the small town where she grew up about 20 miles outside of Birmingham. He broke her wrist and left brusies all over her body and when she ran to the police with her clothes torn to shreds, bleeding and beaten the moment she got away from him, they called her white trash and told her to get used to it because she wouldn’t ever be good for anything else!!!
Somehow, she manged to walk the two miles to where she lived with her mother, father, older brother and her grandmother. She told her mother and grandmother what happened and her father ran into the room and started punching her and calling her a whore…her own father!!! Her 17-year-old brother saved her by beating the shit out of their father and grandma (the dad’s mother) knocked him out with her walking cane for good measure! The brother ran out the door and drove off in their truck with a loaded shotgun in his hand. The one who raped her disappeared that night and was never found…I hope he died slow and I hope he suffered! Meanwhile, her mother called her aunt (mom’s sister) who lived in Tuscaloosa (roughly an hour away) and the aunt drove over immediately and took the poor girl back home with her to protect her.
She stayed with her aunt and uncle for the next six weeks or so and was just starting to process everything that happened when she confided in her aunt that her monthly visitor (period) didnt’ happen (she was almost three weeks late at that time). When the aunt told her husband, he snatched her up and drove her to ‘home for unwed mothers’ located in Birmingham. She lived there for a little over six months until she had the baby. But she wasn’t even allowed to hold her or touch her before they took the baby away and Ms. Molly (Molly is step-mom’s mother’s name) never saw her again! She was planning to take the baby and go live with her now 18-year-old brother and his new bride. Giving up the baby for adoption was never even mentioned to her and she never consented in any way nor had her mother or father…
After talling to Ms. Molly for several hours, I walked back to the car to call my step-mom, not sure how much I was going to tell her. I skipped the rape and other violence and told her that Molly never intended to give her up and that she was stolen from her the moment she was born and never seen again! My step-mom asked if I was okay staying there with Molly and she and my dad would be there in less than four hours. I hung up and saw all the photos I brought sitting in the front seat. I had forgotten all about them, but I spent the next three hours or so introducing Ms. Molly to her beautiful daughter, grandkids and great-grandkids…my dad and step-mom pulled in the drive an hour sooner tha I expected and I was surprised to see my step-sister and her husband right behind them. The next day, we brought Molly back to Georgia with us and she stayed with my dad and step-mom for several weeks.
Even though I was her just her step-grandson (if even), she seemed to favor me over everyone else in the family and trusted me. We never told my step-mom about the rape and I never plan to. Me, my sister and my dad own a tiny rental cottage directly across the street from my dad and step-mom’s house that my grandmother left to the three of us in her will. I convinced Ms. Molly to move in and live there rent-free and she finally agreed. She was never able to get pregnant again and the man she married in her early 20s left her because she couldn’t give him any kids! She spent the next 42 years after he left her alone, wondering where Linda was and if she was happy and healthy. She tried to find her and ever spent every cent she had on PI in the 60s trying to find her, but she had no idea that had been taken out of the Birmingham area.
Ms. Molly died in her sleep on 08/26/2013 with her daughter and the rest of her family (me included) by her side. She had seven very happy years at the end of a horribly tragic, violent, cruel life…I will never be prouder of anything more than driving to that Alabama trailer park on a dark night back in 2006… 
That was a very nice and moving story Beelzebubba.
I second this. That was beautiful and I’m so glad that Miss Molly and Linda found each other again and had a happy life together. Bless you for your part in that. You’re a good person.
Damn, dawg - what a great story. What a great relative you are!
What a wonderful story, thanks for sharing!
Received documents in mail. Most of it was things the previous documents revealed. New info: name of person at court I can contact to get identifying info. Also saw that bio parents “denied permission to perform surgeries”. Counselor reassured me that it’s legalese, and doesn’t mean what,I fear.
Er… that’s actually a rather ominous phrase, especially in the context of your birth defect.
Good luck on this journey, whether you actually decide to meet with your bio parents or not. I hope all endings are happy ones.
Broom, I unfortunately agree it may paint them in a bad light. Exact phrasing “refused to grant permission”.
Have my next step: write letter to probate with all the information I have. Wait to hear from judge for decision or request to appear in court.
Fingers crossed, Botticelli buddy!