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Follow-Up to Previous Post
Jul. 10th, 2003 01:37 pmI suppose I should say, I feel no pressure, no urgency in finding out if this woman is my biological mother. I've waited thirty four years, a day, a week, a month, a year, it's not going to change anything in the grand scheme of things.
The ultimate and most urgent goal when I first started this was to gain a current medical history. Having serious medical concerns over the years, it would be very helpful to know if over the last thirty four years any one in my biological family has had a stroke, heart disease, cancer, etc. That is still my primary concern. It will always be my foremost concern.
The good news (sort of) is that soon, the State of Georgia will be starting a new division that will allow biological family memebers to anonymously post to them current medical information that can then be given to adoptees. The bad news is, many biological parents that have moved away from the state that their children were given up for adoption in are unaware of the changing laws and therefor not inclined to know who to call or talk to, etc. This would work out much better if it were on a national level. However, I am of the mind that it is at least beneficial for the adoptees of today.
My secondary goal is something far more abstract, and something I have struggled with my entire life. I have thought about finding my biological parents off and on most of my life, though unlike many adoptees, I have not obsessed over it. Even if I never speak to them personally, never meet them, never have any personal communication with them, just knowing who they are will make me happy. Of course, I would like more than that, but I would be content with just knowing.
Something I have never really spoken about is how I felt when I received the documents containing my last name prior to my adoption. (My adoptive parents changed my entire name, not just my last name.)
I believe many adoptees go through life feeling seperated from the rest of the world, different in some way, disconnected. This has nothing to do with how good or bad their adoptive parents are. Children that are not adopted can look at pictures of family members, see a resemblence, ask other family or friends of the family about their parents, grandparents, etc. It gives them a sense of belonging to a line of people, connected to them. Adoptees look at pictures and see nothing of themselves in those people. They look at people walking down the street, seeking something familiar in them, something that joins them to the rest of humanity.
Many people would disregard the importance of names. Knowing you had a name, then were adopted and it was changed, makes you feel like the person you were was something unimportant and easily disregarded. It makes you feel like you have to become who the adoptive parents want you to be.
I actually cried when I saw the documents, out of sheer... comfort. It wasn't that I didn't think I had a last name, but seeing it, knowing it, was something wholly inexplicable.
So, no, nothing has changed in my reasons over the years. They are simply the need to know where I came from, to know that I am connected on a level beyond day to day interactions with the world around me.
Ignorance is not bliss.
The ultimate and most urgent goal when I first started this was to gain a current medical history. Having serious medical concerns over the years, it would be very helpful to know if over the last thirty four years any one in my biological family has had a stroke, heart disease, cancer, etc. That is still my primary concern. It will always be my foremost concern.
The good news (sort of) is that soon, the State of Georgia will be starting a new division that will allow biological family memebers to anonymously post to them current medical information that can then be given to adoptees. The bad news is, many biological parents that have moved away from the state that their children were given up for adoption in are unaware of the changing laws and therefor not inclined to know who to call or talk to, etc. This would work out much better if it were on a national level. However, I am of the mind that it is at least beneficial for the adoptees of today.
My secondary goal is something far more abstract, and something I have struggled with my entire life. I have thought about finding my biological parents off and on most of my life, though unlike many adoptees, I have not obsessed over it. Even if I never speak to them personally, never meet them, never have any personal communication with them, just knowing who they are will make me happy. Of course, I would like more than that, but I would be content with just knowing.
Something I have never really spoken about is how I felt when I received the documents containing my last name prior to my adoption. (My adoptive parents changed my entire name, not just my last name.)
I believe many adoptees go through life feeling seperated from the rest of the world, different in some way, disconnected. This has nothing to do with how good or bad their adoptive parents are. Children that are not adopted can look at pictures of family members, see a resemblence, ask other family or friends of the family about their parents, grandparents, etc. It gives them a sense of belonging to a line of people, connected to them. Adoptees look at pictures and see nothing of themselves in those people. They look at people walking down the street, seeking something familiar in them, something that joins them to the rest of humanity.
Many people would disregard the importance of names. Knowing you had a name, then were adopted and it was changed, makes you feel like the person you were was something unimportant and easily disregarded. It makes you feel like you have to become who the adoptive parents want you to be.
I actually cried when I saw the documents, out of sheer... comfort. It wasn't that I didn't think I had a last name, but seeing it, knowing it, was something wholly inexplicable.
So, no, nothing has changed in my reasons over the years. They are simply the need to know where I came from, to know that I am connected on a level beyond day to day interactions with the world around me.
Ignorance is not bliss.
