I am your daughter

I am very pleased to feature this guest blog on adoption search and reunion, including DNA searching, from adoptee and psychotherapist Lara Leon. It’s a tough read. Thank you Lara for taking the time to write this, I am sure it will help many adoptees feel less alone.

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Monday 28 October 2019

“Hi Lara, this is Andy from FinderMonkey.  I’m ringing to tell you that the DNA match is a very close match.  This man is probably your father or your uncle.”

I’m taking the call between clients, in one of the 15-minute intervals between being their ‘rock’, their therapist, for an hour at a time.  The room is their safe space, painted in soft greys and with a high ceiling which feels unthreatening.  I move slowly towards the sash window and look out onto Market Street, in my opinion the prettiest street in the Poole’s Old Town.  I look towards the Guildhall, formerly the old Market House which originally housed market stalls.  I have often imagined the cacophony of 19th century traders eagerly selling their wares.  But now in 2019, couples seal their promise of eternal love, and families and friends toss confetti towards the optimistic newlyweds standing on the concrete steps that descend in gentle curves on either side of the Georgian building to the street below.

Therapy saved me.  I was 21 and married to someone I didn’t love and who certainly couldn’t love me (or anyone else probably).  This time in my life was just one of many examples of my destructive patterns, of seeking love and approval in all the most damaging ways.  I had found myself fantasising all too often about ending it all – surely that would be easier?  In desperation, I visited my GP and there in that small consulting room I found I couldn’t explain a thing, but the wracking sobs came so hard and fast that I failed to contain them.  He referred me, at what might have been the most carefree period of my young life, to my first counsellor.  And so began my long journey into therapy, self-help and ultimately psychology and psychotherapy.  

I take the call in that quarter of an hour that I use to empty my head and ‘shake off’ the emotions of the last session.  I should have let my phone keep ringing, but I knew this call might answer one of my most enduring questions.

My throat dries up and I feel my heart bruising the inside of my chest.  My father?

Sending my DNA to be processed, using FinderMonkey search agency to locate my biological father had been a final attempt.  Since the age of sixteen, with no solid leads, no surname and no address, I’d failed time after time to find out who he was.  I made the decision so that I could tell myself that I had tried everything possible.

I had known I would search for the people who made me ever since I’d been able to understand in grown up terms that I was adopted.  As a child, teenager, young adult, I had felt outside somehow. Weird and disconnected from the world around me.

‘What happens now?’ I ask.  Already I begin to imagine meeting the the man I know of only as Gerry.  I am 49 years old and I feel as excited as when I got my first wellies when I was about 6.  They were red as a ripe tomato and I refused to take them off.  I insisted on wearing them all night long at my nan’s house.  I must have been a real sight in my nightdress and wellies, tiny in the vast spare-room double bed which was always adorned with a very 1970s purple satin eiderdown.

“We will write to both brothers now.  We will explain that a blood relative of theirs is searching and we will invite them both to make contact with us.”  As though reading my thoughts, he continues “Don’t worry, we are trained in this sort of thing.  We will get back to you as soon as we know anything.”

I sense that the next few days will feel interminable, the nerves about whether he will want to know me have already set in.  He doesn’t even know I exist.  The letter will most likely be the biggest shock of his life. 

~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Thursday 7 November 2019

“Hi Lara, this is Michelle from FinderMonkey.  How are you?”

I detect something in her voice.  Sympathy?  My stomach flips. Why isn’t Andy calling?  I inhale deeply.

‘I’m OK I think…’ I offer.

“Ok, good.  I have something to tell you Lara.  Are you sitting down?” 

Sitting down?

“Yes”, I say, staring at the grey carpet.

“Ok.  We’ve had a call today from a firm of solicitors.”

Big questions and wild scenarios start to form. 

“The solicitors are acting on behalf of your father Gerald”.

“OK”, I manage. 

“They are executors for his will.  Gerald passed away on 28 May this year.  I’m so sorry Lara.” 

I am no longer in the conversation; I am whipped away.  33 agonising years...  I have been searching for 33 years, only to have missed him by 5 pitiful months!  

And oh, how I have longed to say, “I am your daughter”.

“Ok, thank you for the call Michelle, I have to go now.”

“OK, I am sorry Lara.”

A ball forms in my throat.

“I will be OK.  Thank you.”

I end the call, and I sit to gather my thoughts and feelings.  I fight the nausea.

But I remind myself that I know now who he is!  That was my main goal wasn’t it?  To know his name and see what he looked like? To try and pick out similarities between us?  So, I tell myself sternly that this was a success.  I can hardly believe what I hear myself say out loud - alone in that room.

“I know who my father is.”

I sit in my chair and I look at the silver clock.  Five minutes until my next client.

I breathe deeply for a while.  I need to be ‘present’ for the next hour, so I stand up and shake off the emotion, physically brushing it off of my body with my hands - a technique I learned in therapy training.  

The doorbell sounds, so I rise and move slowly to the door.  I inhale so deeply it forces my back to straighten.

“Hi Susan!”  I smile widely as her expression nudges me back to right now.  I put aside thoughts of Gerry.

“How has your week been?” I ask.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~ 

You can find Lara on Twitter  

Photo by Lucia Hatalova on Unsplash 

Do you have a family tree you could share?

Do you have a tree? Hmm... well the short answer is no. And the long answer is: I’m too scared to start a tree because:

• I don’t want to find out how Ancestry differentiates between adopted children and ‘real’ children (dotted lines? Parenthesis?)

• I don’t want to break the website trying to fit my complicated family into their (probably) simplistic framework.

• I don’t want to have to choose between my adoptive family and my biological family when it comes to inputting my mother or father, and I’m guessing it won’t accept two of each.

• I’m frightened to see just how much everyday people are obsessed with their ‘blood’ going back centuries (when “it’s not thicker than water you know, it’s really not: we make our own families, etc etc”)

• I’m worried an alarm will sound in my parents’ house if I type my birth name onto a website “traitor alert!” “Sound the ungrateful klaxon!” “Stop press: snotty-nosed foundling snubs selfless couple who ‘took her in’!”

• I’m worried biological relatives I have never met will politely ask me to ‘untag’ myself from ‘their’ family trees, despite DNA ‘evidence’ I’m related.

• I haven’t been given explicit permission by my birth parents to announce my existence to extended bio family and it may seem as though I’m ‘making waves’.

• A bio relative may express interest initially then ‘ghost’ me once they discover I am a black sheep/rotten apple/etc.
  

However I have been helping a friend with his tree and it has felt very empowering to see his mother’s name there in black and white. There’s a cool feature where Ancestry automatically populates any known siblings, parents, grandparents etc so we literally watched his family tree grow before our very eyes - and you can’t argue with the DNA!

So I will be creating my tree soon, and I’ll keep you posted on how it feels, if any bios contact me, and whether or not I’m struck by lightning for publicly stating information that a court decided should be kept secret.

I’d love to know how you’ve navigated the world of Ancestry.

Claiming space as an adoptee

Anyone else sometimes feel like running amok? Going rogue? Taking up some space for once? Here are a few crazy things I toy with doing from time to time. Things that, to even think about, make me feel super scared and cripplingly anxious.

However, I don’t want to break any official or unofficial rules. I don’t want to be “sent back” for not abiding by the terms and conditions of my adoption. Of course, then I remind myself I did not sign any terms and conditions. I wonder if I am being complicit in the secrecy that I so outwardly loathe and deride. If my behaviour is contributing to the sack of shame I carry over my shoulder wherever I go.

What’s the worst that could happen…?

Will I disappear in a puff of smoke if I…
Say I don’t believe in adoption as it is currently done?
Say I believe adoption is trauma?
Tell my children the lady whose house we visit annually is actually an extra granny?

Will I be arrested if I…
Name my birth parents on this blog?
Tag my biological siblings on Facebook?
Take a selfie outside my biological grandparent’s house?
Leave flowers on my paternal grandfather’s grave?

Will I deter future friends if I…
Answer the “Do you have any brothers and sisters?” question with the complicated truth?
Tell them about my attachment issues?

Will I be ridiculed if I…
Create a family tree on Ancestry?
Message a biological relative on ancestry and admit to being an adoptee?
Ask to be known by my original name?

Does an alarm go off of an adoptee claims their space on this earth? Or is it wonderfully exhilaratingly freeing? I’d love to know.... leave me a comment if you’ve done any of these things and tell me how it’s worked out.

Photo credit: Clem Onojeghuo clemono.com