F
INDING MY BIRTH PARENTS in my senior years was pretty cool. My two sisters and I were adopted over 50 years ago, putting us in a minority like few others. Using today’s statistics, fewer than one percent of American families take in children who were voluntarily released to adoption by American mothers, as my sisters and me were. There was only one other family I knew that had adopted a child in our small town.
I remember being five years old and going with my sister, mother, and father to pick her up at the agency. My mother was so excited. She kept poking my father and pointing to the little girl, dressed up in a coat and clutching a stuffed animal. “Do you think that’s her?” she asked, with my father responding, “I don’t know. We’ll find out soon enough.” Adoptive kids don’t always have a sense of belonging, but for me it was enough, at least until I met my wife-to-be. I was 24 and in love. The notion
THE ADOPTION AD I didn’t have much interest growing up to search for my biological family. From the beginReade Brower ning, my mother was honest that I was adopted, and she used the premise to explain that it meant I was a chosen child. With an adoptive mother—one who couldn’t have children for medical reasons—having children is never an accident or mistake. In fact, it takes a concerted effort to make it happen. My mother told me several stories of leaving the adoption agency in tears, telling my father, “They will never give us a baby. We don’t make enough money, and they are judging us by our car, which is all rusted out!” But her hard work paid off. Because my parents had adopted two—my sister and me—they were told that was the limit. My mother persisted anyway. She said if for any reason another baby was available, she was too. So next came the person who would be my youngest sister. She was getting on in age, for a baby, and the adoption agency feared she could end up indefinitely in foster care. When we were adopted, I was five months old, and my other sister was five weeks old. At 14 months, my youngest sister was no longer a baby, and most adoptive parents want to adopt children as young as possible. The agency called my mother, who immediately said yes. 26 • MAINE SENIORS
of “nature vs. nurture” was a foreign concept, but always putting down “N/A” on medical questions about my family’s history was beginning to weigh on me. And my girlfriend’s curiosity was infectious, so I went and asked the court to unseal my records. The judge approved my request after taking me into chambers for a Q & A. He explained to me that my birth mother had been promised anonymity, but now the courts were siding with my “right to know” above of the promise made to her 24 years earlier. With a handshake, I agreed to contact my birth parents—if I found them—only through the court, in order to give my birth mother a proper “headsup.” I also promised to read two books the judge recommended about the subject. He cautioned me that many women who give up children go on to marry and have a family without ever sharing the secret of the baby they gave away. In my case, that was true. Soon after my delivery, my birth mother met and married another man (not my birth father). When as a 59-year-old I found her, she’d had four other children and had been married to that same man for 57 years. I found my birth siblings soon after her death. None of my birth siblings knew I existed. They believe that their dad, still alive, never knew about me either. As a courtesy to them, we keep our relationship under the radar, which is fine with me. The interesting part of my journey is that,
PHOTO: KEVIN BENNETT
FINDING FAMILY IN THE SENIOR YEARS, WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM
