Adoption never strays far from my life

Kate and Geoff leaving the ceremony 

You just never know what's going to happen when you are as public as I am about my daughter lost to adoption and my passion for changing adoption, and Facebook.

Case A) A lawyer in my village of Sag Harbor of friendly but usually only a passing acquaintance told me one day that years ago he handled an adoption and he has kept all the papers with the names intact IN CASE someone (as in the mother or the grown-up child) returns asking for information.

He will give it to whomever arrives, no questions asked (as long as no one is an axe-murderer).  He understands that it is absurd that mother and child are not allowed to know one another under current laws. I have no more
information about the case, so don't ask. The quiet support I've gotten from this man turned out to be a total surprise. He sometimes hits "Like" on adoption posts on Facebook. Lesson learned: His openness alone is an argument for mothers to come out of the closet--you find support (and yes, criticism) from people you never expected.

B) This morning he called to point out the article in the New York Times yesterday about DNA reuniting Korean adoptee and family. Nice, right? Yes, I had seen it earlier in the week when it was making the rounds. Here's the link, more about this later: Adopted Koreans, Stymied in Search of Birth Parents, Find Hope in a Cotton Swab

C) We went to a family wedding on my husband's side in Rhode Island this week. Before the ceremony, the father of the groom comes over and tells us that his wife, mother of the groom, is my Facebook friend and he's looked at both my page and Tony's and thus...knows a bit about us. Since I did not remember hitting "confirm" to someone identified as the mother of the groom, and since the vast majority of my Facebook friends are connected to adoption, I went into adoption-think mode. Should I go over and bring this up? She is obviously having such a good time...I spent part of the reception/dinner/dancing thinking I should say something to her....as I made the assumption that she was either adopted herself or a first mother.

Wrong! I bumped into her at some point and just briefly said, Hello, I understand we are friends on Facebook, etc. More than a few words we did not exchange. This morning I discovered that our only mutual friends are through Tony's family, and I must have accepted her invitation to "friend" her knowing only that. Adoption seems not to be a part of her makeup. Yes, she has learned possibly more about our side of the story regarding adoption than she ever dreamed about. Lesson learned: Make no assumptions.

Lorraine and Jennifer

D) Tomorrow my friend Jennifer, the daughter to my first love is coming from Michigan for a visit. Long time readers know about Jennifer and our mystical connection since I've written about it in detail here and in Hole In My Heart: memoir and report from the fault lines of adoption. The short of it is if I had married her father as he and I once had planned, a version of Jennifer would be our daughter, and I would not have been a mother of loss. Her relationship with her own mother is fractured, and her father died when she was eleven. In the years since we connected in 2008 (when she found a cache of my letters to her father) we have become close. Totally unexpectedly, she is both a confidential intermediary in Michigan, is married to an adoptee, whom she met through adoption channels. He's also a CI. When we connected, Jennifer needed a mother and I needed a daughter, and click we did. I've even emotionally adopted her son, who resembles the man I almost married rather remarkably. How the world goes round!

So now, adieu! I've got weeds to pull, cleaning to do, things to organize before she gets her tomorrow. Call me thrilled.--lorraine 

As for the blog changeover, Suz is hoping to do it sometime in September. We are now planning to stay with Blogger, but the page will have a new look and hopefully will be more friendly to mobile devices.
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Letters Lead to an Alternative Universe Daughter

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TO READ
The Secret Daughter: A beautiful novel of adoption, heartbreak and a mother's love
Over a thousand reviews at Amazon so it must be a good read.