He did not pass his genes on to me but so what? Bob Miller did all the things good fathers are supposed to do. I will always think of him as my real dad. More about Bob on Monday.
On Monday: Who’s Your Daddy?
Medical History Part 1
Every time I go to the doctor’s office, the doctor asks me about my medical history. My answer is always the same: “I’m adopted. I don’t know anything about my medical history.”
Fortunately, that’s no longer true. I’m not completely in the dark about the medical issues that run in my family.
If I learn nothing more about my biological relatives, I will be grateful for the information I have about my birth mother’s health.
Lillian died of breast cancer at the age of 48. That’s what several family members told me and I confirmed it by obtaining a copy of Lillian’s death certificate from the state of Illinois.
Not knowing anything about our medical history is a common frustration among adoptees. Even those of us who are healthy want to know which diseases run in the family. Everyone should know their medical history, particularly information on their closest relatives. Having the knowledge means we can ask better questions of our doctors. The knowledge also gives us the power to make lifestyle changes or ask our doctors for specific screenings – whatever steps we can take to counter our genetic heritage.
I have a 13-year-old son, Jake, so my medical history could mean something to him.
It’s impossible to prepare for inherited risks you don’t know about. During an online search, I found these comments, written by an adoptee on Adoption.com:
“My brother…he was also adopted (we had different birth parents). His medical past was littered with mental and physical illness that our parents knew nothing about. It was only when he became a teenager that they could tell something was not right with him. They had his records unsealed by the court system and were shocked to see everything that had not been disclosed. They got him help but he is disabled to the point that he lives in an assisted living facility for the mentally disabled. Had they known earlier, maybe it could have helped, maybe not, but at least knowing about it could have made the situation different.
Although I knew that I was generally healthy, there are lots of things out there that can be carried, or can skip generations. I love the fact that my history is no longer unknown.”
Exactly. It is strangely comforting for me to have a name for the disease that killed my mother.
This week I called my gynecologist. In addition to an annual mammogram, should I do anything more as far as screenings for breast cancer? I asked. Should I be tested for the BRCA genes? (Mutations of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes are linked to breast and ovarian cancers. Angelina Jolie, after testing positive for the BRCA1 gene mutation, opted to have a double mastectomy.)
The office worker put me on hold to consult the staff. Minutes later, she returned to the phone. As long as you don’t notice any changes in your breasts, she said, you can wait until your annual exam, which is coming up in a couple of months, to discuss the options with your doctor. Ok, that settles that, I thought.
Thinking of Jake, I went online to find out about the risk factors for breast cancer in men. Male breast cancer is rare but, according to the Mayo Clinic, having a family history of breast cancer can increase a guy’s chance of developing the disease. I’m not going to lose sleep over this but it is something to keep in mind.
What have you done differently since you learned about your medical history or your child’s history? I’d love to hear from adoptees and adoptive parents.
Coming Monday: Uncovering Medical History
Every time I go to the doctor’s office, the doctor asks me about my medical history. My answer is always the same: “I’m adopted. I don’t know anything about my medical history.”
This is a common frustration for adoptees.
Fortunately, I’m no longer completely in the dark about the medical problems that run in my family.
If I learn nothing more about my biological kin, I will be grateful for the information I have about my birth mother’s health. Stay tuned. I’ll have more to say about medical history on Monday.
Here’s to Adoptee Rights
A birth mother’s right to privacy should not trump an adoptee’s right to know where she came from, writes Natalie Turko-Norton in a letter published in the Montreal Gazette.
Turko-Norton eloquently argues that adoptees should not have to settle for incomplete information (or no information) about their origins.
“Their right should not be trumped by the birth mother’s right to anonymity,” writes Turko-Norton. “Her background is not a mystery. It is the child, now an adult, given up for adoption, whose life is a mystery. What gives society the right to condemn such a person to a life of ‘not-knowing’ because the birth mother wants to preserve her intact life and new family? This is not a level playing field by any means.”
Parallel Lives
For adoptees, it’s hard to resist family comparisons. I can’t help but compare my sheltered childhood on the southwest side of Chicago to what I know of my biological family’s life in the suburbs north of the city.
My family’s bungalow on South Sacramento Avenue and my birth mother Lillian’s home on Alice Drive are only 35 miles apart, but the two families might as well have lived on separate planets. That’s how different they were.
My mother, Claire, and father, Bob, didn’t work outside the home. Dad was a retired linotype operator and Mom was a homemaker. They were in their 50s when they adopted me days after I was born. A year later, they adopted my newborn sister, Melissa. This was in the 1960s. Mom and Dad were unlikely parents to two little school girls who never knew they were adopted. Were they our grandparents? Claire and Bob bristled every time they heard that question.
They had plenty of time to supervise Melissa and me. They were helicopter parents before anyone used that expression to describe annoying moms and dads who hover constantly over their kids. Claire and Bob were ahead of their time.
We didn’t get away with anything because our parents watched us like hawks. Dad drove us to and from school every day. We were not allowed to play with the kids across the street because Claire thought they were too “street-y.” Melissa and I were goody-goodies not because we wanted to be but because we didn’t have a choice. I read a lot of books because there was nothing better to do. In the summers, I rode my bike around Marquette Park over and over again. I went to the library for more books. I counted the days until school started. Time passed very slowly on South Sacramento. I dreamed about moving out of that boring prison and getting a taste of the real world.
On Alice Drive, my sister and her three brothers had fun and freedom. They went on family outings and played with little supervision. Their parents, Lillian and Dick, both worked and were not around enough to watch the kids closely. Sometimes my siblings got into mischief.
Lillian’s pregnancy with me may have been the last straw for the marriage. I was not Dick’s child. She and Dick divorced not long after I was born. Their breakup hurt the family. My sister’s grades dropped. There was more pain for the children when Lillian got angry and lashed out at them. As teenagers, my brothers and sister got into drugs and sex and no doubt rock and roll. One of my brothers, a brainy boy who got good grades, took his life. Lillian was never the same after her boy died.
That’s one thing Lillian and Claire had in common. My adoptive parents had a biological son, Bobby, who also died young – of a kidney ailment. Claire and Bob were devastated. They withdrew from their family and the world. They never left the house, not even to buy food. They had somebody deliver the groceries. Adopting me and Melissa brought my parents back to diapers, baby food and the real world. It helped them heal.
I resented having parents who smothered me but maybe having a child die is what made Mom and Dad so protective of their daughters.
I didn’t have any boyfriends in high school and didn’t have a drink until my senior year. Melissa and I graduated and went to college. We never got to go away to school – Mom and Dad wouldn’t allow that – but we graduated from college, something neither of our parents had done. Claire and Bob were proud.
My life never intersected with Lillian’s. She was only 48 when she died in 1983. Not long after her death, another one of her sons died after a long struggle with injuries he suffered in an auto accident.
I wonder how different my life would have been if I had grown up with Lillian and her family. Would I be the person I am today with different parents and siblings?
All I know for sure is I am grateful to Lillian for giving me life and extremely grateful to Claire and Bob for adopting me. Maybe their overly protective but loving style of parenting was just what I needed.
Who is Bio Dad?
When you don’t know who your biological parents are, you jump on any little scrap of information you can get.
I’ve talked to several people who knew my mother, including her best friend, Nancy. During our first conversation, she assured me she had no idea who my bio father could be. The second time we talked, she told me she never knew my father but very casually mentioned he was a golfer. A golfer? A professional golfer? A suburban guy who liked to putt around on the golf course for fun? Nancy didn’t know. How long did he and my mother go out? I asked. Just a couple times, Nancy said. Hmmm. Very interesting.
That’s all I know about my father. My mother was married and had four kids when she met him. She worked as a waitress and cook at a number of bars, restaurants and a very nice private club with a golf course in the suburbs north of Chicago. Did she meet my father at one of those places? Possibly. I don’t know where she was working in the summer of 1963, which is when I was conceived.
I hope a DNA test will move my search in the right direction. Using Family Tree DNA’s Family Finder test kit, I scraped samples of DNA from the insides of my cheeks and sent the results back to the company. Family Tree DNA will contact me if my sample matches any samples in the company’s database.
I know where my mother came from and what her childhood and adult life were like. I have a picture of her in my head and several photos of her on my desk.
Dad is a mystery man. Unless I find someone who knew him, someone who can tell me what he was like, I’ll always picture my father as some featureless guy in a golf shirt toting a cart full of clubs and flirting with married waitresses.
Counting on DNA
Recently I wrote about hitting a dead end in my search for bio dad and other blood relatives. Well, the dead ends continue. Last week I learned one of my birth mother’s closest friends is deceased.
Nobody said searching for biological family would be fun. In my situation, I’ve learned many relatives and other potentially good sources are no longer alive. It’s depressing and frustrating.
I’m not ready to throw in the towel yet. I’ve read about DNA tests and how they can help adoptees track down relatives. The cost of these tests has also come down in recent years. I asked for recommendations and ended up- spending $104 for Family Tree DNA’s Family Finder test kit. This particular test can help men and women find biological relatives on both their mother’s and father’s sides within the last five generations.
The help desk at Family Tree DNA told me the Family Finder autosomal DNA test is the only option for women interested in finding out about their father’s side of the family. Autosomal DNA is the only type of DNA inherited by women from their dads. It’s actually a mix of genetic material from both the mother and the father.
Of course, the test has its limits. I will only be matched up with family members who have also taken the test and the relatives I find are more likely to be cousins than brothers or sisters. My DNA will be compared to other people’s DNA in the company’s database, which holds more than 650,000 records. The test is painless. I will submit samples of my DNA taken from the inside of my cheek. No needles, thank you!
Maybe I’ll hook up with bio dad’s nieces and nephews and maybe they’ll fill in some blanks for me. Maybe they’ll slam the door in my face. Either way, I’ll be happy to come away with new information about my roots.
The test results will also shed light on my nationality, something I’ve wondered about ever since I found out I was adopted. The results will provide a breakdown of my ethnic makeup by percent. That’s pretty cool.
According to the New York Times, a growing number of adopted adults are taking DNA tests in the hope of connecting with family. Have you used a DNA test to find family? What was your experience like?
Pictures of My Mother
Everything I knew about my birth mother’s life was based on what I had learned in a two-week whirlwind of document discoveries and long distance conversations with newly found relatives.
I was hungry to know what the woman, who died 30 years ago this month, looked like. For days I waited anxiously for the mail carrier to show up with a packet of vintage photographs.
“Your mother’s pictures are here,” my husband, Tom, announced after picking up the mail one day last week. I ran upstairs from my basement office.
Tom handed me a thick envelope. I started to cry.
Nobody’s life story is complete without photos. Inside the envelope, the faded pictures, dating back to the 1970s, show a woman with black hair and dark eyes. She’s rather slender for someone who had given birth to five children. Lillian alternately looks happy, haggard, tired and bored in photos showing her with her husband, surrounded by his family, with her sons and daughter.
The nicest photo, probably taken by a professional photographer, shows my mother looking attractive and chic in a sleeveless black and white dress, a curl of black hair on her pale forehead, standing near her husband who’s wearing a suit jacket and tie. Looks like they were at a party. Maybe their wedding day?
Another one of my favorites shows my mother standing alone in front of a lake, holding three large fish in both hands. She looks happy.
Lillian did a lot of living in her 48 years. She even became a grandmother, which is mind-boggling to me. Her granddaughter told me about the happy times she had with my mother, who took her fishing. Lillian skinned and filleted their catch of the day.
The photos flesh out Lillian’s story for me. It wasn’t all tragic, which is the impression I came away with from early conversations with her family members. Looking at the photos, I can see she had some ordinary, even fun moments. I am relieved.
Wife, mother, awesome cook. Hard-working waitress, drinker, angler. My mother wore a lot of hats. I will always treasure the photos that bring her to life in my imagination.
The Decline of Foreign Adoptions
The tide is turning against international adoptions. In South Korea, activists are trying to end or at least cut down on adoptions by foreigners. Up until recently, South Korea was one of the leading providers of children for American families, according to CNN, which is running a series on international adoption.
Hitting a Dead End
I hit a dead end in my search for bio dad. Ok, that’s a stretch. Finding my biological father seems next to impossible so I’ll be happy to get a few nuggets of information about the man, who’s a stranger to me.
Last week, I tried to reach a distant cousin. As an adult, she lived with her mother for a while and her mother was very close to my adoptive mom. I have a hunch there could be a family tie linking my birth parents to my adoptive parents. My cousin might know something, I thought.
I left a couple of messages for people with my cousin’s last name in Green Bay, Wisconsin, her last known place of residence. The phone rang at 11:30 one night. I was in bed. My cousin’s son was on the phone. A little groggy, I explained what I was looking for. Sorry, he said, but my mother passed away a little over a year ago. She was about 65.
Damn! Why didn’t I reach out to my cousin sooner? I should have started this mission a long time ago.
