What Runs in Biological Families? An Adoptee Explores…

As a child I was obsessed with Mt. Rainier. OBSESSED. As in, I wanted to live there permanently. Whenever we would camp I would eagerly go to the visitor center, join the junior ranger program, and read books about wildflowers and animal tracks. By the time I was in highschool I had 42 of 84 wildflowers of the North Cascades memorized by sight. I mean, I said I was obsessed.

Because I loved being outdoors so much, I decided (at the tender age of 9) that I wanted to be a park or forest ranger. And I knew that my dream was to be a park ranger in the Ohanaepcosh campground of Mt. Rainier. Or worse, down the road at the La Wis Wis campground (which was always our backup campground). It wasn’t until 11th grade that I gave up that dream, after meeting a gal at an environmental camp that casually mentioned the regulation changes for park rangers, that they had to attend police academy and carry a firearm. That sealed it for me, being a park ranger was out…I would NOT carry a gun for work. Not because I was opposed to guns in the backcountry (Grizzlies and mountain lions aren’t to be messed with people!), but because I didn’t want to be a law enforcement officer in a national park. I didn’t want to have to shoot someone. Nope. No thanks.

So I’m having dinner with my bio dad, and we were chatting about the crazy wildfires happening here in Washington…and he said, “Well, you know, my sister stopped being a forest ranger when she had to deploy her fire shelter on the fire line.”

And then I remembered that my bio aunt had been a forest ranger. Whoa. Uncanny, right? And where did she work? La Wis Wis campground. OF ALL PLACES, she worked right down the road, as a forest ranger, from where I wanted to work from 9-17. Whoa. And we got to talking, but he finally said, “But then the laws changed, and she stopped doing it because she didn’t want to carry a gun.”

He happened to say that at the EXACT same time that I said the reason that tipped me over the edge was when I didn’t want to carry a gun.

Whoa.

Whoa.

Right?

When researching your family history, any crazy “whoa, that’s just like me?” stories? Share away…

Adoption & Sex Education

Growing up adopted had the benefit of never imagining my parents having sex. And, unlike my other friends, I was never confronted with the  reality that they were having sex, because I never walked in on them, or heard late-night noises, or came across anything that would indicate they were anything other than completely celibate. And both the adoption narrative and the conservative Christian ideology completely supported my worldview.

Because, I had assumed that, since sex was to make babies, that my parents had tried, once, and found that they couldn’t make babies that way, so they went the route of adoption. And the sex-education that my parents began teaching (in 2nd grade mind you, WAY ahead of the public school system), was “age appropriate” and biologically based. The one book I remember them using, was by Dr. Dobson, or some other Christian big-whig, and talked all about abstinence and how my body was changing. I knew so much factual information about sex, that by 9th grade, when we had moved across the mountains, I got annoyed at the immature students who would snicker when the word boob was mentioned.

The problem with the way my adoptive family approached sex, was that they forgot all mention of how it would feel, so when I was making-out in the car with my first boyfriend and had the urge to take off all my clothes, it frankly surprised me. I didn’t want a baby, and sex was about making babies, but hot damn it felt good and that was quite a conundrum.

When my parents found out, they were, FURIOUS and the most hurtful thing out of their mouth was, “are you trying to be like her?”

Never before had the contempt for my young, knocked up, birthmother been so apparent. They had clearly tried their best to keep the judgmental attitude toward her a secret, though their words confirmed what they thought of her: a whore. And I, her daughter, was nothing short of the apple falling from the tree.

Of course, looking back now from both an adult and counselor perspective, it was no accident that I began having sex at the same age my biological mother did, and that I was working out some psychological issues and trying to connect with myself and with my mother. I want to believe that if my parents had had the tools to recognize that, they might have had more compassion, but I doubt it.

Falsified Documents

Potamus has been around for almost a year, and I have yet to send away for his birth certificate. I know that I need to, and the paperwork really isn’t THAT burdensome, but part of me feels so much hesitation to do it. In some ways I am scared to get a copy of his birth certificate and to see mine and Boof’s name on it, listed as mother & father. In even stranger ways, I’m worried that I will get a copy and NOT see our names listed on it.

My emotional reaction to something so simple as a birth certificate stems from my very own birth certificate. Because, my birth certificate is fake. Well, amended at least. For most people, their birth certificates are an accurate reflection of their birth story. There are lines for mother/father, time of birth, attending doctor, hospital the birth happened in, etc. But, for me,the birth certificate that I am allowed to have is not a historical document. It is a government falsified document that was created to reflect a storyline from years ago that perpetuate the idea of adoption being ‘as if born to’ the adoptive parents. So, instead of reflecting what actually happened (being delivered from Mama E’s body), it lists Mama L and Daddy B as my parents.

“But, they are your parents”, is an argument that I get from the general public. Yes, they are my parents. But they are my adoptive parents. They have adoption decree that is a legal piece of paperwork showing that they are my parents. Their names on my birth certificate is a government way of trying to change the storyline. My mom did not give birth to me, she is not even there in the hospital when I was born, so why is she listed as such? Has our country gone the ways of 1984 and begun to re-write history? Because, no matter how many times you write it, or the government writes it, my mother did not carry me in her body, nor did she expell me from her body in a birthing process. Maybe I “grew in her heart,” but this is a birth certificate we’re talking about.

But my historical record DOES exist.  The original one, with Mama E and Daddy J’s name on it. My birth name. The factual events of my birth story listed.

And I can’t order it.

I can’t see it, by government law. Even though I am an adult, I cannot order my own original birth certificate. Not even a copy, one that couldn’t be used for anything.

But you know who COULD order a copy of this historical document? Mama E or Daddy J. Even though I am an adult, I have to have my biological parents order my birth certificate for me.

In that way, I am still considered a child under the government’s laws, which is why I have been working to get the law changed. Because, when Potamus is grown, he will be able to order a copy of his birth certificate, so why can’t I?

Potamus, the day he we was born, from my body 🙂 (he looks huge, but he was only 7lbs!)