Category: Let's talk
Not sure where to put this topic, and I figured this particular board gets a lot of traffic, so I'm posting it here. I just though it would be fun to talk a little about your adoption; how many sibs did you have, what was your family like, how did they treat you as a visually impaired child in there home. Well, I am technically not legally adopted, so, obviously, if you lived with a particular family for most of your childhood, that counts as well. I got my permanent home when I was 11. I was not legally adopted because my mother would not give up her rights to me. She never got completely clean, but for some reason she thought she could still try and get me back. My case is a bit different than most. Though put through the foster-care system as a small child, I was reunited with my mom at the ag of eight, then she abandoned me at a friend of mine's house, and they got custody through a lawyer, no social workers involved. If I had to go through a social worker, my mother's rights may have been taken, and I could have been adopted. I was the only child in my "adopted" home. I refer to her by name, but I call her my mom. (I refer to her by name because my mother was still somewhat in the picture, and she would get angry and defensive when I called her mom, so I just didn't do it), but she is my mom just the same. She worked as a teacher for the severely disabled at the school I attended, so she was very familiar with the needs of a special needs child. In some ways, I enjoyed the attention and major spoiling of being an only child, but, being the oldest of five biological children, I was used to crazy kids running around, and sometimes I wished I had a sibling to hang out with. The rest of my adoptive family didn't accept me as well as my mom did. There were times I would attend my own birthday parties, and most of the time other families had a B-day in there as well, and I would only get 2 or 3 things. Sometimes, at holid`ay gatherings or birthdays, I would go to a particular aunt's house, and only get greeted by two or three people. Most of the time, it was just a greeting, no further conversation. So, I would entertain myself with a book at my own birthday or on Christmas day. I was stuck in a strange age gap of cousins being 10 years older, to some being 7 years younger, so that could possibly explain the "Not fitting in" feeling I had. I "grew up" in a very conservative Christian home, so the older cousins would make comments and talk befind my back about my earlier upbringing of sexual abuse, drugs and an unfit mother whom one of them said "hated me." There were good times too, times with an aunt and uncle that accepted me and loved me. The officially adopted there first son last year. We would go places and do things together. Overall, it was a good experience, and I wouldn't trade any of it. My birth mother is no longer involved in mine or my child's life. My adoptive mom has been wonderful to my family, and she and I are developing a friendship that fills the empty voids from the past. So, my fellow adoptees, let's unite! Shall we?