my adoption

Yesterday I talked with my mom about my adoption - it was the first time we've really talked about it ever since I was a kid...and by kid I mean, between the ages of 4 and 10. She also told me a lot about my father's side of the family.

I found out that I came to America when I was only three months old - when I originally thought that my adoption was made official at three months and I traveled to America at nine months old. My mom said that my biological mother only kept me for a few days before she decided to hand me over to the orphanage. Shortly (as in 30 seconds) before she told me this, we had a conversation that was similar to what I'm about to post:

"She had you for about a month before she gave you to the orphanage."
"A month? That long? Why?" -me

"Because she was still deciding if she wanted to keep you or not."-my mom

"..."

"...Actually I take that back. She didn't even have you for a month. It was three weeks...actually, it was only for a few days."-my mom

*me trying not to cry in front of my mother and Ian*

I imagine this woman sitting in her bed, stroking my face, and kissing my forehead and my fat little cheeks, my small fingers squeezing hers, me smiling up at her and her smiling down on me, or crying. But I also imagine that it was so easy for this woman to just push me out of her life and had she really wanted us to be in each other's lives, I would like to think that she would've left a letter or something for me to read as an adult.
I also found out that my mother had brothers and sisters...which means that if I ever took the initiative to try and find my biological mother, I would most likely find her siblings. I have aunts and uncles out there, somewhere.

My mom tried to defend my biological mother's actions and said that young women, poor women, had no way of caring for their children so they gave them up and that she made the right decision when she took me to the orphanage. I would like to find my biological mother and/or her family before it's too late, before I am so old that my mother will have already passed and any of her siblings would also have passed.

But I also see disappointment if I pursue this. I see a number of doors being shut in my face. I see a woman who will tell me that she didn't want me and still doesn't and never loved me and that was the real reason why she gave me up for adoption.

The way I see it, I was really only truly wanted once - and that was on the plane on the way to Chicago. When I was very young, I remember my mom telling me that the woman who was taking care of me on the plane wanted to keep me. Yesterday, my mom said that the woman was actually with her husband and they were both taking care of me on the plane and that the woman told my mom that if no one was at the airport to claim me, that her and her husband would've taken me.

I can't help but wonder how different my life would have been, being in a home with two people who really, truly loved me. I would have grown up in Seattle. I might have had brothers and sisters. I might have been encouraged by my parents to find my biological mother. I might have received financial help from my parents to find out where I originally came from. Instead, I was brought up in a home filled with fighting, tears, hospitals and death. I was brought up in a home filled with resentment.

I am happy with where my life is now. I love my boyfriend, I love my friends and I love my family as well but I still feel that I will never be fully satisfied with my life until I find out more about my mother, her past and the life that I could have had. When I was a small child, my mom once said to me "you're lucky that we adopted you. you would be out on the streets right now eating noodles and kimchi if it weren't for us." We were in a car because I remember just resting my head on my hand and shaking my head like "what the hell is the matter with this woman..." She made a number of remarks like that to me, growing up. "Go pack a bag, I'm taking you back to the adoption agency. I don't want you anymore." And I would really have to go and pack a suitcase and it was mostly filled with stuffed animals and pajamas because I was so young at that point that I had NO idea wtf I was doing because seriously - who the fuck makes their child pack a suitcase?
"You see that blue car right there?" She asked as we both sat on the couch, looking out the window. "There is a man who's going to drive you to the adoption agency because you're a bad child." Cut to me screaming and crying and wondering what I had done so bad to be kicked out of my home. Age 6, btw.

"Hello? Is this the police? Hi, I'm bringing my daughter over to the station. Yeah, I don't want her anymore." My mother pretending to call the police. Age FOUR. Yeah.

There were a number of other hurtful things she did to me, that people still don't believe to this day. I don't even think anyone in my family knows about the time that she walked out on me and my father. She said she just sat in the park all day but she was literally gone ALL. DAY. I was very young and I think both me and my father were worried if she'd actually come back that evening. It was dark when she came back to the house. I sat in the living room all day, staring out the window - From the second that she walked out the door, till she came back that night I just sat on the couch waiting.

I've read a few of other people's blogs I follow who also grew up in shitty adopted homes. Last night I had a dream about having a baby. It wasn't the first and probably won't be the last. But I've been thinking about what we're going to do when we want to have a baby...I'm afraid that if we adopt, the child will face the same ridicule I faced. "You know, your parents aren't your REAL parents right??" Or being excluded for being adopted. Or feeling lonely because he or she has no brothers or sisters. I know that I cannot physically handle having a child - it would probably kill me and/or the baby. And I also know that having a surrogate is extremely expensive. The older that we get, I know the more I will worry about all of this.

I do know that all of the things my mom did, I will not do to my own children.