LJ/DW Idol, Week 5: Kayfabe

[adoptedwriter]

I have an original birth certificate and a fabricated (aka “amended”) birth certificate. This happens a lot with adopted people. You might think it’s kinda cool and noteworthy to have two birth documents but it’s actually complicated. After 57 years, I’ve learned to deal with it, but It’s taken some soul-searching.

When I was very small and my (adoptive) parents explained that I was adopted they showed me my birth certificate. The only one they had was the changed one, but it was theirs, and it was mine. It bonded us as a family. It was the piece of identity on paper that I used for obtaining a social security number, a driver’s license, a passport, and a job. That paper was me. Only it wasn’t all me. It was legal, and it was real, but it also made part of me unreal.

My amended birth document contains my adoptive parents’ names as if they’d been the ones who conceived and birthed me. It lists my hospital of birth and my birth date. However, it does not list my time of birth nor my birth length/weight. Everyone I know has these tidbits of information. I often felt disturbed that my paperwork was lacking, (especially when people would talk about how big someone’s baby was and at what time they entered this world). You wouldn’t think those little-bitty details would matter that much, but they did to me. Honestly, until my mid-20s I hated, (yes literally), hated my birth certificate because it wasn’t real enough and it was not inclusive. Instead, I had a societally expected text to follow, and it was bullcrap because I did not have what other “normal” (in my young mind) people had.

My so-called script was to acknowledge that I was an adopted “child” and I was “chosen” by my adoptive parents, so that made me “ special” and “grateful”.

News flash: “Normal” people don’t use scripts; not for their birth story.

It took years for me to find the words to explain why this parlance was no good. For one thing, a child grows up. I’m not a child now, nor do I want to be. Adopted people do not want to be regarded as a perpetual child, but in many states, this is how adoption law works. We can smoke, drink, buy lottery tickets and serve in the military, but many of us cannot access our first birth certificate that has detailed information about our true start in life.

I’ve always associated the word, “chosen” with picking out a puppy from a litter or the old TV commercial slogan, “Choosy mothers choose Jif.” Being chosen implies that the adoptee has had no control. This verbiage potentially sets someone up to be hesitant and less inclined to seek leadership. Being chosen also implies hoping that other people out there deem you worthy enough to be selected. I refuse to believe that a child or baby in an orphanage who happened to never be adopted is in any way less worthy.

“Grateful”. Again this is a highly charged word. I’m grateful for a lot of things, but should I be more grateful than anyone else? How do you measure gratefulness anyway?

I found out from watching a TV talk show that adopted people in Ohio could actually acquire their original birth certificate, (referred to as an OBC in Adoption-land), so I sent Vital Statistics a twenty dollar check, and six weeks later the paper-pushers in Columbus sent me a big, fat envelope with copies of my real identity. My OBC even had listed the first, middle and last names of my birth parents, my pre-adoption name and a notation showing that I was not a first birth for my biological mother. I had a sibling out there!

The day I sat at my kitchen table and finally absorbed the realities reflected on these papers I changed from a functional but incomplete person to someone who felt whole and authentic. I no longer had to rely on a fabricated narrative about when, where and how I was born. My shame for not being grateful enough lifted from my soul, replaced by empowerment.

As I researched and uncovered more truths about my birth family for the rest of that year, I learned all I needed to know. I had to accept that due to my birth mother’s early-in-life death, I would never know all tidbits, but I had more than ever before. I had enough. I became the real me.

These days I happily share my birth story and I no longer hate it or find my natal facts lacking except in one way.
After all that time wishing and searching, my birth time and size were still omitted. Some things will always remain a mystery…

Comments

[murielle]

I love your writing!

You share your experience and views in an engaging, clear and logical manner.

I agree with your opinion on the words "chosen" and "grateful." Not the right words at all. And if "normal" people are not expected to be "grateful" for being born, and for parents who chose to deliver and raise them, why should adopted people?

I'm so glad you were finally able to get more information about your family of origin, and that it helped you make peace with you scripted and real self.

Beautifully well done!

[adoptedwriter]

Thanks for all your encouraging words.

[wolfden]

This is interesting to read as we are in the middle of doing a second parent adoption for Teddy. In NC, I couldn't be on his original birth certificate because I am not male and we are not married. As a woman, I could have been if we were legally married. If I was a man, I could have been and marriage status doesn't matter. So instead we are jumping though a million and one hoops to legally make me a parent to my son. They will reissue his birth certificate as part of that. His other mother remains his mother but on the new one I will be his second parent. Which is how it has been all along.

I don't know about expecting a child to be grateful. As a parent, I am grateful to have him. I don't think there's anything that should make him grateful to have me. That seems so, I don't know almost manipulative.

[adoptedwriter]

Yeah. It’s crazy complicated. Thanks for reading and commenting.

[thephantomq]

Tbh I don't understand why they do this with birth certificates, but I'm glad you were able to get a hold of the original and get some of the answers you were looking for. :)

[adoptedwriter]

Back in the day it was standard practice and fewer ppl questioned authority. A lot of corrupt adoption deals went down. The privacy and secrecy wasn’t really for the adoptee. It was for those manipulating the system for profit and egos.

[the_eternal_overthinker]

*Hugs* This is well written. Sharing your perspective has always created awareness for me at so many level. The "chosen", "special" and "grateful" are words so commonly used that you tend to take it for granted that the child feels so...until I read this...and I am never using it again now on :) Thanks for sharing. It is good to know you found and original and how it impacted your life in a positive way.

[adoptedwriter]

Thank you!

[song_of_thea]

Thank you for sharing your story. I'm relieved you no longer have to stick with a given script.

[tatdatcm]

Your story reinforces the reasons that we’ve always been open with our kids about their adoption. We’re a little more fortunate in that we knew their birth mother and have stories and paperwork to share with them.

I’m glad that you’ve been able to fill in some of the blanks to your story.

[adoptedwriter]

Me too! Thanks!

[rayaso]

You have always been so forthcoming about the many personal issues surrounding adoption, which has been fascinating. I will never look at a birth certificate the same way anymore!

[adoptedwriter]

Thanks!

[dmousey]

Nowadays you have to have your original to have all points of Identification. New Jersey drove me nuts trying to get mine while moving from Delaware to NJ. even though I was born here.
Anyhoo, well written as always! ✌😊🐀

[adoptedwriter]

Thanks! I have heard some adoptees have had probs getting passports, etc. That sux.

[daisysparrow]

Ohh, how annoying to still not get your size & time answers!!

[adoptedwriter]

I know, right?

[moretta]

Your experiences are so well recounted, and they hit home every time. Very well done.

[adoptedwriter]

Thank you!

[alycewilson]

That's amazing! I knew you found out information about your birth parents but not how you did it. I watch "Long Lost Family," and it seems that a lot of adopted children have a much more difficult time with their research.

[adoptedwriter]

U love LLF! I got super lucky because my birth father never moved. He had a unique name so was easy to track.

[bellatrixe]

This was really well written and very interesting to read about. I'm glad you were able to get some answers but I'm sorry you still don't have your birth time or size though! *hugs*

[adoptedwriter]

Thanks!

[kehlen.livejournal.com]

You have length and weight and birth written in your birth certificate? How odd, we don't. In Russia, it merely has date and place of birth (the town, not the hospital), and birth parents' name together with your own.

I think you also have the colour of your eyes and hair written in your passport? (Or maybe some other country does.) We don't either (the photo speaks for itself).

I wasn't adopted, and thankfully spared your turmoil; it was merely fun to study blood types at high school, and learn that both my parents carry the recessive negative rhesus gene, and that I only had 1/4 chance of getting the negative rhesus factor that I have.

[sonreir]

This is a great take on the prompt. You've given me a lot to think about, and you've written about it extremely well. Thank you for sharing part of your story!