Of course as soon as I posted that last entry, the school called to say Jonah needed a management/two-person take-down that day. But I wasn’t expecting a miracle, just enjoying a moment. Or a few thousand moments. In general, his behaviors have shrunk significantly in both frequency and severity.
Though I have been very sick (more migraines w/accompanying nausea etc.) since early Friday morning and didn’t go with my mom to see Boo yesterday, I am beginning finally to feel better. I’ll see Jonah on Thanksgiving Day when Andy drives him up for a visit, and I can look forward to that.
I also am looking forward to and simultaneously afraid of revelation number two. It will be a wandering story, because these kinds of revelations always are…and I’ll start here…
I have this wonderful friend, and though we’ve only spent six days or so in one another’s company, we have remained simpatico even though those six days are now three years ago. She and her partner are embarking on the journey of foster parenthood, and many of the babies they will foster have been born crack addicted or will have other conditions and disabilities to overcome.
Having regarded Boo a “difficult” baby, I’m unsure how to imagine caring for an infant who won’t/can’t stop screaming, who won’t/can’t sleep, and who, somehow at the same time, needs to be nurtured and loved and held even more than a “normal” child. I know in my heart that my friend can do this, and can also let go when it is time to do so, however heartbreaking it may be.
Is it heartbreaking for the baby, too?
I was in foster care from birth to six months old, after which I was adopted into my family. I wish I knew the circumstances of the first six months of my life, other than that I was placed into foster care because “there was something wrong with my feet,” which my parents were later instructed to fix, early 70s-style, by attaching my feet to a straight bar as I slept.
I wonder how much those six months shaped me, and I wonder why, as my parents tell me, I did not seem to mind being suddenly moved to another environment with different people, different sights & smells — a different life. It kind of worries me (half-kidding) that I was all fine and smiley in my new home. I would not like it one bit if someone took Boo away from me at six months old — and I would not expect him to like it one bit either. I mean, damn. You can’t tell me babies are that malleable. Or are they?
Or was I simply quite happy to wake up warm and so obviously loved and welcomed by a large family of parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, the whole shebang? None of my family has ever made me feel adopted. Not ever.
Still, I was always curious about my biological relatives – and I wanted more medical history for both me and the only other blood relative I know (Jonah-boo) – so I did a spit kit DNA test to see if I could find some blood relatives on www.23andme.com.
It’s been a year now since my results came back. I did find out which genetic markers I had and whether I was predisposed to all kinds of different illnesses and diseases. I actually have a low risk rate (compared to the average population) of most everything except Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS).
I also found out what part(s) of the world my ancestors are from, and how much of me is from where, and who I am distantly related to based on DNA strands or whatever tool they’ve got to determine these things.
A genetic expert I am not.
I never found anyone closer than a “possible 3rd or 4th cousin” on the site, and tracing relations that far removed, especially with me being adopted, would be near-impossible. Last month, though, I received a notification that a definite second cousin match, R, had been found. She wrote to me through the 23 and me site, and I answered.
Long story short, it appears I have stumbled upon my biological relatives.
After sharing all the non-identifying information I had with R (which actually provides quite a lot of details, like four half-siblings born before me and each of their birth years and sexes, plus the fact that one had died before I was born), she wrote back again.
It appears R’s father is my first cousin, and that one of his five aunts is my birth mother. R’s whole family is still in the area where I was adopted (very close to where I live now), and though she now lives in the NYC/NJ area, she is coming up to see her family for Thanksgiving and will speak in person to them about all this.
One of the big potential problems is that, based on all that non-identifying information I’ve got, I’m the product of an affair (hence the four half and not full siblings), after which my birth mother reunited with her husband, and my birth father likely just took off running.
So I e-mailed R that I will understand if they don’t want to meet or see me, and that I’m not trying to impose myself on their family.
Exchanging e-mails would be great; meeting them would be cool. But I need to prepare myself for complete rejection. I cannot expect they’ll be rolling out the welcome mat for one who may only remind them of a painful situation perhaps best left in the decades-past.
Who knows what will happen? I am used to questions, and mysteries, and instability, so this is not really all that different. At any rate, I should know what has been decided, hopefully soon.
I really would like a picture of my birth mother, though, if that’s all I can have. I want a partial mirror of myself to stare into, the way all my relatives (on both my mother’s and my father’s side) have certain commonalities; the features, behaviors, traits, and mannerisms they share are their mirrors.
I’d like a look at mine.
The Never Normal 