Monday, November 7, 2005
Recovered from my injuries, we go back to life. Or so we thought. This story is not about how Pat got his back by the way. This is something that occurred between my injury and his.
When our daughters leg was broken, aside from all the crap we were going through, we had made an inquiry to the Catholic Charities Adoption Services in the cities. Patrick is adopted, and at the age of 22 we still had no information on the background of him or his health history, nothing. In trying to do everything that we could to make sure all the bases were covered with our daughter, we had made an inquiry into the health history of his biological mother...for the sake of brittle bone, and also because it was important that I knew what types of things would affect Pat or our children down the line. Pat wasn't happy about this, he would just as soon let it go and for one who isn't adopted, I couldn't understand that. This caused some friction between us because for one, I was grasping for any straw that may help our situation while at the same time I was simply being a nosy woman curious about this other side of him.
At that time, I didn't really understand the magnitude of his feelings. Since he wouldn't pursue this whole thing, my sister and I made the call and inquired about receiving some sort of health history on his biological family. Nothing more. We heard nothing back of course because I was simply Pat's wife and I couldn't delve into that without him agreeing. Something I knew that he wouldn't do.
Well, he had called me at work to tell me of a phone call he had received. He sounded terrible. I deflated because of course I was thinking something else had happened, something that involved social services, someone died, just something. This call came from a woman at Catholic Charities. She had said that another woman had called inquiring about her biological son and wanted to know if he had gone to the Gulf War. Well, the agency of course stonewalled her as well due to privacy and left it at that. But upon digging into things, they somehow put the two inquiries together. They had placed a note about our inquiry into the folder and upon receiving the call from the woman, it caused them to place another note in that folder. Wham!
A brick had hit Patrick in the gut. The agency wanted to know of the interest level on both sides, if it was ok to tell this woman that he hadn't gone into the military, etc. Pat sounded as though he just wanted to go bury himself he was so confused. He didn't know what to do. This woman wanted to talk to him.
Not wanting to hurt his family but not wanting to hurt this woman who gave birth to him, well he was just really an emotional mess. He called to tell me what had occurred and also to ask for my advice. After months of arguing here and there about my reasons and his reasons, I had given up my fight to try to make some sort of contact because this was foreign territory to me and it had hurt him that I kept wanting to pursue it. So when he asked for my input the best I could tell him was that it was up to him. That he knew how I felt but this was not a decision that I would sway either way. I felt like a hopeless wife because inside I was screaming, 'TALK TO HER' but it wasn't for reasons of meeting her really for me, it was for health background issues. When he said that this woman wanted to talk to him, I got really scared for him. And it hit me then just how much this whole adoption thing was more than just a new family but that it involved emotions that I cannot even touch.
So, in the end, he had made the decision to meet her. They had exchanged a few letters before this initial meeting was discussed so it wasn't a spur of the moment thing. He said it was very emotional but went very well. She brought along photos of family, her other son and they cried a lot, hugged a lot and the health history was all good. Compared to my family history, I really hope that makes a difference for my kids. She had also brought along a stack of birthday cards that she had bought each year after he was born. 21 cards to be exact.
Anyway, we have maintained contact with her, celebrated holidays, birthdays, she has been able to visit us in the hospital and experience the days our two younger children were born and hold them within hours of being born. I will not say that this has been as easy as it all sounds though. It has been very uncomfortable at times, very awkward, very tense. Her and I get along, we used to be very close but kind of drifted apart.
To this day, there is still some confusion. The terminology of what our children are to her, her son to Pat and our kids. It is just a very hazy area for us. And Pat is very sensitive to those terms..he himself is very confused about all of it. Heloves his mom and dad but enter in this new woman who gave birth to him, well, I cannot even imagine what must go through his head sometimes.
Needless to say we have started to do things with his half brother who is 25 years and recently got married. What is wierd is this guy calls Pat his brother, our kids his neices and nephew and so desparately wants that same recognition. But how does one dare to recognize something that is to this day, still as confusing as it was the day that agency called?
Written by louie0768 .
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