Genealogy Chat

send that into GR,the best testament to the work done by Jess is the threads and the feelings expressed in them............

I did,and had many mesages as a result,none were in any way nasty and most thanked me for sharing my thoughts and experiences. Now heading of to find some to add here and send to the idiots in the tower. Glen

That's a really positive idea Glen..... There surely will be loads of people who can do so......... Merry

Hi Glen I feel absolutely livid.........I am not an adoptee myself, but I know the help and advice Jess has given to people and it makes my bloody blood boil that these numptees can do this. Jeanne

I have all the details for my half sibs (3 in total on my mothers side),6 aunts and uncles,grandparents etc.I have a total of 8 generations in all just on the one line. All the aunts/uncles and cousins were born within a small area of the town (5 adjacent streets according to the 30 odd birth certs i have) but for some reason none of my half sibs have anything to do with their cousins,something way back split the family apart. I have some contact with two half sibs and two first cousins,one aunt moved to Australia in the 50's or 60's and one never married,so i only have to find a cousin from the final remaining uncle and i have something from everyone that would have been nearby at the time. Unfortunately none of the aunts or uncles survive (the youngest of that generation would have been my mother,she would have been 82 this year).As for their children,well let's just say that they don't even know who is or isn't family. It's a tangled web but slowly the family is starting to rejoin through me,but the ones who are the most reluctant are my closest blood rellies of the lot. They have the choice,i won't force anything on anyone,but they do always say that they fear how i will judge our mother,and i am to blame for the problems that they have.What the problems are is unclear,perhaps they 'judge' me i don't know. ---------- My youngster is 13 today,i plan to go to see her this weekend and take a few presents,but did post a card so she has something on the day. The memories of the dash to the hospital and holding her for the first time will always be there,no matter how far in the past they are.I wonder if those same memories were ever in my b/m's mind,doubtless they were at some point. It makes your own birthday a strange day for different reasons,a real mixture of emotions and questions. Glen

hi all I had another call from my half sister this week,and have started to find out quite a bit about my b/f,not nice and not a total suprise,(it echoes what i heard from who i now know is another half sister via b/f). The more i find where and when he managed another child makes me wonder if anyone on this board is far closer to me than we know.After all it IS a very small world. Going to meet a first cousin this weekend as well as seeing my youngster so it's going to be busy. Mel,in my humble experience sometimes making others wait can have a positive effect,it can stir the curiousity and makes them make a move for once,but not always. Huge hugs for everyone Glen xxx ------------------------------------ advice to another member......... Being a pre 1975 adoption i had to go the social services and social worker route,but still looked for my b/m (and found her name) via this site. I eventually got a name for my b/f and again via this site have found a half sister on his side. The number of times i wrote/rewrote/re-rewrote my letters and messages makes you wonder how i ever sent them. What is the right way to make contact or ask for information?No-one can say.What is right for one person isn't right for another. Whoever receives the message can take it either way,depending what sort of day they are having at the time.Time will tell. Jess,i only know of one name he used,and not one you mentioned,anyone come across James/Jim anytime then start to panick,you could be one of the many!! Glen ----------------------------------------------------------------

Hi everyone I recently sent a letter to a nursing home,the residence of an elderly living rellie.They kindly passed the letter on to his grandaughter and she has been in touch today. She lived in my home town for quite a while,only a street or two away from me and we never knew.I can see a few phone calls coming up.I lived three doors away from her mum (my first cousin) for 3 years,small world isn't it. Glen ------------------------------------------------------------------ Hang on to your hats everyone I am finally gettting to see my adoption file tomorrow (Thursday),finally after chasing paperwork from one end of the country to the other it will be in front of my eyes. Let's just hope the wait was worthwhile and it isn't a single piece of paper. Glen

Well it finally arrived,all 60 odd pages and worth the wait. There is some conflicting details about how premature i was,anything from 6 days to six weeks,so what is nearer the truth is hard to tell. Thee are at least three references to me being an 'attractive young man',well at least i know that bit is true!LOL I dare say that i will read and re-read it over several times,but it was definately worth the wait. Glen x ------------------------------------------------------------------------- In reply Jess pulled my leg as follows well done Glen. I expect you'll come across all sorts of things that you'll question..... not least of all , how handsome a young man you were ....thats the first untruth - all babies look like Winston Churchill!! Jess x xx ------------------------------------------------------------------------- And she made me think about this.......... Jess! That was such a low blow it was almost below the tinsel! Seriously though,the most poignant thing for me is the reference to my birth being by C-section.It does bring home the thought that with all the problems she had at the time,my b/m had a visible reminder of the time for the rest of her life,on top of the emotional problems she would have had both before,during and after my birth. I also had to smile at a reference to my adoptive parents house, 'a small house with no bathroom,but the public baths are nearby and the family have no problem using them' Oh how we lived nearly (nearly but not quite) 40 years ago. Hugs for all who need them. Glen xx

Hi *** (name with-held by me) We have said in the past that we have a similiar outlook,both of us often reflect on what we know,and ask certain questions of and about ourselves. Birth mothers often went through a traumatic time when carrying us,they had pressures that we can only imagine,both from family,partners and others. Although the phrase often used is we were given a chance of a better life they had to be strong to do what they did.Strong characters make us strong,for that is what we are,you have to be strong to start a search,and strong to continue with it. There are times we feel vulnerable,some say weak,but that can never be true. Tomorrow is another day,a little older and a little wiser,but also a little stronger. Glen ---------------------------------------------------------------- Hi all It isn't till you start to read these threads that you stop and think.While we all seek some answers the questions we ask and why we ask them are all for our own personal reasons,but one thing does shine through,although we all feel that we are unique we do have a common thing between us. How many adoptees have wished that they could have seen these threads BEFORE they started their own journey,more than a handful i'll bet.Things seem black and white until you see these threads. It doesn't matter how supportive your nearest and dearest are,they can never quite understand how we feel,why we feel the way we do,or realise how small things can have the biggest impact. Thanks everyone for sharing our experiences. Glen xx

I bet there is one thing that nearly all of us have done when the question of contact comes up, Had a really good think about what we want to say,type it out,delete it,retype it (and probably do that several times) then hit send,and then wonder what we have done! If i could change one thing it would have been to wait for a day before i answered that first reply i received. Not that things went badly,far from it,but with hindsight i would have been better to have a long think before i sent a reply. The GR homepage is very misleading when you see the success story 'within four hours...........'. It makes it look like every birth family is just waiting for you to send a message,not quite the truth as we all know. Glen ------------------------------------------------------------ I find it hard most of the time,and this is the only thread where i don't hide behind humour,(except my nickname). It takes a good while for me to be my true self with people,and then it's not that often,assuming i know what my true self is! Glen

I am not adopted myself but my daughter in law is. I have copied and pasted some pages - to end of page 12, following on from Janet on her thread for chapter 5. Could somebody now continue as I am going for lunch (have my sister staying with me this week) I think it is important not to become complacent. The last time somebody was barred their threads were eventually removed. (that was a travesty too) ann Glos

It's good to see the thread so busy,and good to see that everyone feels the things that i have. I know that sounds silly,but sometimes i feel like i'm the only one who ever felt 'who am i'.the reality check from the thread works wonders at times. I'm still digesting my file at the moment,but i'm happy that it tells me that my b/m wasn't a cruel heartless woman. Glen xx --------------------------------------------------------- THIS ONE ISN'T MINE,but does show how the adoption threads help.Could you type this on a public forum? Added by I Just needed to Get It Out. on 21/07/2006 02:50:02 I think this site as my social worker but with more views than just one, and I still can not find one who can really understand what I have been though over the last 6 months or more. I feel that I do sometimes want to talk about this as I have bottled up so many feelings about being adopted over the years and a now feeling better for being able to discuss them instead of hiding them all and bottling them up. Where do I start, yes I have always known I was adopted, I can’t really remember when I haven’t known. My adopted parent are the best that anyone could wish for, there are always there to love and support me not matter what I do. Last year I started the search for my BM, and with help from others found her very easily, she was really happy to get an email from me, I think. A couple of emails went between us and I did ask about my birth father, at first she ignored my questions but I did not give up I wanted to know. Eventually she did tell me the story of how she was picked up in a car by 3 males, friends of her boyfriends, they drove around the corner and beat her up and was raped by them and left on the side of the road, and she was found and taken home. She did go to the doctors about 5 months later and the doctor told her she was pregnant. So she told me it was to late by then to have anything done. So she was shipped off to an unmarried mothers home where she had me and no she never took me home I adopted at 6 weeks. After getting in contact with another birth relative I was told a similar story, but not the same. The birth relative told me that BM had a habit of getting drunk and flashing herself (at 15, 16 years old) at the local. One night she was quite drunk (and stripping off) and 3 boys asked her to go for a drive she said yes. BM went with them in the car and came back a little while later crying and bruised. She said that they did force her and was raped. Followed by the same scenario with the doctor’s visit and my birth. You cannot imagine how I felt when I found out, I was gutted to say the least and cried for days on end. I know that both stories have the same base of the story so I will never know my BF and don’t really think I want to either. But I still have so many questions, but BM has closed the book on that and me I believe. I can understand that in a way maybe I would be the same. But I was a good person before I knew about my parentage. I believe all of the good in me has come from my adopted family and for that I am thankful. I can only but imagine what issues I would have grown up with had I been kept and the stigma that would have gone with it. My life with my adopted parents has been good and I smile at the thought of my Mum and Dad choosing me as they always said they did. Not only by them but by my husband, my soul mate as well. I have my ups and downs but we all do. Sorry this is so long I just had to get it all out. I feel much better now. ---------my reply is in the next post------------

The last few posts must have been the most difficult to put down in words for a long long time. It's only fellow adoptees who can begin to appreciate how we feel when we hear our stories,we may not fully understand how someone can overcome such a trauma,but i realise how lucky i was to find that my b/m had died. To never have to face the possibilty of rejection or hear things recounted made things easier for me. My half sister was very wary of me initially,scared that i would judge our mother (she always reminds me that it is OUR mother we speak of). Her account of things at the time is broadly the same as what is in my adoption file,she will never know how much it means when i answer the phone and she says 'Hi Glen,it's your sister'. She could say that every day for the next 100 years and it would still sound magical to me. We both agree that we turned out as well rounded adults despite our different upbringing,whether we will ever meet i don't know,but we are both happy with what we have at the moment. Glen ------------------------------------ And again a comment to another adoptees' question Hi G*****n I can't really add any more to what Bacardi says above. If it's something you WANT to do,and it's something that you feel comfortable with,(knowing that it might not be pleasant or have a fairy tale ending),then i would say make a few enquiries. It doesn't have to mean that you follow things through,throughout the thread you will often see that we describe our search as a journey,full of bumps and turns. Well don't forget that you can always stop somewhere on the way,journeys end can be wherever you want it to be. Glen

Hope everyone is ok. Re the comments by Paul and having the answers,my view (and that is all it is) isn't one shared by Paul. I couldn't have all the answers because i don't know all the questions.Many times i have only commented because i have seen a post on the thread. When we start to look it isn't always obvious that we will have anything but two outcomes,one the 'fairytale' of being welcomed by our birth families,or the harsh reality of having the door slammed firmly shut in our faces. This thread made me realise that there are a million possible outcomes between the two extremes. No one can say they know all there is to know,but by sharing,thinking and looking at the circumstances that we all find ourselves in,i feel that i have a better understanding of my feelings and those of my birth family.It has only worked out that way because i have read the threads,thought about what i have read,and then used that as i think best. The things posted aren't always meant to be answers,but then again there aren't always direct questions posed either,but by sharing perhaps we have a better chance of understanding our feelings and the feelings of our families,both adopteive and birth. Glen ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- At this point i had a few requests from male adoptees,asking for help and advice,in order to help answer some of the queries they asked i had a rest from the thread.

Hi Glen, Re reading those posts was almost like winding back the clock, I really hope they don't delete those adoption threads as I do remember reading all of them and feeling peoples ups and downs along the way. Also Jess has always been there, for all of us. I do believe GR have made a big mistake barring her. It will not be the same without her. There are so many opinions on that thread, which is the best part of it. It is not bullying, not for one minute. It helps you look and things from every angle and make a more infomed choice on what to do next. Mel

I just wish i could find some of my early posts,the ones i types with tears of fear and apprehension in equal amounts. It was a chaptrer in my life i will never forget,and one which can be seen by everyone who want's to see it. They were put in the adoption threads for everyone to read,and i for one can say i am far better for having had the chance to share. I know i'm not alone in my thoughts,the success board seems to be the best way of posting opinions recently,i may well head off that way shortly. Glen

Might I suggest that you paste your posts onto Success with an explanation as to why you are doing it. ie: in support of Jess. It is the one board that GR look at on a regular basis. Vivienne xx