The Last Search

Sometime around the middle of November I decided to take up the search for my first parents again with the help of a search angel in Hawaii. I started "at the beginning", pulling up "Williams of Unusual Names" from a California Birth Index type site. Unfortunately, this site didn't list mother's maiden names for individual births, so I was unable to match up "Williams of Unusual Names" with any birth of a female Williams between July 1951 and July 1952. So, I contacted my Hawaiian search angel, sent her the list I had created, and told her the situation.

My Hawaiian search angel, Mary, began to work on eliminating possibilities. Through a poor internet connection and some personal family drama, she continued to search diligently.

In the meantime, feeling fairly useless, I spent a few Sundays at the Sacramento City Public Library pouring over city directories. One of the assumptions I was going off of was that my birth mother, whom I knew was sent to Sacramento in order to give birth to me, lived with her brother. I was fairly convinced of this, even though my adoptive parents had commented they thought she'd come to live with her sister. So I focused on her eldest brother, who was listed as a computer programmer. I think perhaps why I chose to search in that direction is because I had no idea if her sister was married, what school her sister went to (she was listed as a student), or any useful information to help with my search. A computer programmer in 1969 would have been very unusual, and something that would stand out.

I took copious notes, and made photocopies of the pages and pages of Williams listed in the city directories. My search was further compounded by the fact that Sacramento not only had a city directory, but occasionally and city directory for the suburban areas of Sacramento. So instead of just one city directory for any given year, I had to search through or photocopy two city directories. From those notes and photocopies, I eliminated names, and came up with some more lists for Mary to winnow through.

Thanksgiving rolled around and I had to shelve the search until the end of the holiday. I knew that by that time, I was putting a lot of emotional energy into the search, and needed a break. I knew Mary needed a break, too, and was very happy to give it to her. I won't say that I wasn't frustrated with waiting, but a burned out search angel doesn't do anyone any good.

After Thanksgiving, Mary and I continued to work together on our list. She would send me the names she had eliminated, give me progress reports on what she was doing and make suggestions as to what I could do next. One of these suggestions was to try to contact someone who could do city directory searches for Ventura County. Another of my possible clues was something my parents told me. They recalled a conversation with the social worker who was handling my adoption. During this conversation she said something that made my parents think of the Santa Paula/Oxnard area. Both of my adoptive parents are from Southern California, and something about that comment made their minds turn towards that area of the state.

I had recently updated my contact information at an adoption registry site that I knew had a large group of search angels. After that update, I did get some e-mails making suggestions as to what to do next in my search. When Mary made the suggestion to find someone to go through city directories for that county, I e-mailed that adoption registry for that request. Unfortunately, I only confused people, and didn't follow up on an attempt at clarification.

One problem with the electronic medium of the internet is that it's difficult to gauge someones reaction. I perceived their reaction as negative, and dismissive.

From there, I reactivated my account with a Yahoo group of search angels and requested a city directory search for Santa Paula and Oxnard. During this time, I also contacted the genealogical group in Ventura County and the Ventura County Library, requesting any look ups they could conduct. By this time, it's nearly Christmas break. By the time I contacted a librarian at Ventura County Library; however, due to the nature of the request, and the fact that this librarian was taking a vacation to coincide with Christmas break, I was unable to make much headway there. The lady that answered my request for look ups for the Ventura Genealogical Society was very friendly, but not able to directly help me. She did point to some other members of the Society, but suggested I wait until after the holidays to contact them.

Noticing that I wasn't getting a lot of suggestions from the rest of the group, the co-owner of Soaring Angels began to ask me questions about what I'd done with my search so far and to make suggestions to me that I could do from home. One day towards the end of Christmas break, she e-mailed me with another list of "Williams of Unusual Name" that I didn't find in my psudo CBI. I promptly sent this list onto my Hawaiian search angel. However, the co-owner of Soaring Angels decided to do a little name eliminating herself. She would update me regularly with her progress, which in my opinion was simply amazing.

Then disaster struck. The first week of the new year, both of my search angels told me, on the same day, that they couldn't continue working on my search. I was devastated, but since I sincerely believe that family comes first and knowing it would be completely selfish to whine or complain, I told my angels to focus on their families. On top of that, there are so many wonderful search angels in the adoption community that I was confident that I could get my search back on track. I requested each lady send me a synopsis of what they'd done so far so that I could share that with any further search angels.

I was in limbo for a few days as to what to do next. I needed to wait until my two former search angels were able to send me the requested information, and since the family matters were so pressing, I didn't feel right about pushing my suit.

Then on January 10, I woke up from a dream that I'd made a Facebook group and named it "Please Help Me Find My Birth Family". Wondering why I hadn't done this sooner, I went to work on creating that group. Within about a day, I had over 100 members in my group. To say that I was stunned by the reception would be an understatement. I was hoping for a large reception, but I really didn't expect it. My theory was the "six degrees of separation" theory. I figured that if my friends joined the group and then invited their friends, who in turn would invite theirs, that someone somewhere would be THE ONE who would be key to unlocking the secret to finding my birth family. I also figured that someone out there had to somehow be connected to my birth family.

The next day, Monday January 11, I turn the computer on, hook up to the internet and check my e-mail and Facebook page, as well as check out my group. I noticed right away in my inbox that someone had e-mailed me with the subject line "Your 1st Mother". I was initially skeptical, believing that this person was probably a paid searcher, so I put off opening the e-mail, and focuses on my Facebook stuff. After about a half hour or so, I opened that fated e-mail.

It wasn't a paid searcher. A lady named Hanne told me that she did a search on Adoption.com and came up with a hit. She listed her phone number and asked me to call her right away. I was stunned. I had registered on Adoption.com nearly 10 years ago, and would sporadically check the status, but never found anything. I called her and she walked me through the process of pulling up the correct information. What she explained to me was that when she input a name along with my birthdate, gender and place of birth, no matches came up; which was exactly what I'd been doing for years. Instead, she went simple, and kept out a name. That's when she got the hit.

Following her directions, I got the same hit and saw for the first time my birth mother's name.

Hanne had already called the phone number listed and found it to be out of date, and recently reassigned. I was only slightly discouraged, though. I finally had a name that I could send out to the search angel groups. However, I didn't have to do that. Hanne did a search for the name listed on the post and was able to give me an address and phone number.

Now, knowing that this information could be old, too, I still went ahead and wrote to my search angel group to confirm the look up. I also posted to my Facebook group, and immediately got responses from my friends and members of the group. I anxiously waited for someone from Soaring Angels to return with some information on this name. I even made some attempts to verify her information, and continued to come up with the information Hanne originally gave me. Feeling very frustrated about this, I checked back on my group and found that one of my long time on line friends made the offer of paying for a one time search for the accurate information, and sent me his phone number.

So, I called Jeff, and we talked for about a half hour. I deeply appreciated the offer, but for some reason I didn't feel compelled to take him up on it. Through talking to him, I was able to calm down and made the decision to call the number that Hanne initially gave me. While I was still on the phone with Jeff, I mentioned that I had no idea how to proceed with the conversation. Jeff then pulled a book out that dealt with first contact and read to me the script that is suggested. I took notes, and steeled my nerves and rang off with Jeff.

In the meantime, another search angel that had been helping me on the side sent me a link to a very similar (if not the same) script. I glanced over it, but I was comfortable with what I had. I gathered a pen and a note book, the paper with the address and phone number, and my script and called.

Later, my fiance Ron, told me that he wanted to make sure he was right there for me when I made the call. I had mentioned to Jeff that I didn't think I would break down or cry when he suggested that I be sitting when I made the call. When I had the initial phone call from my son lost to adoption, I never cried during the call. I felt confident that I wouldn't break down. I didn't the first time, why would it happen now? Of course what I failed to remember, and what Ron pointed out to me, was the time before I first called my son; I was a nervous wreck waiting for my son to respond to my e-mail.

One of the points the script makes is to remember to be polite and ask if this is a good time to talk and to give your name at the outset. Well, I remembered the first part, but forgot to give my first name. I did follow the script, however, and ask for her name, and if she was involved in an adoption in 1969. She said yes, and asked who I was. I think I apologized, and told her my name. She thought I'd said Danielle, though given my name, I can see why she thought that. However, the reason she thought I said Danielle was because that was the name she called me when she was pregnant with me. I proceeded to give her my birthdate and started to tell her where I was born, but she finished for me.

I knew in that instant that Mary Rue was my first mother.

Name Quandary

For at least the last 15 or so years, I've always believed that my birth father's surname was Hernandez. After speaking with my birth mother, I now know that my birth father's surname is Morse. However, Hernandez IS what appears on my original birth certificate.

So, my quandary is this; I've put out there as my blogger name Baby Girl Williams/Hernandez, when in fact, I'm Baby Girl Williams/Morse, or Danielle Williams-Morse (no middle name).

So...what do I go by?

If I stick with Baby Girl Williams/Hernandez, it's legally accurate. However, I used that as a deliberately emotional moniker. Additionally, I'm no longer "just" Baby Girl. I have a name. But in gaining a name, have I lost a foothold on my "place" in the adoption reform movement? Probably not...at least not by the standards of those I care about in the movement, but is this something that I needed in my psyche? Is this something that I feel I should hold onto because it defines who I am?

The Search Has Come to an End

Below are two posts that I made to my Facebook group "Please Help Me Find My Birth Family" and in my notes section on my personal page.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I woke up on Sunday (January 10,2010) from a dream that I should make a FB group called "Please Help Me Find My Birth Family". Well, I made it and sent out invites to all my friends, and asked they send invites to all THEIR friends. My reasoning was that, with the 6 degrees of separation theory, SOMEONE had to either know her or would have the KEY idea of finding her.

Monday when I checked my e-mail, someone who was on the group sent me an e-mail with the title "I think I found your natural mom". When I read it, she said to call her, and gave me her number. I must say that my first suspicions were that she was a paid searcher (sorry Hanne), so I put off calling her for a bit, until after I'd checked all my e-mail and messages, and checked in with my group.

When I finally called her, she said that she found a posting on Adoption.com. She walked me through what she did, and I found the same listing!!! What drives me up the wall, and there's NOTHING I can do about it, is I'm already ON Adoption.com, and have been since 1999-2000 time frame. My mom posted her's in 2005, and for some reason couldn't find my listing. VERY strange. ~I~ could still find my listing, though.

So, one thing and another, and Hanne and I are talking and she comes up with an address and phone number (the info on Adoption.com was out of date). So...I'm "running around", trying to verify that this is her, and I just finally called her.

She told me she'd been looking for me for YEARS, maybe even longer than I've been looking for her! She told me she's loved me all my life. It's been AMAZING!!

I feel like the whole world just opened up to me, and I can do anything! :)

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

So, my first mom lives in Colorado, nearly 1000 miles from me in California, so that's disappointing, but nothing I can't deal with.

I grew up believing that I was half Hispanic, but that turns out not to be the case. My first mom had been dating a young man who was Hispanic, but it was, like many teenage relationships, tempestuous. During a time that they weren't together, she partied a little, and hooked up with a lead singer to a band. He was someone that lived in the area, and was acquaintances with my first mom's elder brother or sister, so at least he wasn't a total stranger to my first mom.

However, when it came out that my first mom was pregnant with me everyone assumed I was her regular boyfriend's child. It was far easier for her to go along with this. I think it was a case of, it was bad enough she was pregnant, but she didn't want to admit that she was off having a good time without him, especially with a long haired hippie. And since she came to live in Sacramento with her sister, who knew about her Hispanic boyfriend, my first mom had to keep the charade up. And she never told my first dad about me.

That's how I ended up as Baby Girl Williams/Hernandez.

So, I am the daughter of Mary Rue Williams and Kenneth Charles Morse.

In an effort this week to find Ken Morse, I was talking with a friend of mine who happens to live in San Diego; not too far from Vista, California. I was asking him one night this week if he would be able to find out which phone number belonged to my first dad. Well, to make a long story short, instead of using a contact that Mike had, he decided to try calling the phone numbers himself.

Now, my first mom and I had a plan; she was going to call Ken this weekend and "break the news to him". Unbeknownst to me or my first mom, that plan quickly got scrapped.

I was on line Friday and my friend Mike starts to IM me what happened. While I wasn't mad at Mike, I was really worried about what my first mom would say, how she'd react.

Essentially, what happened is Mike had just planned on calling the phone numbers and finding out if Ken Morse lived at that number (so to speak) and hang up. Well, I've since found out that Mike's little scenario was doomed to begin with. Ken's a talker! Turns out that I'm not the only child Ken has fathered that was given up for adoption, but he knew about that one. He is in contact with his other daughter, but their reunion isn't what I think Ken would like it to be, even to the point of not having a terrific response to some things, so he was a bit hesitant in talking with me.

Fortunately, Mike can be very charismatic and convinced Ken to talk to me. I was trying to stick to the plan, and was edgy until my first mom got home from work. I explained everything to her, and she said to go ahead and call Ken.

I did, and told him who my first mom is, and he remembered her.

I offered a DNA test to him. All things considering, I thought it only fair.

Last night, my first parents talked for the first time in over 40 years. They both agree that I'm their daughter, but we all think a DNA test is still a good idea. When it comes down to it, since the State of California will probably never allow me my OBC, and since Ken isn't on it, to begin with, I would really like an official piece of paper that I can point to and say that these are my first parents, and I'm their daughter.

Obviously, there is more, and I don't mind sharing, but my brain is going a bit fuzzy. The one other thing I can share is that I may have a half brother along with a half sister. Ken doesn't know for sure because the mother was a bit of a game player. If she was happy with Ken, then the boy was his son, and when she wasn't happy with him, the boy was her ex-husband's son.

With me bringing up DNA testing, Ken is getting the idea that he might want to ask Kathy and David to do a DNA test, too. I think it's a good idea over all.

One other little tid bit of information; my half sister's birthday is less than 3 months before mine. I guess daddy was a player...and being lead singer in a band really does get you laid. ;)

Something To Think On This Christmas Eve

Some things have been brewing in my head this holiday season concerning family and friends. Something someone once said to me was "your friends are the family you choose". And of course, when this particular little thing popped into my head tonight I thought of all the friends I've made on Facebook and the things we have in common. For those of us that are adoptees or first/natural moms we have a unique view of holidays and the difficult emotions we deal with each year; however, something else occurred to me that goes along with the friends and family and adoption.

We, as humans, do NOT have a choice in the family that we are given, whether our families are made "the old fashioned way" or provided by an adoption agency. I do not mean to negate or dismiss our unique position, but I would like to put some perspective on it. There are some great families and some totally dysfunctional families. There are some adoptees that have wonderful upbringings and some that have terrible childhoods. And the reverse is true also; there are some "natural" families that are horrible and some that make "Leave It To Beaver" look dysfunctional. No matter what, we really don't have any choice in the matter; we're babies, children, people that don't have any legal rights until we're 18 (at least in the US).

As we grow up we decide, we choose, what is important to us, what we're passionate about, and what we can shrug off. We as adopted people and natural moms that have realized the complete inequity of the adoption process have chosen to educate ourselves, to investigate this thing called adoption. I believe that the choice we have made is a good one, but I think it's good to keep in mind that no matter how our families were made or broken, in the beginning of all our lives, adopted, fostered, natural, NONE of us has any choice in how our lives begin. What matters is what we DO with our lives. Do we make our world better or do we bring others down? These are all choices we make.

What choices will you make in the year to come?

Open Adoption is a Euphemism

I know this may sound like a no-brainer, but for me it's a bit of a light bulb going on over the head. There is no such thing as "open adoption". It's a lie, a fallacy, a euphemism, a trick to lure young women into an office in order to summarily plan the future of her unborn child: without her.

Let's start with an examination of just exactly what "open adoption" means. First, there is no ONE definition for the term. For some, an open adoption could simply mean looking through binders or websites of couples or families seeking to adopt and choosing a particular set to place their child with. While others see open adoption as an opportunity to remain an active part of their child's life, with the adoptive parents permission, of course. For most, open adoption is anything in between these two extremes.

In my own experience, as an adoptee born in the '60's, there was no such thing as open adoption. I doubt the term or idea had even truly been used until the mid 1980's. When I lost my first son to adoption, we were supposed to have an "open adoption". We met with my son's adoptive parents a week prior to his birth for about two hours; we were on first name basis only. The agreement was to have pictures and an update letter every 3 months in the first year, and then just twice a year until he reached 18 years old.

Unfortunately, this is not what happened. I should have known that within the first year of his life and the pictures and letters only arrived a few times what the future would hold. But there were health issues going on with my/our son; life and death matters that, until my son's adoptive parents wrote the first time, I had no idea about.

My son stabilized, though he continued to have health issues that I was not to know about until far after the fact. And being adopted myself, I had no recourse, no ability to pass along pertinent information. And except for one medical condition, which I knew for certain was directly related to his birth father which wasn't life threatening (and something that we had passed along to the adoptive parents), I had no idea why my baby was having such difficult health issues.

On the whole, I have varied responses about this. Knowing now what I know, the intellectual, perhaps more mature side of me understands why the pictures and letters stopped; eventually, there were health reasons that weren't my son's that riveted the attention of the family. And I will admit that I didn't keep the adoption agency up to date on my where abouts. But when I did, there weren't any pictures or letters awaiting me after about my son's 7th or 8th birthday. But deep down, in my heart of hearts, I am hurt beyond words.

Beyond my personal experience, I read day after day of adoptions that were supposed to be open, only to end up closed due to some reason within the adoptive, and controlling, family. The rare circumstance is the adoptive family that doesn't close adoption these days. No matter what is told to the mother or parents seeking to place their child for adoption, there's always seems to be "something" that gets in the way of keeping the adoption open. Whether it's health issues within the family, or insecurities within the adoptive parents, all the good intentions to remain open with the first family, the family of true origin, fall away with the years.

There's the old saying "the road to hell is paved with good intentions", yet adoptive parents don't seem to realize that when they close the doors to the first family the hell they create is for the person or persons who was supposed to love their child so much they were able to "give them away", to "give them to a loving family who could provide what she or they couldn't". And depending on the life of the adopted child, the adoptive parents end up creating a hell for the person they were supposed to love unconditionally, even if that child wasn't "of their bodies", but "of their heart".

For Adoptees, birthdays = deathdays

Last night, I read Linda Gambino's "Birthdaze" to my fiance and daughter. For years, I didn't realize that I hated my birthday because of being adopted. I never really even realized that the anxiety that gripped me a week or so prior to my birthday wasn't about what crappy presents I might or might not get, or who would even remember my birthday. And as I write this, I'm looking back at my birthdays as a child, and I'm realizing that I really did hate my birthday early on. Nothing was ever quite right with my parties; I can remember one where I didn't win at one of the party games, and ran off crying.

I reminded Ron of the first birthday of mine that we had together; the day after we got into a fight, and Ron thought I was angry at him. My birthday is in July, and for him, work and therefore money, is tight in the summer. He was only able to do a minimal amount for my birthday, but it was really wonderful and thoughtful, and I loved him for what he was able to do. But I was still anxious and crabby and I really didn't know why. So, we fought. I wasn't angry at Ron, and I told him that at the time, but he was very confused by my emotions; heck, so was I! Here was a great guy who did his best to give me a happy birthday and we get into a fight the day after for what seems to be no reason.

After reading that post to him, and I reminded him of the fight, the light bulb just went on and he looked relieved that there was some explainable reason for something so strange.

It took 40 years and another adoptees' musing on her birthday to realize that it wasn't my family or even lack of funds, or even lack of friends that made my birthdays suck; it was being adopted. As I talked with my fiance a little more after my daughter went to bed, he told me that really, for adoptees birthdays are synonymous with celebrating a deathday. I asked him to explain and here is what he told me. For those of us who are adopted we are always aware that our first family, our first mother, isn't there. But on our birthdays it is a force-able reminder of our loss, and we grieve. Most of the time, we grieve for the death of someone, and in a sense the birthday for an adoptee is really the day of their first mother's symbolic death, the day that we are given life, and taken away from the life giver. That "primal wound" that is spoken of for adoptees is replayed over and over again every year; this is the day that my mother died to me.

I am grateful (in the good way) for Linda's post. That really opened up my eyes for me, and I appreciate it so very much; so, thank you Linda. I owe you. You gave a sense of relief to my fiance and daughter and with that information, have empowered them (we'll fill my youngest in later). :)

A reply to "What's in a name?"

What's in a name?

Recently, I read a blog of a friend of mine who is both an adoptee and a first mother who asked just this question. And it got me thinking...again.

I'll address what could perhaps be considered the first question; what's in a name?

Once upon a time much power was attributed to a name. If you knew a persons TRUE name you held power over them, so your true name remained a secret only known to you and whoever you chose to tell, which was usually your mate; and possibly one of your parents knew. It was thought that if you knew a person's true name that you could even kill them with just a simple word.

My ex-husband is attributed for naming his sister. The story goes that his parents had a hard time coming up with a name for the new baby, and he suggested both first and middle and so to this day that's what she is called. During their childhood, and even until fairly recently, brother and sister shared a very close bond. Would they have had that bond if he had just let his parents to hash things out? Who knows? But, in my opinion, I believe that his naming his baby sister was a very significant deed; maybe even a weighty responsibility.

In the Jewish religion, children aren't named after living family members, or anyone the family knows, because it is felt that to give a baby the name of someone living takes away life force from the other person.

The questions in my friend's blog are a bit more adoption specific. The answer to the first one she asks, for me, is: well, since I haven't found my first family yet, I don't know what my first name was. Her question being if there were any adoptees that had changed their name back to their original name.

I do know that the foster family that kept me during the interim time between being relinquished and being adopted called me Margot. Since I grew up in the era that had the original Superman movie with Margot Kidder, whom I did NOT like as Lois Lane, I can't say that I'm overly fond of the name Margot. Wouldn't the irony be if that's what my first mother wanted to name me?

As for how would I feel if my first son changed his name back to what I named him, I would LOVE it! But I don't see it happening at all. No matter what, in my heart of hearts I will ALWAYS refer to my first son by the name I gave him; but TO him, I call him the name his adoptive parents gave him. I can't feel too terribly bad with the name he was given, however, because it happened to be my second choice for him.

For the record, I have ALWAYS hated my name! I doubt I'd change it "back", but you never know. Dana is who I am now, it's how my children know me, how my mate knows me. I think at this late stage in the game, it would just feel strange to be called something different now.