Stolen Roots, Part 2.

Unmatched

Hello, Welcome! Today I have the second part of Stolen Roots: Unmatched. (You can read the first part here: Severed) I invite you to subscribe for free if you enjoy my work in either Roots & Branches or Memoir-ish Musings by Mel. Thanks so much for your support!

Stolen Roots Part 2, Unmatched

When the prospective adoptive couple got the letter from Catholic Charities announcing that Baby Ruth Ann was ready to be picked up from the Rock Hill infant home, they had already decided on a name for her. That her carers had been using the name given to her by her birth mother was meaningless to her new parents, since they were told the infant was abandoned at birth. In this closed adoption, they didn’t care to know more about the five-month-old girl and named her Mary Ellen, after the new father’s mother. Had they been offered a boy, he would have been named Michael Aloysius, giving the adoptive father’s first name as the child's middle name. The well-intended do-over signified ownership and extracted the child, me, from the remaining shreds of my origins.

Where did I come from? I sensed it was off-limits to ask, so I never did. The myth suggested by the experts and rendered by my parents when I was six was a fairy tale of a first family. From the cryptic story, I gleaned that there were other children, a mother and a father who upped and left me in an accident. I accepted I was the sole survivor of a car crash, gathering in my imagination that I’d wandered as a babe in the woods until Catholic Charities found parents to replace the ones who abandoned me. “We brought you home because we wanted you. You had no one, and we loved you.”

The word Adoption sounded strange and special and meant missing. More words came later: orphan left behind, fragile, vulnerable, to be pitied, helpless. I fantasized about the first family, the ones I had before. I had all the dolls and toys I wanted, but no brothers and sisters. Who do I look like? I squinted and studied the mirror. I am not yours. I belong to someone else. I’m not a natural child because I wasn’t born. Who am I? Where are the others? Who are they?

*

The hospital and time of birth were not on my Certificate of Baptism and Birth, my formal identification. This combined Church and State document replaced my Original Birth Certificate as a quasi-legal document. As far as I knew, Rock Hill, South Carolina was my birthplace. My parents never questioned this decree. When at forty, I couldn’t get an updated passport without a certified copy of my birth certificate, I learned there was such a thing as an Amended Birth Certificate, and that the State of South Carolina denied access to her adoptees’ original birth records. My parents had not pursued this amended document, preferring, I suppose, to ignore anything more than what they had been told to accept as fact.

The half-sized, abbreviated, and Amended Birth Certificate of half-truths and lies put my adoptive parents present at the time of my birth in the early hours of September twenty-first, and the attending doctor, whom I now believe was a rubber stamp sign-off on scores of indigent post-war births of infants who might land in State care were they not eligible for placement by adoption agencies. It revealed my place of birth as Saint Francis Hospital in Greenville, not Rock Hill, across the State. Incremental drips of data from South Carolina were the impetus to learn all the truthful facts of my origins, stolen from me when Church and State cooperated around what to do with illegitimate infants.

A sequence of lies began with the falsification of my birthplace. My birth mother’s hospital records were lost to fire, I was told, so I could not hope to see the imprint of my newborn feet. I sent the following queries to Catholic Charities at the start of my search, as suggested by the Adoption Forum in Philadelphia. Few questions, so vital to me, were answered by the Agency during my years-long search.

***

I am requesting that you examine my file to determine whether or not my natural mother and/or father placed on file a consent form granting permission to disclose the information contained in my original birth certificate or any other identifying or non-identifying information about my natural mother and/or father. I am hereby requesting the complete medical histories of my natural mother, natural father, and their families. Thank you for your help in this matter. Sincerely, etc.

Please list any/all childhood diseases or surgeries known for each birth parent. Please list any/all genetic disorders known for each birth parent. Please list any/all known diseases or illnesses experienced by each birth parent.

a. Were any of these diseases or illnesses experienced during my birthmother’s pregnancy with me?

b. Were either birth parents exposed to German measles, polio, or tuberculosis during the pregnancy?

In addition to the standardized 'form' items, please include answers to the following additional requests: Please note that all items listed below, unless otherwise indicated, refer to both my birth mother and birth father.

Full physical description of birth parents:

a. Color of eyes

b. Color of hair

c. Age at my birth

d. Height

e. Weight

f. Complexion

g. Any birthmarks, scars, tattoos

[Include your name and address here]:

Please include any medical records and/or information known for each birth parent. Also, please include any medical records, birth records, nursery log records of my birth, and any known subsequent medical treatment before adoption:

a. Name and address of the medical facility where treatment was administered.

Did they reside in (insert city and state in which you, the adoptee, were born)?

a. If answered no, were they from (insert your state)?

b. Were they from another state and came to (insert your state) for my delivery and adoption?

***

a. Name and address of the medical facility where treatment was administered

b. Name and address of my delivery doctor

c. Name and address of the attending pediatrician

***

At the time of my adoption, were my birth
grandparents still living?

a. If not, what did they die from?

b. What were their names?

At the time of my adoption were my birth great-grandparents still living?

a. If not, what did they die from?

b. What were their names?

[Include your name and address here]:

Thank you for your courtesy in providing me with the requested information.

Sincerely,

Thank you for reading! To Be Continued.

Part 3 Next Weekend.