What Do You Want?

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My husband and I went out for dinner last week with some new friends–a neighbor whom I’ve gotten to know through my Catholic Charities post-adoption support group. When the waiter approached our table, my fellow adoptee was sharing an update about the search for her birth mother. 

We stopped chattering when the waiter asked, “Has everyone had enough time with the menus?”

We nodded. The waiter turned to my husband. “Sir, I’ll start with you. What do you want?”

Perhaps it was the details of my friend’s turbulent adoption search. Or it could have been the events of the week that had just wrapped up. I’d spent most of it discussing my own adoption search experience and recently released memoir, Twice a Daughter. Karen’s Book Club in Darien had hosted me for an in-person book talk. An adoptee and podcaster, Jennifer Ghoston interviewed me for her show: Onceuponatimeinadopteeland. And, I was the guest presenter on a ZoomChat with the International Association of Journal Writers (www.iajw.com) about how journaling impacted the writing of my memoir. 

As much as I truly enjoyed these events, as a functioning introvert they were draining. In retrospect, I believe that the combined effect of back-to-back events and deep conversations, as well as the waiter’s query: What do you want? are what triggered the memory I will share. 

It was April 2012. 

My twin sister and I were six months into a blissful reunion with our then seventy-nine-year-old birth mother. The previous fall my confidential intermediary had brokered an agreement with her: exchange letters and photographs through the CI’s office, and then decide if you desire further contact.

Three exchanges of notes and precious photos led to our first phone call, followed by an emotion packed in-person meeting with my birth mom, my twin sister and me. The months following the first birthdays we celebrated together were consumed with more phone calls and exchanged notes containing old photographs and family genealogy.

At this time, I was 52. I had spent most of my life wondering about my first mother, and why she had placed us for adoption. Now that she had finally welcomed us into her life, I was giddy with joy. Content and complete, I marveled at how far we’d come, and I futurized about what was still possible.

As was my way, I picked up the landline and spontaneously punched in her home phone number. I just wanted to hear her voice and to learn what she was up to for the day. She answered after a few rings, and a brilliant smile lit up my face. As if I was a teenage girl speaking to a new boyfriend, butterflies danced in my belly.

After a few moments of chit-chat, there was a pause on the line, and then my birth mom blurted out, “What do you want?”

Her words stunned me. Breath hitched in my chest. Wasn’t it obvious what I wanted? Didn’t she want the same things I wanted: to learn everything about her and the life she had led, to be magnanimously welcomed into her extended family, and to resume life where our mother-daughter bond had been severed? 

I closed my eyes and stammered, “I just want… to have a relationship with you.” 

Certainly, my mother’s direct manner was off-putting, but it was more than that. I was disappointed. No! More like deflated. I wanted her to have intuited what I desperately sought. As my biological mother, I had expected her to instinctively know. Know that I had always wanted her in my life, that I needed to know everything about her not just the knowledge about why she had placed us for adoption. I wanted her to not just fill in the gaps of my identity, I wanted to belong to her and for her to belong to me. 

The act of putting words around all this because she demanded it, facilitated several outcomes. Her question pierced our reunion bubble. It pushed my eager-beaver attitude aside and effectively set me on guard. Doubt and misunderstanding seeped into our relationship. And my mother’s: What do you want? caused me to readjust my inflated expectations. 

I realized that I had been misguided in my belief that our shared genes meant that we would instantly understand one another. I supposed the unique bond I have with my twin sister had set me up to assume this–Jen and I are rarely out of step with one another.  And I came to understand that our reunion meant that I was getting to know my mother, but only to the extent to which she would allow me in. 

Birth moms from my parents’ generation were subjected to systemic societal shame. Because of the disgrace of an unwed pregnancy, women were often shunned by friends and disowned by family. Many birth mothers will go to their death beds safeguarding their painful secrets (to read more about this go to the resource tab on my website).

As off-putting as my birth mom’s question, “What do you want?” had been, I understand it now. When you spend your entire adult existence presenting yourself so that others will not think less of you, you become suspicious of everyone, including family members like long lost birth daughters. 

It’s a simple question: What do you want? 

Such a query is offered daily by waiters, salespeople, strangers, and family. We don’t always know what we want, do we? Like should I have the chicken parmesan or the eggplant? But when it comes to people, understanding them and meeting their needs takes time. 

I’m still in reunion with my birth mom. I talk to her every few weeks. Our relationship has evolved into one much like I enjoyed with my favorite aunt. And, while I do not always know what my birth mother wants or needs, I treasure the day that she re-entered my life. 

BOOK NEWS & UPCOMING EVENTS:

August 31: guest, The Voice of Charity Radio Show, WNDZ, 750AM Catholic Radio 

August 31: webinar presenter, “How to Write Memoir That Reads Like Fiction,” The Author Learning Center

September 9: MJ’s Shining Stars Book Club in Riverside, IL

September 10-11: NAAPunited (National Association of Adoptees and Parents) Annual Conference in Indianapolis, IN

September 16: Pam K’s Book Club in Hinsdale, IL

September 16: record The Honestly Adoption Podcast with Mike and Kristin Berry

September 17: Twice a Daughter will be the Book of the Day for the Online Book Club for Readers

September 20: Private Book Event in Lake Forest, IL

September 21-22: National Council for Adoption (NCFA) annual conference- virtual.

September 23: Mr. Brown’s Benet Alumni Book Club– virtual discussion with moderator Susan Conner

Recommended Reads:

The Prozac Monologues: A Voice From the Edge by Willa Goodfellow. Look for my interview with the author later this month.

Now reading: Shooting Out the Lights by Kim Fairley. I highly recommend this!!

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