Two Things That Bother Adoptees

There’s no avoiding a visit to the doctor.

Well-being checks, immunizations, and sick calls are a necessity for staying healthy. If you’re like me, you dread heading to the clinic. Flipping through dead magazines in the waiting room, donning a thin smock, being weighed and measured, gagging on a wooden tongue depressor and being stuck by a needle are all part of the uncomfortable drill.  If you’re adopted, a trip to the doctor has an added layer of angst.

When I graduated from college, I not only started my first full-time job away from home, I had to find a doctor and a dentist. Frankly, I didn’t give the process much thought.  I scheduled the appointments, checked in, and joined the waiting room holding a clipboard of forms. The family doctor who had cared for me until I entered my twenties knew I was adopted and I’d been spared any questions regarding my non-existent medical history.  Not so, when obtaining my new medical team.

I stared at the clipboard, puzzling the questions: is there a history of diabetes, heart disease, blood clots, colon cancer or mental illness in your family?  I couldn’t answer any of these. I really wanted to check the boxes. I cursed my situation. My pen dug deep and I scribbled in large letters across the forms: “N/A. Adopted!”

I still get red in the face thinking about how many times, how many years I wrote those same words in various doctor’s offices.  The seed of my anger wasn’t just the not knowing. It was the inability to know. Adoption had locked me out from knowing the basics of my existence.

How did I cope?

My internist enacted a proactive plan by setting early baselines.  He ordered a battery of tests: a colonoscopy, an EKG, a stress test, and elaborate blood work.  This regimen eased the concerns that hereditary diseases lurked in the shadows, but the extra testing took its toll on my co-pay. I’m grateful to my doctor for his conscientious care, but every visit stirred up the ‘I wish I didn’t have to do this” anger/resentment cocktail. Now that I have located my birth relatives and have their health histories in hand, my visits to the physician are more sanguine. Other adoptees have expressed similar feelings (see “My Favorite Adoptee Blogs” 7/31 post).

The second hot button for adoptees is dialogue circling around family background. Perhaps you’ve noticed that at some point social gatherings touch on parents, siblings, family traits or family origins. Most adoptees were told something about their biological parents’ heritage, whether it was accurate or not is another question entirely.  If no ethnicity was provided, an adopted child assumes that of the adopting parents, but the adopted child knows the information is not biologically accurate. Adoptees are desperate to have a ‘personal story’ (see my blog on 7/25 “The Importance of Personal Story”) so they latch on to what’s offered.

In my younger years, along with wondering about why I was adopted, I daydreamed about my biological parents.  I puzzled if my birthparents were German and Irish as were my adoptive parents. My adoption agency, Catholic Charities, had a policy of matching babies to their new families with regards to physical appearance and ethnic background. As to whether I looked like my adoptive parents and shared their ethnicity, my inner critic never held back: maybe you are, maybe you aren’t. The ‘not knowing’ produced in me a similar emotion, as did the medical check-ups. I yearned to know the truth and I resented the gatekeepers that prevented my knowing.

Let me share a story.  When my kids were in grammar school, they completed a heritage project.  Each student picked a grandparent to interview and learned the basic facts about their ancestry from that living relative. The kids assembled pictures and stories into creative 8 ½ x11 booklets. It was called “My Book About Me”. The project culminated with a grandparent tea where the books were shared with parents, grandparents, and fellow students. I am grateful that there was not such a project required in my youth.  Although I would have completed it as creatively as I could have, dragging my adoptive Dad’s mother to the tea, inwardly I would have known that what I had written was not my story and never would be.

Hurray for Ancestry and 23nMe! The advent of genetic testing has allowed adoptees not only an idea of their family genealogy but also their genetics.  While there continues to be controversy over the accuracy of the testing, it has allowed adoptees to connect with birth relatives and share information over the Internet.  It is a relief to have this tool at the touch of a key.

In the last four years, I have located birth relatives from both sides of my family tree. I am proud to own family health histories and a proper genealogy.  While I’m pleased to be on the other side of search and reunion, I haven’t forgotten how I disliked filling in “N/A. Adopted!”

Going to the doctor and discussing basic family origins and traits is uncomfortable for adoptees.  It was never the choice of an adoptee to be put in the precarious situation of lacking medical and family history.  It is time for all states to allow adoptees access to all facts about themselves.