Bitter-Sweet Surprises

(Originally published in 2009)


Since my Mom's fall and move to assisted living, I have been busy cleaning out her house ~ the same house I grew up in.
It is surreal to go back all these years later and revisit childhood memories.

I have found some sweet surprises in the midst of the clutter. One thing I found really made me smile. It was a small wallet-size photo album filled with pictures of me growing up.
Thinking it was my Mom or Grandmother's (Nanny), I started leafing through the pictures and surprisingly found my Aunt Kay's old AARP card in it. I realized it was hers and then pulled out a folded-up, yellowed paper. It was so neat to unwrap this small surprise and find a poem written in her own handwriting.

Aunt Kay passed away in 1984, when I was in the tenth grade. It was a traumatic three years watching my Nanny (her twin sister) walk right beside her as she battled cancer. Aunt Kay was a beautician and I spent many a day in her "shop" on Florence doing my nails and hearing her little gray-headed clients tell stories of yesteryear. She gave me my first hair-cut.

 

I so looked forward to her annual New Year's Party. If I try real hard, I can still smell the delicious appetizers, and feel the tickle of sparkling Cold Duck. I remember the low drone of football roaring from the living room tv. Uncle Olan would somehow make sure my favorite number #10 was the winning football team in the annual "pot" and every year I believed them when they exclaimed how "lucky" I was. Isn't it amazing what memories stay with you from childhood? 
 It saddens me that my son will know hardly anyone from my adoptive family.
Only his Grandma is left, and some wonderful cousins who live out of state. 

After my reunion, I marvelled at the fact my first Mother was ALWAYS within a few miles of me my whole childhood.

She adored all kinds of animals and always wanted to live in the open where she could enjoy many around her.  Little did I know (this little animal lovin' adoptee ~ remind me to write about my one and only detention in H.S., due to illegal posting of PETA posters on all the bulletin boards), that all the while I was a preteen, busy exploring (among other things) my Aunt Hazel and Uncle Dean's new acreage and homestead in Collinsville, that my first Mother was living just a few miles north in Ramona.

I spent a lot of time at my best friend's house by the elementary school we attended, never knowing that her Dad, L.D., worked at the carrier company my first grandfather, Papa Sid helped establish just a few blocks away. How many times did my first family and I pass each other on the old Admiral "traffic circle" over the years? Or were in the same store. The old TG&Y my Nanny managed or Borden's Cafeteria?

The first time I laid eyes on my Grandmother Carolyn (the first birth relative I met, my first Mother's mom), we had immediately decided to meet at that first phone call, and the closest place we could think of was the Grandy's where I had worked all through high school.   Never realizing she lived less than a mile away and frequented the restaurant regularly.  She also used to get her hair done at Aunt Kay's house occasionally.   

Finding out things about my first Mother gave me goose bumps ~ like how we shared the same favorite color, love for animals and writing, and we both attended "beauty school" (although my lame 11th grade vo-tech attempt only lasted a couple of days, when I found myself an official "beauty school drop-out" realizing real quick it was going to be a lot harder than learning how to "just cut hair" lol).  My First Mother's grandfather (my Great-Grandfather Ernie Terrell) owned a barber shop on Cherry Street and was friends with Uncle Olan (from my adoptive family) who owned Anchor Barber shop on Harvard. 

The "synchronicity" in adoption is truly amazing. Almost mind-blowing when you let yourself think about it. Treasured pieces of information that help define who I am. Yet having to wait until adulthood to find one tidbit here, another there, rationed over the years of my reunion.
No matter how much I learn, I still yearn for more.

I so wish I could sit down with my first family yet again (even 20 years in) and pour over every detail and morsel of their lives and mine.

This process of reunion is so painful that most of the time adoptees and first families take it in tiny increments and then back away emotionally, trying to integrate and survive the loss they experience, even in reunion. Like the waves of the sea, waxing and waning.

After finding out my first Mother passed away so young, another memory came back to me ~ attending a funeral in 6th grade of the mother of one of my girl scout friends. The most disturbing part of this vague memory is hearing the constant, judgmental criticism coming from some of the other Mothers about my friend and several other girls who apparently "had the nerve to 'play' at her own mother's funeral."  This little girl was coping the only way she knew how.

For some reason that really made an impact on me and bothered me a lot. But I didn't know why.

As an adult looking back on this, and now knowing that my own first Mother's funeral was literally taking place around this same time, right around the corner, it really hurts. 

These women had no idea what this young girl had gone through losing her mother so young and really shouldn't have gone on and on about her behavior, no matter what she was doing.

Maybe the reason this memory has bothered me so much, is that it finally hit me that, in a sense, adoptees are actually EXPECTED to "play" at our own Mother's funerals. Society gives us little freedom or validation to appropriately grieve losing that profound connection and how it permanently alters our very identity, emotions, childhood, and life-long experiences. Instead, we find ourselves in hiding, behind plastered-on-smiles at "Gotcha Day" PARTIES, complete with streamers, balloons, and cake.

 

All these memories came back to me after I carefully unfolded this tiny, yellowing paper tucked away in the photo book. It seems like God uses little reminders to guide me gently through bitter-sweet memories ~ even though I sometimes feel like a stranger in a foreign land.

Here are the beautiful words I read and continue to bring comfort: (Thank you, Aunt Kay)

"God is no stranger in a far away place.

He's as close as the wind that blows on my face.

It's true I can't see the wind as it blows,

But I feel it around me and my heart surely knows.

That God's mighty hand can be felt every minute

For there's nothing on earth that God isn't in it."

(Helen Steiner Rice)

Mother & Child Reunion

Mother & child reunion: Louisvillian says ‘Karma' played a role in reconnecting with her firstborn

By Katya Cengel
December 13, 2009
NOTE: This adoptee's background was totally fabricated in her adoption file.

Whatever your belief system, every once in a while something happens that is too perfect to write off to chance.

Maybe that is why Susanne Howe named the cat “Karma.”

This story could have been written in the usual way: the trend story about how families around the world are reuniting on Facebook; the one shown in heart-wrenching airport reunions on the evening news, rehashed on morning TV talk shows.

Only you won't read that here. Despite an alluring Facebook connection, that isn't what this story is about. It's about two women who found each other despite numerous roadblocks. It's about a woman whose timing hasn't always been perfect, acting at just the right time.

And it's about the sense of disbelief and hope you feel when you realize that every now and then things really do work out.

A difficult beginning

When Susanne Howe discovered she was pregnant, the timing was not right. Howe had just resumed her college education and had moved halfway across the country. Her boyfriend, who was supposed to join her, was seeing someone else.

Howe was 20 and single. She wanted more for her baby than what she could offer and decided to place her for adoption.

Because she was surrendering the girl, Howe did not feel it would be right for her to seek her out later in life. But secretly she hoped her daughter would find her, she said later, and she did everything she could to make that happen.

She requested her name be put in the baby's file and left a letter for the adoptive parents and another for the child, explaining her actions and reasoning. Then she breastfed her. It wasn't encouraged, but Howe knew it would boost the baby's immune system.

“I thought, ‘I can't give her anything else, but maybe I can give her this, a little bit of a start,'” said Howe, now 50.

Thirty years later, Howe sat in a Louisville coffee shop next to a woman with hair as blond as her own, eyes as blue and the same dimple in her right cheek.

“I hoped, I think, on some level there would be some bonding — that years down the road, in the future (that bond) would be somewhere in her subconscious,” said Howe, patting Crystal Love's knee.

After three decades, Howe was back with her baby.

False leads

Growing up in Vanceburg, Ky., Love had known she was adopted. But it wasn't until she was 25 and had read Howe's letter that she wanted to know more about her birth mother. She had her adoption records released and began looking. Only the woman she thought she was looking for went by “Virginia Suzanne Paige.” Love had no way of knowing Howe went by her middle name, or that “Susanne” had been misspelled in the records.

Even worse, a lot of the details about her birth mother were wrong. Now that she knows Howe and they can laugh about it, Love enjoys talking about the way the records described Howe.

“You were Methodist, you played piano, were into needlepoint, cheerleading …”

Howe cut in, “ … made my own clothes.”

“… debating, she was studying speech pathology,” Love continued.

The only problem was none of it was true, Howe said.

“It was like somebody just fabricated that stuff just to give her a picture,” she said . “Give her a mental image.”

That image sent Love searching for women named “Virginia,” checking out speech-pathology programs and generally tracking dead ends. She joined adoption sites and used all the tools she was familiar with as a lawyer. But she found nothing.

Over the years she would try again and again, and at some point was able to figure out that her biological mother was a member of the Franklin County High School class of 1976.

Then, Love, a longtime MySpace fan, defected to Facebook and decided to search there for women in that class. When she found “Susanne Paige Howe,” she sent her a short e-mail explaining who she was — and waited.

‘Timing is everything'

Howe said she almost deleted the e-mail. She had gone online only because a cat had shown up on the doorstep and kept trying to get inside her house. Howe lived with her mother and stepfather, whose home was purposefully pet-free, and was trying to find an online list of lost pets. When that didn't work, she decided to check her e-mail before getting off the computer.

When she saw an e-mail from Crystal Love, a name she didn't recognize, she was ready to send it to the trash, but at the last minute recalled a high school student named Crystal and decided to see if it was from her. When she saw who the e-mail was from, she wrote back right away.

It was Mother's Day.

Her parents decided to keep the cat; she named it Karma.

“My stepdad and mom actually, I think, associate the arrival of Karma with her (Love),” Howe said.

Howe had spent three decades in Pennsylvania and raised two children, Kelly, now 27, and Ryan, now 23. But with her children grown, her parents' health declining and her own marriage over, she had recently returned to Louisville.

When Howe moved, Kelly urged her to join Facebook as a way to keep in touch with friends and family members who lived elsewhere. Two weeks before Love e-mailed her, Howe had joined a group for her high school on Facebook, using her maiden name so old friends could find her.

“Timing's everything,” said Howe, squeezing Love's hand.

After replying to Love's e-mail, Howe told Kelly and Ryan about their older sister. Two hours later, Love received a Facebook friend request from Kelly.

She accepted.

In the months since, Love, who works as a public defender in Ashland, has met with Howe several times and also with Kelly, Ryan, Howe's parents and her birth father. Occasionally, she gets a Facebook friend request from another member of Howe's extended family. Coupled with her adoptive parents and brother, Love has family galore.

“Some people have absolutely no one, and I have more than enough,” she said.

When she is with Howe, they are as affectionate and giggly as teenagers.

“It's all been sort of surreal,” Howe said. “The reason I named the cat Karma is I felt I must have racked up an awful lot of good karma somewhere to have everything happen.”

Man Meets Family at 46

Man meets family at 46
Adopted California man tracks down biological brothers for holiday reunion

By ERIN MILLS
The East Oregonian

Don Carroll has been spending his holidays in the usual way, eating and playing games with his family in Hermiston. But this year is a bit different - Carroll just met his family a week ago.

After a successful search for his biological family through WARM, the Washington Adoption Reunion Movement, Carroll hopped a plane Monday from California to meet two full brothers, a half brother, two half sisters and assorted nephews, nieces and other relatives.

Carroll always knew he was adopted, he said, but he decided to seek out his biological family several months after his mother died. His father had died years earlier, and he has not seen his sister, who also was adopted, for several years.

"I was both excited and nervous," he said of meeting his brothers, Richard and Rob Meeks, at the Pasco airport. "Really, it was the culmination of a life-long dream... it was just - big grin."

Once they saw each each other, there was no doubt: the brothers all have the same height and athletic build, the same gray-green eyes, the same easy-going sense of humor.

"I felt a little for him, because we didn't want to overwhelm him," Rob said. "But, immediately, from shaking hands, we were able to start joking and hanging out."

Meeting their long-lost brother was a surprise, but not wholly unexpected for the Meeks brothers. Their mother, Sherryle, had spoken of her oldest son and attempted to find him. She registered with several national organizations that connect adopted children with their birth parents. In her memoirs, she described Don's birth in a home for unwed mothers in Spokane, Wash., 46 years ago, when she was 16 years old.

"In mid-May, I gave birth to a beautiful healthy baby boy, my firstborn," she wrote. "I loved him and I wanted him and somehow hoped a miracle would provide a way for me to keep this wonderful child and provide for him a home and family which he so deserved."

Carroll said one of the reasons he wanted to seek out his family was to reassure his mother he had had a happy childhood with good parents. Sherryle, though, died of cancer last year.

It was Jim Meeks, Sherryle's second husband, who heard first from Carroll's WARM caseworker. With photos of a young Don in hand, which bore an uncanny resemblance to Richard and Rob's childhood photos, he called them up and said, "You boys need to come over to the house."

"He showed us these photos and I said, 'Oh, that's me - no, that's Rob - no, who is that?'" Richard remembered. "When he told us my first feeling was kind of, well, it's about time."

Richard wondered whether Don would resemble the family in any way besides looks - after all, he said, a different family raised Don in a different lifestyle.

"But, in this case, he just fits," Richard said.

The brothers even have similar jobs. Don is a fireman, Michael is a police officer in Stayton and Rob helps run a training academy for corrections officers for the Oregon Youth Authority. Richard is the odd man out: He works for Pendleton Grain Growers.

All the brothers have the same slightly perverse sense of humor, said Carmen Robbins, Richard's fiance.

"When Don flew into Pasco, Richard and Rob called him and said, 'We're in Seattle, where are you?'...They were just yanking his chain," she said.

The Meeks brothers said they have plans to visit Carroll in California this summer, maybe sooner.

"What's really cool is to have him here during the holidays," said Greg McKeever, Sherryle's brother. "It's a present you can't buy."

"It's been great," Carroll said. "I think I hit the jackpot."

Ultimate Reunion

I once heard a sermon by Pastor Dick Bernal in San Francisco which opened my eyes as an adoptee. He shared that in the original Greek texts of the Bible that the words "adopted as God's children" in the book of Romans and others, could be more accurately translated as "reunited" as God's children. The prodigal son in scripture was not his Father's "adopted son", but his own flesh and blood. He ran to embrace his child who had been gone for years.

It is a beautiful comfort to know God is my true Father and I am his child. There is no need for Him to "adopt" me as we think of adoption in today's society, because I actually came from Him to begin with. So many things in this world work to separate us from the pure knowledge of God's unconditional love for us as our Father ("Abba" means Daddy) God. I'm so thankful He runs to reunite with me.

"...I will never leave you, nor forsake you." God
(Joshua 1:5)

Mother Reunited with Child

Mother reunited with child she gave away 26 years earlier
October 30, 2009
By Sean Rose
srose@courier-journal.com

She gave up her daughter for adoption in 1978 in a decision fueled by
panic and desperation. In doing so, Marcie Roth, now 54, lost not only
her child but also the love of her life.

And then, almost three decades later, she found one, which helped her
regain the other.

Marcie Roth's life is a story of regret, acceptance, forgiveness, and
finally, joy; of walking away from her child's father, then
rediscovering their love 26 years later; of coming to terms with the
fact that she was a birth mother of an adopted child who was a
stranger to her.

One thing she knew for certain: She needed to search for that child
and reach out to her — if her daughter would have her.

On Father's Day, 2008, she placed the call that she both longed for
and dreaded. She identified herself to a person who answered.

"Momma," the voice on the telephone replied. "Is that you?"

An adoption tinged with regret

Thirty years earlier, Marcie Roth was a divorced, single mother in
Ephrata, Pa., raising one daughter while juggling a full-time job and
school. She didn't know what to do when she found out she was pregnant
again.

Her boyfriend, Roger Roth, told her he wasn't ready to be a father.

With little money and no plan, she confided in her doctor, who
suggested she give up the baby for adoption and arranged the
proceedings with a nearby couple.

It seemed the smart move for Marcie and a blessing for the couple.

But in the hospital, as an exhausted Roth glimpsed her infant daughter
for the first time, and felt her tiny fist wrap itself around her
pinkie, Roth regretted her decision.

Yet she kissed infant Jessica Dale Roth on the forehead and said a
prayer as her baby was taken away.

She said she didn't see Roger Roth for two months. One day as she
walked the neighborhood as a light snow fell, Roger pulled his car
next to her and rolled down his window.

"Want to go to breakfast?" he asked.

She got in. The snow grew heavier. They waited in the car, hardly
speaking. Then Roger took her hand and they both cried over the
daughter they had given up.

He asked if they could get her back, Marcie Roth said, but she told
him it was too late. Their daughter's original birth certificate and all records of the adoption were permanently sealed. Neither knew where she had been placed.

The two got back together, but they never spoke about their missing
daughter.

Marcie Roth felt the loss acutely. She said she would be perfectly
fine, then see a baby on the street and break down bawling.

"When you are a birth mother, it's like something is just ripped out
of you, and it's never acknowledged," Roth said. "And so you go on
thinking, `I made a hell of a mistake.'"

Her anger at Roger Roth for not stepping up to fatherhood immediately
and her inability to turn to him for comfort drove them apart. Two
years after the adoption, Marcie Roth moved back to New Albany, where
she had grown up.

"Somebody dies, you have family, you have friends, you have coworkers,
you have support groups and then there's an end to it, there's
closure," Marcie Roth said. "There's no closure to an
adoption, it's just there.

Daughter struggles to fit in

The child that Marcie gave away, meanwhile, grew up as Kara Gianna
Cerullo. She and her adopted mother, Sandra Cerullo, lived in Berwick
and then Harrisburg, Pa., just hours from where she had been born as
Jessica Dale Roth.

By age 10, Jessica said she knew that she was different. Her blue eyes
and blonde hair did not fit with her mother's dark complexion. And her
loud, outgoing nature did not match the quiet home in which she was
being raised. She started asking questions about her biological parents.

When Jessica Roth was 11, her adoptive father drove her to meet with
the doctor who arranged the adoption, who refused to tell Jessica Roth
the names of her parents.

Instead, he described Marcie Roth to her, telling the young girl she
looked just like her mother.

While Jessica Roth described her relationship with her adoptive mother
as good, she was a troubled teen. She began doing drugs and drinking
at 13, and by the time she was 17, she was a mother herself, she said.
With little money and no father to help raise her daughter, she gave her
first child up for adoption.

Jessica Roth had begun searching for her birth parents as a teenager,
scanning adoption registries online. But two events, the death of her
grandfather, who she was very close to, and her father's death four
years later, made her redouble her efforts.

The urgency to find her own medical history was clear as she Jessica
began experiencing seizures and even suffered a stroke in January
2008, she said.

The odds were stacked against her. Although by now her adopted mother
had given her birth parents' names, Jessica didn't have much to go on.
Because adoption proceedings were closed, Jessica Roth's birth
certificate was sealed under Pennsylvania law.

A majority of states, including Pennsylvania, Indiana and Kentucky,
require court orders for adoptees to access their original birth
certificate or identifying information about their natural parents as
adults. The three states have some measures to allow access to records
as long as there is consent from the biological parents.

Medical reasons are often not enough for a court to unseal the
records, said Robert Stenger, an adoption and family law professor at
the University of Louisville.

By 2008, Jessica Roth had been searching off and on for more than a
decade — with nothing to show for it.

Re-ignited love spurs search for daughter

Marcie Roth, meanwhile, remained paralyzed with guilt, which kept her
from trying to find to her daughter, she said.

"I felt like I didn't have a right," Marcie Roth said. "Who was I to
go marching into her life after all these years and turn her world
upside down?"

She figured that if her daughter wanted to find her, she could.

Roger Roth changed her mind.

They had not spoken in 26 years, until the day he unexpectedly called
her. They visited each other, and on their first date, he apologized
for not being a father for their daughter. He proposed. She accepted,
and the two were married in April 2008.

Marcie Roth saw a reason behind their reunion and began searching for
their daughter two months before the couple married. For the next five
months, she would stay up late into the night searching online
adoption registries online for any sign of her daughter, she said.
Reading strangers' stories online, she began to open up to others and
learned to forgive herself.

"I punished myself, and that's what every birth parent does," she
said. "You mentally beat yourself up over it, what you should have
done."

On Father's Day, 2008, Marcie Roth received a call from a woman named
JoAnne Stanik. Earlier that day, Roth had registered with Stanik's
adoption search Web site, adoptiondatabase.org.

On it she had left a typed message intended for her daughter:
"If you are looking for me and want to hear your story, I am ready to
tell it."

Stanik started looking, and in just four hours, found Jessica,
who was now Jessica Roth-Jendrick after marrying and had moved to
Florida.

Marcie Roth was stunned, but Stanik assured her that she had verified
her daughter's identity. Stanik gave her Jessica's phone number.

Marcie Roth hung up, picked up the phone again and dialed. It rang and
a young woman answered. Marcie Roth identified herself.

The response was clear: "Momma? Is that you?"

Reunion creates new family

A week later, on a summer evening, at Louisville International
Airport, Marcie Roth and her husband waited at the gate. Jessica
walked forward, surveyed the crowd and — even with no photo —
recognized her mother right away.

"I could spot her a mile away," Jessica Roth said.

That first night, the questions and answers flew as Marcie, Roger and
Jessica tried to catch up on 30 years of lost time. What were her
birthdays like? Did she go to the prom? Any boyfriends?

Jessica stayed for a week. Then she and her parents traded visits
until last June.

She started classes at the end of September at Daymar College studying
medical coding and billing moved into her own apartment in early
October. Cerullo, who'd been diagnosed with liver cancer earlier in
the year, joined her daughter in her new home, as did her husband, who
came from Florida.

Marcie Roth began sharing her story online with others struggling with
adoption. She said she's dedicated to raising awareness about the
anguish the adoption laws can cause.

She is also writing book about her experience and hopes that any
profits will further help Jessica and also go toward Stanik's search
organization.

And when there is friction in their relationship — as there sometimes
is, Marie recognizes it as inevitable as the two get to know each other.

"I just kept saying, `Honey, it's going to get better.' The main thing
is that we're together."

Three Decades after Adoption, DNA reveals painful Truth

Three decades after adoption, DNA test reveals painful truth
By Frank D. Roylance

Baltimore Sun reporter
October 12, 2009

For Cockeysville businessman Ron Ryba, the long walk from the parking lot to the stadium in Philadelphia was a 29-year trail of memories.

He had come to meet the son he and his high school sweetheart had never seen when they gave him up for adoption nearly three decades earlier. Now, the baby was a grown man. What would he say to him? What would he look like?

For Phil Bloete, too, the 2004 meeting at a Phillies game, was the culmination of a lifelong dream. He was 28, a high school English teacher in New Jersey. He had enjoyed a happy childhood, and was well-loved by his adoptive parents. But he had always wondered about his birth parents.

Mostly, Bloete said, he wanted to know more about his genetic heritage. He and his wife wanted to start a family, and "if there were any inherent risks, I wanted to know about them."

Their meeting was warm, if a bit tentative. "We laughed a little bit, and talked, and hugged," Ryba recalled. And he was astonished at Bloete's appearance.

Bloete is 6 feet 2 inches tall, 240 pounds with dark hair. He's been a swimmer, lifeguard, soccer coach. Ryba played football in high school and college, but he's blond, 5 feet 8 inches tall, and tips the scales at 175.

"I'm thinking to myself ... 'Man, did he get the good genes,'" Ryba said.

As it has turned out, Bloete, Ryba, and Ryba's high school girlfriend, Kathleen Butler, share no genes at all.

More than three decades after Ryba and Butler gave up their baby son to Catholic Charities of Trenton, N.J., for adoption, and four years after the agency facilitated their "reunion" with Bloete, genetic testing revealed last year that none of them are related.

Lisa Thibault, a spokeswoman for Catholic Charities of Trenton, acknowledged that the situation is "tragic," and that a "mistake" was made somewhere. But she said the agency has done all it is legally able to do for them.

That has shaken Ryba's lifelong faith in the Catholic Church, or at least in those who lead it. And, it has launched him on a thus-far fruitless quest to find the son he believes Catholic Charities has "lost."

Their story began in 1975.

Ryba was a high school football star. Butler was a cheerleader. They were crazy in love, but when Kathy became pregnant at 16, they knew they were both too young to provide a proper home and a secure future for their child.

So, they agreed to give their baby up to Catholic Charities, which arranged an adoption. They were promised updates on the boy's well-being, and assured the agency would mediate a reunion -- if the boy were willing after he grew to adulthood.

"The solace for me was the fact I would someday reunite, and know that the journey I took was for a good reason," said Ryba.

Catholic Charities' assurances were "a very big reason why I believed that what we were doing was the right thing. I never lost faith in that," he said.

Ryba went on to graduate from high school and earned a degree from Glassboro State College. In 1982, he moved to Maryland to open a sporting goods store in Cockeysville. Now 51, he lives in Timonium with his wife and two children. He owns and operates a business that sells uniforms to the U.S. Department of Defense.

But he has never forgotten the boy he and Butler gave up for adoption. And for three decades, Catholic Charities seemed to have kept its promises to Ryba and Butler.

Their baby was born Nov. 25, 1975, at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Camden. On Dec. 1, according to documents given to Ryba, the infant was transferred to St. Elizabeth's Home in Yardville, a home for unwed mothers run by Catholic Charities. And on Jan. 7, 1976, Phil -- identified on the state adoption consent papers as "Baby Boy Butler" -- was adopted by Anne and Edward Bloete, of Brielle, N.J.

Ryba and Butler split up after high school, and went off to college. They stayed in touch, but married others and lived separate lives. Both have their own children.

Over the years, Catholic Charities case workers sent Ryba baby pictures and information on his son's progress. And in 2004, the agency contacted Bloete and mediated the first direct communications between him and Ryba, which led to the "reunion" in Philadelphia.

Phil Bloete is 33 now, with a wife and daughter of his own. He said he had a happy childhood, and was well-loved by his adoptive parents.

"My whole life I grew up believing that Ron's story and Kathleen's story was the story of my [birth] parents," he said. "Catholic Charities had provided that all along."

Ryba said his long dream of a reunion with his firstborn son, and a resolution to decades of heartache and hope, seemed to have been realized in 2004 when he and Bloete agreed to meet for the first time at a Phillies game.

For Bloete, too, it was the culmination of a lifelong dream. "I had sorta prepared myself my whole life for the possibility that this day would never come," he said. "When it did, I was just surprised."

In the years that followed Ryba, Bloete and Butler grew closer, visiting, sharing photos and family stories and introducing relatives. They set aside the difficulty they all had in seeing family resemblances.

Ryba thought maybe Bloete got Butler's eyes. "You try to make it fit, in a way," Ryba said. "They told me this was my son, so it's my son. You want to believe."

They all tried, but Butler said there weren't any tall genes on her side. Ryba's wife and their 16-year-old son didn't see much resemblance either. Doubts nagged.

So, four years after they had become "family" and friends, as Ryba prepared to add Bloete to his will, he asked for a paternity test. Bloete, with his own doubts, readily agreed.

When the initial test found a "zero percent chance" that he was Bloete's father, Ryba called Butler, and posed the difficult, but inevitable question: Was there someone else? Butler told him, in no uncertain terms, "If you're not the father, then I'm not the mother."

So, they all agreed to a $1,200 DNA test that would stand up in court, if need be. The results again were conclusive. None of them were genetically related.

"We were all just stunned; shocked," Ryba recalled. "Now I realize we don't know who or where our son is. And then I realize Phillip has no origins."

The next call went to Catholic Charities.

"I said, 'You told me for 30 years this was my son. Can't you just go in your files? Maybe you mixed up some files,'" Ryba recalled.

Catholic Charities did provide some documents, but there was nothing to reveal who Bloete's real parents were, or where Baby Boy Butler might have gone.

A meeting was arranged for Ryba, Butler and Bloete with Catholic Charities director Francis Dolan. Ryba was hopeful.

"I'm feeling we're all in this together," he said. He expected that Catholic Charities would agree to search its files, find his real son, and uncover the records for Phil's birth parents.

Instead, the meeting with Dolan ended for Ryba in disappointment and anger, with few answers to his biggest questions. "I finally said to him, 'Are you here to help us?' His recollection is that Dolan replied that his agency had no further obligation to help.

"I don't think there was anything he could have said that could have been more hurtful," Ryba said.

Dolan chose not to speak directly with The Baltimore Sun. Lisa Thibault, his spokeswoman, said that throughout Catholic Charities' contact with Ryba, Butler and Bloete, "we have been mindful of the tragedy inherent in their situation, and have on numerous occasions ... expressed sympathy for them and their situation."

Ryba felt no such sympathy from this agency of the Catholic Church, to which he had belonged all his life.

"The one time I've turned to them ... for their cloak of comfort and help and justice, and they slowly closed the door on me, and said, 'We can't help you,'" Ryba said. "It doesn't diminish my faith in God. It diminishes my faith in the men who lead us to God."

Thibault acknowledged that the situation is "tragic," and that a "mistake" was made somewhere, although she suggested it may have been made before the Butler baby was moved to Catholic Charities' custody at St. Elizabeth's.

Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute in New York, a leading research and policy organization in the field that has long advocated an end to secrecy in adoption records, said, "The secretive ways of the past don't yield very good outcomes."

The mix-up in the adoption of the baby given up by Ryba and Butler -- and the mystery of Bloete's origins, even his true date of birth -- is "an abject lesson on how to not conduct good, strong, ethical adoptions," he said.

Catholic Charities did take one other step to try to shed light on the mystery. In September 2008, the agency went into Superior Court in Mercer County, N.J., asking for permission to release information from its files that is normally barred from disclosure under state or federal law -- information it said "would be helpful to [Phil's] search for his identity.".

In April, however, a judge denied the request, and in a June 5 e-mail, William Isele, Catholic Charities' attorney, told Ryba that the documents in the case were sealed. So were the judge's reasons for the denial.

"You can, of course, use your own counsel if you want to petition the court to unseal the Statement of Reasons and the underlying medical documents in the file," Isele told Ryba. "Our client, Catholic Charities, tried to do just that and was told 'no' by the Court."

Contacted by The Baltimore Sun, Isele declined to discuss the case, noting that records in the matter were sealed.

For Catholic Charities, Thibault said, the court's refusal to open the records was the end of its legal options. But perhaps not for Ryba, Butler and Bloete.

Birth records that reveal the identities of adopted children in New Jersey were sealed by a law passed in 1940 and are closed to both the general public and the parties to an adoption. The laws were designed to protect adoptive families from the interference of birth parents.

But there are exceptions when parties to an adoption can show "good cause" to have them opened, according to Steven Sacharow, an attorney with extensive experience in New Jersey adoptions.

"In the case of adult adoptees," he said, "the burden of proof should shift to the state to prove that good cause is not present. I would think the state would have an interest, in the best interests of all the children potentially involved in this situation, to determine what occurred, and as to the integrity of the adoption," Sacharow said.

The experience has sown the seeds of doubt in Ryba's mind. He wrestles with dark suspicion about what happened back at St. Elizabeth's. "How do we not let our thoughts go that way when they're not willing to help us?" Ryba asks.

Angry, and worried about his first-born son's fate, Ryba consulted with a private investigator. He even tried to file missing person and kidnapping reports with the New Jersey attorney general's office. He said he was turned away.

As Ryba continues to search for answers, he recognizes that a lawsuit may be his only option. But so far, he has been unable to find an attorney willing to take his case. He also worries about the cost.

Still, he said, "I would like to know where my son is."

What's In A Name?

Growing up, I hated my name. It was a little on the unusual side, and the last thing I wanted was to "stick out". I just wanted to be like everyone else. But I wasn't, 'cause I was adopted.

It wasn't until I became an adult and found my first family, and then grieved losing my first family, my first identity, my first life, that I finally came to embrace my name and actually learn to like it. And, although I grew up a smiling, "loyal" daughter (my "Best Mom in the World" cards were quite prolific), I truly wasn't able to embrace my family until I searched, and grieved being adopted.

I remember the first time I saw my original birth certificate. I was a young, 20-something "in the fog" adoptee, (early 90's) sitting alone on a big concrete bench in a cold Bureau of Vital Stats office. As I opened it up, it felt like I was moving in slow motion. After all the hoops I had to jump through, it was finally in my hand, and I almost felt like a criminal holding my own record of birth. Like reading a stranger's birth certificate, literally. Who was "Baby Girl Lowe" anyway? Me? Oh my gosh. The first thought that hit me was that I was somehow related to Rob Lowe. Double oh my gosh. lol

It turns out that (no, not related to Rob Lowe) Lowe was my first mother's step-father's name, whose she had taken when her mother re-married. My maternal grandfather's last name was really Terrell, and grandmother's maiden name was Price. It took many years for me to actually FEEL a part of these names. But thank God it happened. I have a precious genealogy book made by the Price family that goes back to the 1600's! It is truly amazing to see the lineage I come from. More than words can describe. I'm human.

As a little girl I loved to play school. I would have my little grade books and named all my students, keeping excellent records of assignments, grades, and lessons. One of the students in my pretend class would always have the last name of McGee. I had no idea why I felt so drawn to that name, but I did. As I've researched my family names now, I ran across my great-great-great (not sure exactly how many greats, but close) grandmother whose name was Pleasants McGee. Is that not a wonderful name, or what! She had 10 children. For some reason I just feel close to her, and I've never met her or any of her family that I know of. Except me. Shivers.

I've heard wonderful stories (from both sides of my first family) of my Great- Grandparents. I have pictures. An old black & white photo of Susan Terrell when she was just 16, and whose jaw-line I share. Her son, Buster, was my first mother's father who died before our reunion. He worked as a chef for many years at our hometown country club. How I wish I could have sampled his gourmet creations. I learned about the Terrell side of my heritage mostly from my Great Uncle Eddie, who was a retired Post Master, and such a sweet man.

Thank God for him, and my first Mother's siblings and their families, Ron, Patty, and Rick, who were the best Aunt and Uncles I could have ever found.

I truly feel part of them. Uncle Ron lived in San Francisco when we were first reunited, but his beautifully penned letters welcomed me into the family so warmly, and articulately described my first Mother and her personality, love, and passion. It was from those letters I was able to "know" her and her life, and realize just how much of myself I was finding. I'll never forget the difficulty with which I devoured them; having to set them aside periodically, simply because of the emotion and revelation they brought. Even so, I still feel a profound reaching and longing inside, because she is not here.

Even better than pictures & stories, I got to embrace my Great-Grandmother Grace, before she passed away. What a beautiful, sweet lady. A treasure and heritage that I will never take for granted; it is so rare for an adoptee to have this many years of reunion. I am in awe.

My husband and I spent one memorable New Year's Eve ballroom dancing with my grandmother Carolyn (Price). Her mother was Victoria Smalley. A "praying woman" of whom I am so thankful.

And then there are my grandparents on my first father's side, Papa Sid (from whom I got my Jewish heritage) & Grandma Mary. They passed away just a few years ago. I will never forget my grandmother Mary's reaction when I told her I was having a baby. She threw her head back in a huge smile and shouted "Finally!" The last time I saw her, her health had deteriorated quickly but she had pictures of her newest great-grandson on her wall, whom she never got to see in person. She passed away just a few weeks before I got to bring him home from the NICU. Tears.

That same year I had to bury my adoptive grandmother, Evelyn (Nanny), who helped raise me and from whom I got my middle name. She only got to see my son one time.

My adoptive family comes from a long line of "Shepards" (family name). When going through this journey of search and discovery, God seemed to be reminding me that He has always been my Shepard, my Comforter. He restores my soul.

What a sad summer that was. But full of hope and joy, also, with becoming a new Mother to my miracle preemie. It all seems like a blur now, those first anxious months in the hospital. And the relationships and mourning I had to put on hold in order for me and my son to survive. Just now revisiting that fateful year and these bitter-sweet memories.

As I get older names are so much sweeter to me. All these precious names. Family names. We named our son Andrew Bryan. Andrew is my sweet brother's middle name (one I am reunited with) and after my wonderful husband, Brian.

So many connections and reconnections I am thankful for. These pictures are some of the many beautiful cousins in my life. Some I grew up with and am still close to, and others I didn't meet until adulthood, but have become so very special to me.

My adoptive Great-Uncle Olan walked me part-way down the aisle at my wedding, almost 20 years ago. To me, it represented my childhood, and how special those relationships with my adoptive family are. Then my first father walked me the second-half, to the altar. We were recently reunited, and I'm so thankful I was on his arm that special day; representing my new-found identity and treasured connections lost and found. We are so much alike in our mannerisms, looks, stature, and personality. Amazing. Thank you, Dad, for being in my wedding. It means more to me than you could ever know.

Uncle Olan was a barber here in my home-town. As a child I would spend time in the Anchor Barber Shop on Harvard Ave., not knowing his fellow barber friend who owned a shop around the corner on Peoria Ave., was actually my birth great-grandfather, Ernie Terrell. Not until I became an adult and reunited with my entire first family did any of us know.

My china cabinet graces my First Mother's beautiful china with tiny, delicate purple violets, right along side my adoptive Mother's heirloom china, and some beautiful dishes from Grandma Mary and my adoptive Aunts Kay & Hazel, who were so special to me growing up.

These beloved heirlooms, from both my families through adoption and birth, all mingled together in my home and heart, represent the blend of bitter-sweet heritage which is "me."

Names who mean so much, some close in childhood, some in adulthood, and some I grieve not ever knowing. My own family. My own name(s).

I'm not related to Dr. Seuss (that I know of), but even his name holds a special place in my heart. A few years ago I took an art journaling class and the assignment was to read his book, "Oh, the Places You'll Go" and write a new version of the poem about your own life journey. Then draw a picture to match. I had never connected to my artsy side before, or the deep emotions over my relinquishment, adoption, and reunion. It was truly amazing to experience myself delve into hours and hours (that seemed like minutes) as I let these locked up words and emotions flow onto the paper in colors I didn't understand. It was so true that creativity does help you "tap" into emotions and experiences that are more easily avoided or stuffed. What came out was a picture of many eyes, all blue, like mine. They represented the family, ancestors and identity that surround me all around, yet I was separated from for so long. And the poem went like this:

"Oh, The Places You’ll Go...A Journey Through the Eyes of An Adoptee"

You’ll wake up one day

And find yourself floating on rivers of golden tears...

In deep scars of black and purple, too,

Streaming from your hidden view

Amidst eyes of blue.

Encircling your heart is crimson red,

Blood of the fathers you never knew

Heart enshrined...

Finally you’ll find the "real" you

Safely hidden in the prison of blue,

Your only chance now is to ride the hues

Grief unlocks the colors of life...

You’ll find your "purple" deep inside,

After the ride.

So, close your eyes and feel the depth;

You’ll find you’re not alone...

Surrounded by the throng ~ the unseen tears...

Hold on.

I must visit the eyes of my forefathers...the pain of my unknown

Connect with the blood with whom I found life;

Love through the tears of my own.

by Peach

The Day My Mother Told Me

The day my mother told me: 'Your father is not your real father'
By MIRANDA GLOVER
29th August 2009

Miranda Glover's life changed dramatically when the secret identity of
her father was revealed.
It’s early June this year, and I’m standing in a beautiful garden at
Hay-on-Wye. It’s the book festival’s 21st birthday party. Lots of
people I know are here, but the two most significant are my 25-year-
old half-sister Daisy and her mother, the writer and broadcaster Rosie
Boycott. We are bonded in an extraordinary way, by a secret that was
only unleashed when I was 16.
Until then I didn’t know that Daisy and I shared a natural father, the
war correspondent David Leitch. He has clearly passed us both his
genes: we share his Danish blue eyes, his slight frame – and his
passion for books.
1968, the year I was born, was a time of radical social change. So why
would a mother feel the need to keep her love child a secret? Perhaps
because most British families continued to live by the 1950s model
where parents married, worked hard, and where love children spelt
shame. My mum was like that: a young wife with two daughters and Mike,
a respectable businessman husband. She had one chink in her domestic
armour – her first love; the attractive, flawed and incredibly clever
Cambridge graduate David Leitch.
David had spent the past decade abroad covering world affairs for The
Sunday Times. They kept in touch, via the odd letter or lunch. He was
about to head to Vietnam to cover the war, but something made him call
her. They had lunch and then, rather inconveniently, they made me. He
went to Vietnam, she went home. When she realised she was pregnant
with his child she told no one, not even David, who was by now out of
reach.

She decided to tell her husband the truth.
Extraordinarily, he agreed to raise the baby as his own, so long as
she kept the secret firmly to herself. And so she had me within her
marriage, put a brave face on it, and carried on.
When I was seven, my mother got divorced and remarried. The original
pact no longer seemed relevant. She told her new husband – and David –
the truth about me. David was ecstatic. He had just had a son, and now
he had a daughter. Being adopted himself, connections with his genetic
offspring felt significantly important. Even so, my mother refused to
let him into my life. She said that one change was enough to manage at
such a tender age. She inherited four stepchildren, so now we numbered
seven kids most weekends.
My sisters and I still saw our father, Mike, every other weekend. It
was a busy, lively childhood, a melting pot where, paradoxically, it
was the many differences, not similarities between us that bound us
together as a family.
David Leitch was irregularly mentioned only if his voice came on to
Radio 4 or when one of his latest collections of journalism hit the
shelves (we had them lined up in the sitting room, always inscribed to
my mum). I met him a few times over the years. Once he brought this
little sandy haired boy Luke to lunch. I thought little more than that
I admired what he did. Coincidentally, I knew from an early age that
I, too, wanted to write.

I was aware of being different from my sisters – they were tall and
dark, I was small and blond. I was quite academic as a teenager – I
wanted to read Baudelaire whereas they were disinterested in studying,
keen to get out into the world. They had left home by the time I found
out my true identity; the day my mother and stepfather whisked me away
for a weekend to a remote cottage, to let me in on this very big
secret.
‘Your father is not your real father,’ my mother stated, a little too
steadily as we curled up in front of the fire. How often must she have
rehearsed that line? And how hard must it have been to get those words
out? I sat still, trying to absorb the shock, then glanced expectantly
at my stepfather, sitting uneasily next to her. ‘No, your stepfather
is not your natural father either,’ she added, almost by way of
apology. I loved him, but the fact was a strange relief. I knew who he
was to me, and didn’t want that to change.
My mother handed me an envelope as she told me my father’s name. She
looked worried, expectant. Inside was a letter in strangely familiar
handwriting, handwriting I almost share. And photographs, one of a
woman, Rosie, holding a small baby, Daisy, aged six months, another of
David, my new father, and a third of his son, the handsome nine-year-
old Luke, from an earlier marriage.
David’s letter eloquently introduced this other family to me. It had
been written as part of the plan, I was now told, made by my parents
with Rosie and David over dinner a week before. My natural father was
keen to know me. My mother had agreed that perhaps it was time.

My spirit shook with the shock of it. Slowly, the truth unfolded. I
felt no anger. My initial feeling was one of sadness for my mother,
for having held on to this weighty secret for so long. But I loved her
and I trusted her instincts in all things, even this.
I went to bed and reread the letter, looked at the photographs over
and over. The next morning I felt disembodied. I had walked into that
cottage in one skin and I was walking out in another.
Collectively, we told my sisters – their shock was understandable, but
they were generous in their response. Even so, I sensed a wariness in
them, a subtle distancing from me. Over time, that sense of
separateness has diminished again. When I told my friends, they looked
at me with incredulity and I felt a bit of a freak. But I was excited,
too, about meeting David, knowing this other genetic part of me.
We agreed that he would phone me. When the call came I felt so anxious
I needed the loo and told him so. He laughed and said so did he. We
both hung up, then rang back once we’d been. Now the ice had been
broken and we chatted. His voice was familiar and he put me at ease.
We met for lunch the following weekend. I felt immediately comfortable
around him, he was good at drawing me out, was interested in me, and
we shared similar loves, of art, books, French literature.
The first time I went to stay with David, I took a train to Paddington
and was met by Rosie with Daisy in her arms. The bond with them began
then and has grown steadily. Rosie drove me to their home, a rambling,
book-filled Georgian flat overlooking the canal in Little Venice. I
liked the smell of it – library-like, familiar. Luke was loitering at
the top of the stairs. ‘Hello,’ he said, ‘you must be my sister.’



‘When I had my son, Fen, David would delight in his time with him.
When Fen was four he patiently taught him to play chess’
David appeared later, hugged me tightly and talked too much and too
quickly, kept moving from place to place. Even though he couldn’t
contain his excitement, I could sense that my presence made him
anxious. It was a time for adjustment for us all.
Fundamental differences between my first and second families fast
became evident. I was a state-educated parochial girl; my father was a
known London bon viveur, a serious drinker, an intellectual with
children in the best private schools. He had a boho lifestyle,
indulged in complicated relationships and had a renowned feminist
wife. Luke came and went between his parents.
Often I hung out with Rosie and Daisy. They became a safety net for me
within David’s chaotic world. At one party David’s Cambridge friends
and Luke’s mum came. They were fascinated by this secret daughter
about whom they had all known for years. I felt uneasy. Strangely
foreign inside my own skin.

I felt I was trying my new personality out for size. In some ways I
felt more confident about my ambitions as a writer, in other ways it
made me feel diminished, as if, against such a literary, successful
family, I was just pretending to be something I was not. With
hindsight I think I tried too hard to make all the pieces of the
jigsaw fit, believing that I could be cohesive again. Since marrying
and having my own children I believe that we are who we were always
going to be, all along.



I continued to see David over the following 20 years. Our meetings were wonderfully enthusiastic, and
engaged in the subjects we both loved: story-making and the characters
who lived in our midst. I ended up living only a few streets away from
David for the last few years of his life.
Essentially, I loved David from the start, felt a true and instinctive connection.
David died four and a half years ago, at home in his bed, aged 67. I
had seen him the day before, with my daughter, Jessie-May, then two
and a half. He had become prematurely infirm.
A veteran war correspondent with a serious drink problem was never
going to live into later life. The death certificate stated that he
died of fatigue. I miss his friendship and his input into my work. I
had my first novel published just months after he died. He used to
read my manuscripts, encourage me in my writing, and helped me edit
the first draft.
I never discussed my knowledge of David with Mike. He knew I knew but
he chose not to talk of it. He had been kind to me, treated me as his
daughter. I don’t think the subject would have been easy to address.
When I was 22 Mike died, suddenly, of a stroke. He took my secret to
his grave.
I wonder, if the truth had never been let out of its box, would I
still be standing here, at Hay-on-Wye with those two people who met me
from the train on that life-changing day; Rosie and Daisy, talking and
laughing as we gaze towards the dusky village of books that has
brought us all here. Scientists agree that nature and nurture affect
the paths we follow, shape the people we become. My path,
instinctively, has brought me into this book-filled world. In my case,
I would vouch that nature has enjoyed the
upper hand.

Miranda’s latest novel, Meanwhile Street (£6.99, Transworld), will be
published on 10 September. To order a copy with free P&P, call the YOU
Bookshop on 0845 155 0711 or visit you-bookshopco.uk

Another Reunion

Published August 28 2009
By: Chad Richardson, The Hastings Star-Gazette

MaryLou and Bernard Bauer did the paperwork. Attended the classes. And
were given the go-ahead. They could adopt children to live on their
farm south of Hastings near Highway 52.

And then the great news came. MaryLou was pregnant.

The great news, though, came at a bit of a price. The Bauers would
slide to the bottom of the adoption priority list.

The Bauers went on with their lives, figuring adoption might not be in
their plans.

Then one winter day, the phone rang. MaryLou, just a month away from
giving birth, raced around the farmyard, looking for Bernard. She had
to share the good news and couldn’t wait. They were going to adopt a
son. In just one month, their house of two would be a house a four.
They were going to have a real family.

It turns out, nobody ahead of the Bauers on the adoption priority list
wanted Michael. He was a mixed-race child. Half black. Half white.

It was the early 1970s. The world was a much different place. But for
MaryLou and Bernard Bauer, none of that mattered. They wanted a family.

When he was just 18 days old, little Michael came home to Hastings.

For 36 years of his life, the only mother he knew was MaryLou. Of
course, he knew he was adopted. And he wondered about his birth mom.
Who was she? Where was she?

When he was 18 years old, he checked into her identity just briefly.
But when he hit a wall, he stopped his search and went on with his life.

Fate brought them together in May 2008, and they met for the first
time just two days before Mother’s Day. It was a tearful reunion, but
as Bauer’s birth mom put it, they were all tears of joy.

The past 16 months have been a whirlwind for Bauer. He’s developed a
strong relationship with his birth mom, all the while his love and
admiration for his adoptive parents has grown. They supported him
through all of this, and are happy he has reconnected with his birth
mother.

Now, Bauer is busy reconnecting with the other members of his family.
Just last week, he met his three sisters for the first time. The three
of them and their families came to the Twin Cities from Houston to
spend five days here in Hastings to get to know their brother.

It was the final chapter in a story that reads like a tear-jerking
Lifetime movie.

How he found his birth mother

Bauer and two friends were talking about adoption one night, and Bauer
began to tell his story. He told them what he knew: He was from St.
Paul, and he actually knew his birth mother’s maiden name (Barbara
Schaefer). It had been left on a piece of paperwork that MaryLou Bauer
received with the adoption.

Bauer’s friend, Johana, thought it was quite a coincidence, really.

She knew a Barbara Schaefer who would be about 16 years older than
Bauer. And she was from St. Paul.

A day later, Johana approached Schaefer at a small concert. Johana
laid it all out there, telling a teary-eyed Schaefer everything she
knew about this man.

“I just kept saying, ‘That’s my son. That’s my son,’” Schaefer said.

Phone numbers were exchanged, calls were made and a few days later,
they met at the Applebee’s in Inver Grove Heights.

“I walked in, and she stood up and said, ‘Michael?’” Bauer said. “We
had a few tears in our eyes that night.”

The two talked for three hours.

Schaefer took a cell phone photo of Bauer in the booth at Applebee’s,
and sent it to her daughters in Texas. They finally knew what their
brother looked like.

On adoption

Schaefer was 16 years old when she learned she was pregnant. Adoption
was the answer.

“I had no choice,” she said.

It was a closed adoption. She didn’t know where he went or who got him.

Schaefer eventually married and had a family. She lived in Chicago,
New York, Michigan and Connecticut before coming back to Minnesota.

“My heart was always wanting to find him, to know more about him,”
Schaefer said. “But there’s always that fear: Is he going to be mad at
me? Will he understand?”

Bauer does understand why his mother put him up for adoption, and
harbors no resentment.

Now they are reunited, and all the lingering doubts and questions that
have been in the back of Schaefer’s mind have been put to rest.

“Every February, when his birthday came around, I was sad and
depressed,” Schaefer said. “To know he was happy, it was like the
whole world had been lifted off my shoulders.”

The Bauers

Just two weeks after Michael came home from St. Paul, the Bauers
delivered a son, Joe.

They were far from being done having children. The family adopted 12
more children.

“He was such a pretty little baby,” MaryLou said. “He inspired us to
adopt more. Michael was always a joy to have around.”

Bauer’s sibling total has now reached a whopping 16. There are the 13
brothers and sisters from the Bauer farm and his three sisters from
Schaefer.

MaryLou and Bernard are thrilled at these developments. They were a
big part of the big reunion last week.

“It’s like Michael really is with his family,” Bernard said.

Schaefer is stunned at the way she has been received by the family.

“You have to think about what a wonderful woman (MaryLou) is, to open
her heart to me,” she said. “They’ve accepted me and never looked down
on me.”

His sisters

Schaefer’s three daughters made a trip here last week to meet their
brother for the first time. LaQuita, Jonnette and Jasmine drove up
from Houston to meet Bauer.

“Now I get a brother after all these years,” LaQuita said.

“I think it’s really cool he grew up on a farm,” Jasmine said. “That’s
a totally different lifestyle than us.”

“We’re the city girls, and we have a farmer as a brother!” Jonnette
said.

Bauer and his wife, Amy, have six children of their own. So, getting
the eight members of his immediate family together with his three
sisters, their husbands and their children meant his farmhouse was a
busy place last week.

On the reunion, getting caught up was an easy thing to do.

“It’s just kind of been natural,” Jasmine said.

“We all fit together,” Bauer said.

Ties that Bind

Richard Wright
From Saturday's Globe and Mail, Sunday, May. 24, 2009 12:11AM EDT

On the evening of Feb. 7, earlier this year, I was climbing the stairs
to my third-floor den in a melancholy mood. On the way up, I looked in
on my 10-year-old daughter, reading herself to sleep after another
hard day in Grade 4.

Even in repose, she had a quizzical look, imposed on her by eyebrows
that peak like a roof, just like mine. "Those are my eyebrows," I said
to her.

"No they're not," she laughed. "They're mine."

She had heard this before. I'm sure she knew, in her 10-year-old way,
what I was getting at - the reassuring physical evidence of our
kinship, which is so precious to me. My daughter is attuned to my way
of dressing up serious feelings in jocular garb. (Does that come down
through the genes, like the eyebrows?)

Before I left her door, I declared that she's my favourite daughter.
"Dad," she retorted with feigned impatience. "I'm your only daughter"

It's another joke we like to share. And she was right, of course. She
is my only daughter. But she's not my only child. What was making me
melancholy that night was the memory of another child, born 40 years
ago that day. His mother (who is not my daughter's mom) named him
Graham.

Graham is my only son, but it's hard to say he's my favourite son.
I've never looked in on him at bedtime. We've never shared a joke. In
fact, I saw him just one time, for only a few minutes, behind layers
of glass in the hospital maternity ward. He was one of perhaps 15
newborns arranged in rows in their bassinettes, but even at a glimpse
I recognized him beyond any doubt. His eyebrows were peaked too.

As I watch my daughter grow, I am haunted by my son. For 40 years, he
has been lost to me. Days after he was born, he was gone, hustled off
to the waiting embrace of the Children's Aid Society. At four months
old, he would move on to his adoptive home - as his mother and I had
agonizingly agreed should happen - and out of our lives forever.

Or so we believed. But that is about to change.

On June 1, new legislation comes into effect in Ontario - An Act
Respecting the Disclosure of Information and Records to Adopted
Persons and Birth Parents, also known as the Adoption Information
Disclosure Act or simply Bill 183, which was passed last May.

For many years, the cardinal rule of adoption was secrecy. Once an
adoption was finalized, the law declared in 1927, the records of the
event were closed, severing the relationship between birth parents and
their children.

No information that could lead to either party learning of the
identity or whereabouts of the other was supposed to be released from
the government's files.

In recent decades, however, attitudes have shifted. Open adoption has
become commonplace and next month - following the lead of
Newfoundland, Alberta and B.C. - Ontario will open the closed files
and lift the veil of secrecy.

Adopted adults will be able to apply for copies of adoption orders and
birth registrations. Birth parents will be able to apply for
information from these documents.

After 40 years, we will be able to find Graham and he will be able to
find us.

Graham is one of 250,000 children placed for adoption in Ontario since
the province began to keep records in 1921. His mother and I are
therefore among the half-million birth parents who gave their children
up. The other corner of what is called the "adoption triangle" would
involve roughly the same number of adoptive parents. And surrounding
the triangle are legions of siblings and other relatives.

All of us are facing a future with a new relationship to the past.

Certainly there will be pain in the wake of June 1. There will be
birth parents whose anguish at giving up a child has long since
scarred over and will now find the emotional wounds gaping open again
- Graham's mother, for one. Even though she is a historian, she felt
for a long while that in this one matter the past should remain past.

But now her view has changed. Hoping that revisiting an unhappy
chapter in her life may lead to a happy ending, she is, nervously,
eager to reconnect.

I, too, have wondered how the delicate equilibrium of my present life
will be affected. A child who has been an abstraction to me will
become real. What new complications might this bring? And my daughter?
She will suddenly have a sibling, after years of flying solo. Will she
want this? Do I? I certainly wonder.

There will be other families forced to face secrets they were sure
were safely buried, the ones who fear "the knock on the door." And
there will be some, on all sides of the triangle, who do not wish to
restore broken links or to invite the unpredictable into their lives.

Remember that 40 years ago, when Graham was born, women who were
pregnant "out of wedlock" were shrouded in shame. To protect such
women from a lifelong stigma, and to protect their "illegitimate"
children from odium, "unwanted" pregnancies reached term (abortion
still being illegal) during a convenient absence to some faraway place
- for an Ontario girl, preferably Victoria.

Pregnant girls and women were said to be "away at school" or "visiting
relatives" while they waited for their secret children to be born.
These distant relatives were often relatives of convenience.
Ironically, my own mother was such a (totally unrelated) relative to a
number of girls "in trouble." They came to our household as mother's
helpers who looked after my brothers and me, making lunches and doing
light household chores for someone else's children while they grew
ripe with their own unacknowledgeable offspring.

Although the language now seems quaint, it is still potent for some.
The "knock on the door" lobby, supported by the province's privacy
commissioner, successfully opposed the opening of adoption records in
Ontario for more than a decade.

However, for Marilyn Churley, champion of the "open book" position,
the privacy rights of both birth and adoptive parents are trumped by
the rights of the adopted child when he or she comes of age. "Once you
turn 18," she said, "you're an adult and you have the right to know
your own background, the right to have a relationship with your birth
parents, if that's what you want."

'MOTHER CHURLEY'

As an NDP member of the Ontario Legislature from 1990 to 2005, Ms.
Churley repeatedly introduced bills to open adoption records. Finally,
she helped Liberal MPP Sandra Pupatello draft the original version of
Bill 183, which passed on Nov. 1, 2005.

Two days later, though, the bill was quashed by the Ontario Superior
Court. A group of adoptees and birth parents represented by Canadian
civil-rights lawyer Clayton Ruby, citing potential complications such
as stalking or the reappearance of abusive birth parents, argued that
the law constituted a violation of privacy.

The legislation was amended to include a disclosure veto, allowing
either party to stop the release of identifying information to the
other. Ms. Churley viewed that as a great mistake, believing that
adoptees in particular have a right to know their roots. (Early
warning of inherited diseases, for example, can make a life-and-death
difference.)

Nonetheless, people refer to Ms. Churley as the mother of the amended
bill we have today. But she is also a mother in another sense - as a
young woman, she gave up a child for adoption. As I wrestled with my
own dilemmas and prepared to write this piece, I met her to swap
stories in a coffee shop in the Toronto riding she once represented.

Ms. Churley and I are of the same vintage, both born in 1948. And in
1968, a year before Graham was born, she also had a son "out of
wedlock" (she mimed the quotations in the air with her fingers).

Yet, unlike my partner and I, Ms. Churley struggled alone - the father
of her child denied responsibility and took off. She became one of the
young women of the era who vanished from the public eye for some part
of nine months.

She lodged in a small town with a charitable family and gave birth in
a hospital attended by less-charitable health professionals who, she
says, took moral exception to her "predicament. "

Decades later, she decided to try to find her child. In 1996, she and
William, then 29, were reunited. But the difficulty of that search
made Ms. Churley the fierce champion of freer access to adoption
information she became.

There have always been openings in the shroud surrounding adoption
records, some deliberate and some unintended. In the 1980s, the
Ontario government became the first jurisdiction in North America to
set up machinery to reunite willing birth parents and their adult
children.

When adopted children reached adulthood, they could notify the
Adoption Disclosure Registry of their willingness to be put in contact
with their birth parents. If either or both birth parents also
registered, the parties would be brought together - at least in
theory, as Graham's mother and I were to discover.

Like Ms. Churley, we had decided we wanted to find our child. And so
on Feb. 3, 1987, four days before Graham's 18th birthday, we filled
out an application. But there was a catch - three catches, actually.

Catch 22-A: Graham would apply to the registry only if he knew he was
adopted. Did he?

Catch 22-B: Graham's adoptive parents could withhold consent for him
to receive our contact information.

Catch 22-C: Even if everything was in place, the government admitted
it could take a long time for an overstretched registry staff to link
his name to ours - up to four years. Ms. Churley, who was at one time
the minister in charge of the registry, said that was an
understatement: The wait could be as long as a decade.

So we waited. And we waited. And while we waited we drifted apart,
formed new partnerships, changed addresses and married other partners.
The registry, of course, had no means or motive to track these
vagaries. And in all the bustle, neither of us thought to update our
registry information until very belatedly. If Graham did register, he
may well have met with a series of dead ends.

Our experience was not atypical. The registry reported that in 2004,
of the 57,000 people on its rolls, only 887 achieved a reunion.

Ms. Churley had been more savvy: She had applied to the government for
what was termed "non-identifying information" about her son's adoptive
family, including ages, occupations, interests and miscellaneous other
data. Although it wasn't supposed to, that provided her with enough
clues to find her child.

"It took about a year," she remembered.

Graham's mother and I also received non-identifying information about
our son: His adoptive parents were both teachers living on the
outskirts of the city. His new father was born in 1928 and his mother
in 1931, and they were married in 1953. He enjoyed fishing, she liked
to knit and they both liked reading and gardening.

When their first son was born in 1957, the wife became a homemaker,
but took university courses in Russian, French and English and excelled.

After blood-type complications prevented them from having more natural
children, they adopted a daughter in 1961 and, of course, Graham in
1969. The first summer he was with the family, he went camping and
"seemed to thrive on the trip."

It was distressing to read about this other reality he had entered, as
if he had gone through the looking glass. It made it more real, more
final. At the same time, it was a comfort to believe that he had gone
to a good place where intelligence and strong values prevailed.

While this was not enough information to make finding our son easy, it
may have been enough to make it possible.

But at that juncture, 12 years ago, we blinked.

For me, the sticking point was whether Graham wanted to be found. He
had not apparently entered his name in the registry. But perhaps he
didn't know, couldn't find us, was fearful - the perhapses were
paralyzing.

Ms. Churley sipped her coffee at the café on the Danforth in Toronto
and shared some things experience has taught her: Graham probably does
know he is adopted, she says. By the 1970s, most parents were telling
the truth to their adopted children - and if they did not, the
neighbourhood grapevine would eventually deliver the news.

If he failed to enter the registry, however, it should be no surprise,
she said. The fear of a second rejection is frequently too
discouraging for all adopted children.

Male adoptees particularly often will not take the initiative to seek
out their birth parents. "Frequently when they do, it's their wives or
girlfriends pushing them."

Ms. Churley's final advice was this: "In your situation, I would do
everything I could to let him know that you want to know if he's okay.
That has to be your goal."

Questions and answers

That is my goal now. I've dealt with my reservations. I've spoken to
my daughter, who says it's "cool" to have a brother. Time is getting
short and there is much to catch up on.

I have often imagined our meeting. I have tried to anticipate the
questions he will ask and the answers I will give. Absurdly, perhaps,
I have superimposed my 10-year-old' s boundless curiosity on the now-40-
year-old Graham; on the other hand, maybe it's a family trait.

I can tell him about his roots - his ancestors from Poland and the
Scottish Highlands, and the English inventor who first thought of
perforated postage stamps. I can tell him about his great-great-
grandmother, the famous Impressionist painter, and his infamous great-
uncle who absconded with a crate of her better paintings and ran away
to Belize. I wonder if he'll identify. I wonder if he's an artist too.
Or a scallywag.

I can tell him about his great-grandmother, the celebrated Toronto
bookseller, and his grandmother, the Varsity Sports Hall of Famer.
Perhaps he's a reader, encouraged by those adoptive parents who also
liked to read. Maybe he's a sport.

I can tell him that his mother is a formidable intellect and a great
beauty - if he wants, he can see for himself. I can tell him that he
was conceived in love by parents who remain devoted friends; true to
our natures, we bucked convention, scandalized our community and lived
together until he was born. (Maybe that's his nature too.) I can show
him that he comes by his angular eyebrows honestly.

He may have more penetrating questions, for which I have no ready
answers. The most challenging one would be about regret.

Expectant couples know how long nine months can seem as they wait for
the birth of their child. That is how I feel as I wait for my adult
child to be reborn into my life. Soon after June 1 - very soon, I hope
- Mother Churley's bill will present Graham's mother and me with a
bundle of joy, maybe; certainly one of challenge, complexity and high
emotion.

Forty years of thwarted curiosity, arrested yearning and suppressed
love will be over. We will be able to look into the face of another
human being, and recognize ourselves.

Richard Wright is a Toronto-based writer.