Post the first

Well, it's post number one, and I don't know where to begin. I decided to begin documenting this journey smack dab in the middle. It is hard to figure out how to tell this story, but it is something I have to put into a permanent forum. I tried writing it out the old fashioned way, but my mind moves faster than my hands can write. I decided to start this blog because the nature of the whole thing seems very fluid and easily rearranged, in ways that my brain is not. I have not spent alot of time with blogs, so I have no idea what I'm doing.

I think I'll begin in the middle --

Yesterday, I sat in a room full of people I am blood related to. That is the second time in my life that this has happened. I will get to the back story eventually, so stay with me. Yesterday was the culmination of a very long journey. A journey that has been confusing, interesting, terrifying, and wonderful all at the same time. My only regret is that I didn't start writing things down sooner. I was welcomed with open arms by a family who was very estranged from Barb, my biological mother. Several times people had tears in their eyes, telling me that I represented the good part of their sister that gets to live on. Apparently, I was a catalyst for the first ever family reunion this bunch has ever had.

Now, because I am an extremely linear sequential type of person (which apparently runs in the family) I must back up and start at the beginning.

I was born in Columbia Mo on Aug 25 1983. For a very long time, that is pretty much all I knew. I had a single piece of type-written paper that was supposed to fill in some gaps. It said that my birth mother was 28, a nurse, and had 4 brothers. There were some other details, like height and weight, and the fact that she liked camping, but it might as well not have been there at all. For the next 3 weeks, I lived with the nuns at a foster home run by Catholic Charities of KC-St Joseph. Then, I got to go home.

Ray and Glenda got married in 1969 in a very small town in Mo. They were fresh out of high school, had no money, but they loved each other and knew how to work. Because of the lack of financial security, they waited longer than most of their friends to start having children. They began hoping for pregnancy in the late 1970s. Months came and went and nothing happened. After a few months of fertility treatments they couldn't afford, they made the decision to put in for adoption.

Glenda was born to be a mother. She is the most self sacrificing and giving person on the planet. Whether that is why she wanted a set of twins or not, I'm not sure, but that's what she wanted, and so that's what they told Catholic Charities when they filed papers to become parents. They signed up for twins (to name Dallas and Houston -- I know, child abuse) and they waited.

1983 rolled around and the twins they were slated to get were about to be born. It was only a matter of time. However, at the last minute the mother of the twins decided that the children needed to go to a Catholic family -- Ray and Glenda were baptist, so no twins. But Catholic Charities called to explain and mentioned that although there were no other sets of twins available, there was a little girl about to be born who was not spoken for. They said that was fine, and went back to waiting.

On August 25, 1983 Ray walked in to the MFA, where he was a manager, and told Mildred, the secretary, that his baby girl was born that day. He hadn't gotten a call, but the night before he'd had a dream. Mildred, probably thinking he was full of it, supposedly ignored him and kept on working. Later that day, someone from Catholic Charities called. Mildren answered the phone. A few hours later there were cigars out and a banner across the MFA: It's a Girl!

Mom and Dad came to visit me very soon after I was born. I have seen the home movies they took that day and if you didn't know any better, you wouldn't know that she hadn't given birth to me. We were instantly a family. I didn't get to go home with them that day, the legal proceedings weren't complete yet, but I became their daughter that day. Mom describes the time period when they were waiting for all the legal papers to be completed as the most devastatingly nerve wracking period she's ever experienced. The birth mother gets a grace period of a few weeks (at least at that time) where she could change her mind and get her baby back. I can only imagine what that must have been like for mom and dad. But a few weeks went by, and soon I was completely officially theirs and I went from Infant Girl #so-and-so to Dallas Ray (smart enough to keep last names off the internet)

And thus began one of the best childhoods that's ever existed. There was no fighting, never any screaming or harsh words. There was no critical eye or judgmental tone at my house. I was loved, spoiled, cared for, doted upon, and surrounded by loving family and friends, and rarely wanted for anything. It was exactly what adoption was designed to do - take a baby out of a bad situation with a mother that was not able to provide, and place that baby with a family who wanted a child more than anything on the Earth. And that's exactly what happened.