The Daughter Whom Would Never Be
This story is to help both birth parents and adult adoptees to remember whom they are to each other.
I was 23, when I found out I was pregnant. I had only been divorced from my first husband only a year, when I found out I was pregnant with my daughter, Rebecca, in Virginia.
I tried to get help from Virginia, but I could not get on medicaid to pay for my prenatal care, so I went down south to Alabama, where I could obtain a medicaid card to pay for.
Little did I know, that my own family would turn against me at the time and be little or no help to me.
My late oldest sister and her good for nothing husband, whom is also dead now, were living off my late dad.
He had recently married at that time after being a widower for two years, and gave the house he bought to my late oldest sister and my brother-in-law, and niece and nephew. He moved into my stepmother's home on the north side of Huntsville, Alabama with my youngest brother, now 35 years old.
He said, I was welcome to live in the house because he was making the payments on the house and all. However,
that was not the case. Living in that house caused me much stress and my late sister, whom already had two abortions, was pressuring me into having one. See, she was a Christian like I was, and not pro-life but pro-abortion. She had no consciences what so ever.
So, I turned to the only person I could at this time, a social worker name Irene Smith, little did I know, that woman was vindictive and angry because she could not have her own children. She was after every unwed mother, black, white ,or otherwise, to have their children removed from their care.
She thought she was doing society a favor.
Well, CPS was out to run my life. I had primarily asked them to help me find other housing so I could go through my pregnancy in peace and quiet. Well, I ended up going to a Salvation Army Home for Unwed Mothers, because it was the only place I could go to achieve this peace.
I was the oldest out of all those girls, most were pregnant teenagers.
Some were about my age, but were single, as I was divorced.
I only stayed there six weeks before I gave birth to my daughter on December 17, 1978 and on December 21, 1978, that same social worker came to pick me up and take me back into the same envirnoment I had left, because she was not able to find me affordable housing.
I returned to my late dad's house, where my late sister, brother-in-law, and two children lived, only to go through a similar experience. Then the whammy came, that social worker had obtained a court order to remove my daughter from my care because my late sister lied and stated I had nelgected her. This was my sister's way of getting me out of that house. She felt I was an intruder. The social worker had already told her the only way they could remove my daughter from my care if someone reported I had done something wrong to her.
Well, I went to court, and the court had placed almost impossible conditions on me to have my daughter returned to me like: I go through a parenting class, I have a homemaker come and I go through mental health counselling.
At that time, I was planning on moving to Chicago, to be remarried to a boyfriend, so I chose to wait to get my daughter back, and I allowed her to be placed into foster care.
Well as the case may be, I did not get married to the boyfriend. I found out he really resented me having my daughter, because he was not the father of my child. So, we broke up and I moved into the city.
I was fortunate to get into the JPTA and get job training, and it paid you durning your training so I could live.
I was more fortunate to be blessed by a supportive case worker here in Illinois name Herb Martin. He felt I could take care of my child so did my therapists. But when the time came that Alabama was suppose to return my daughter to me, complications and unreasonable demands where placed upon me and I had to go see a good attorney.
That attorney was a miracle worker.
Because what Illinois could not do, he managed to do. He managed to get my daughter released from Alabama and have her bought up to me in Chicago, in 1979. She was about 18 months old, but was not walking. All the foster parents did was complain that she would not eat for them and walk for them.
Not sooner than I got her up here, did she begin to walk.
My daughter's father, found us up here in September of 79, and in November of 79, we went to Virginia.
It was perhaps the stupidest mistake I ever did. Because I went through some the same things Alabama put me through and my daughter's father and I thought if we married, it would solve the problem. But it did not. The social workers in Va, were even more demanding than the one in Alabama.
At this time, I became very depressed and tried to commit suicide.
Well, my attempt failed and my husband took me to the hospital where I almost did not make it. I was put in intensive care for 3 days, and when I came out of it the very stupid question came out as to why I tried it. I did not answer the question.
The social workers took my husband to court and gave him temporarily custody of our daughter until which time I was able to be given it back.
But, also, we were living with his parental grandmother, an impossible woman. All she did was gripe and complain. For a short spell we did live by ourselves in a town houseuntil he got desperately sick and could not work.
In the course of all this, we had to move back in with this impossible woman which lead me to try in taking my life,
and it failed.
The courts said we could not move back in with his grandmother, because I tried to kill her, and that he would have to provide us with an apartment before our daughter was returned to us.
He would have to go through alcoholic counselling, because like his dad, he was an alcoholic.
In 1982, I returned to Alabama, to live with my late dad and stepmother, and little brother. I went through Alabama Vocational Services and they put me through Huntsville Rehab Center.
I also was in Mental health counselling. But atlas, after many court hearings, the state of Va through another whammy on my husband and I, whom were now separated. They were going to terminate our parental rights and place our child up for adoption.
Well, my late dad and step mother drove me up to the court hearing and lo and below, my little sister, was summons to court to testify against both my husband and me.
Here we have an atypical family, when rather than family supporting one another, family turns against one another. See, my sister had the good fortunate of marrying into money. I did not. She had the good fortunate of not being born with developmental disabilities and mental ones, as I did.
Not to mention Learning disabilities.
She had none of these strikes against her as I did, and they used them against me besides the fact, my husband and I could not give our child the material needs she needed.
So, the DA and our daughter's Guardian ad Litem, decided the best thing was to have our parental rights terminated and our daughter placed up for possible adoption. Well, shortly thereafter, or prior to us even going to court, I was told that these people whom adopted my daughter had already had their eye on her, wanted to know what could be done to expedite the matter.
With no family to support either of us, my husband or myself, it gave the court the ammo it needed to do so.
My daughter was placed in her perspective home in February 1984, and
finally adopted six months later.
I received a short letter from the social workers in Va giving me a brief description of the people and all.
They were given more than a description about her father and I, all lies and unfair accustations, since it was only their side being told.Not ours.
Many years went by, until 1995, when my daughter turned 16 and started asking questions about where I was and she wanted to know about me and write me. Her adoptive mother was a very insecure person, but she finally gave in and took my daughter to Va to meet her aunt, my sister. My daughter wanted to know all about me and why I gave her up. Well, my sister told her it was voluntary but it was not. It was infact, involuntary and forced upon us.
We corresponded for many years, but I saw the mental deficiencies my daughter had by the kind of letter writing she wrote me. Always void answering my questions and all. Her letters were always repetitious and general.
Many times I tried to call off the relationship, because I saw it harmful and leading to no where. Perhaps a unsuccessful mother and daughter reunion, where my daughter was lost to me forever. I was right, because we finally meet in September of 2000, and my boyfriend and I travelled to Iowa from Chicago to meet with my daughter.
At first I thought there was hope, but then I came to realize that she was no longer my daughter but the daughter of her adoptive parents, and when they decided to write her off in 2000, she turned to me only to use me.
She declined any help I wanted to give her to win her independence from the adoptive parents and so I finally calle off the whole relationship, because I knew it would not work out between us.
I lost the daughter I gave birth to, only because of a gross miscarriage of justice and a lack of support from my family.
I hope when all whom read this, will not let it happen to anyone in your family and that you will support them in the efforts to raise their children and keep them in their own families unless there is simply no other recourse available to you.
