230 – The Goodness Far Outweighs the Sadness

COLD CUT INTRO

It probably really would have broken me.

You will be stunned by the outcome of Doris's trip to her birth mother's home and empowered by how she focuses on the positivity of her experience. This is Doris his journey.

Opening

Doris's birth mother. Doris was brought home at three days old. She said her birth month. She said her birth announcement bread. She said her birth announcement read. I wasn't expected. I was selected. Dora said those words framed her early adoptive experiences. As many people said she was lucky to be adopted because her birth parents chose her.

I didn't feel like I needed to be a people pleaser.

She had nine miscarriages and two stillbirths.

anyone in my family.

my dad being from Finland probably carried some of those same genetics.

So I kind of blended more with his family. Although most of them are in the old country than I did, but my mom's family tallest person in the whole family, men included, there were like two men taller than me, everybody was under five, seven. I was, I say that I'm the designated family reacher because on holidays, I was the only one that could reach that the serving bowls on the top shelf in the kitchen.

And I would imagine it probably was fairly re traumatizing for her after nine miscarriages and two stillbirths. That's 11 kids for you to be the adoptee in front of her. I can't imagine that there was any way for her to ever get over that.

she was diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, I think as a performer.

So, that all worked great. And in our house, she was the star. And I think that's the other thing that was hard for her was she had a baby. And when, when you get a child, when you bring a child home, everybody wants to see the child. Nobody's interested in seeing you for a while. They want to hold the baby and play with the baby.

I'm dying from nothing that I've been diagnosed with, but I can't do anything anymore.

And is that roughly correct?

My, my natural birth mother's background, she would insist she knew nothing about her.

And if I asked, she wanted to know what she had done wrong, that I would turn on her like this. And why would I possibly want to know about that person? Because she was my mom and wasn't I happy? And didn't I realize that? again, she could have picked somebody else and It was sad because I don't blame her for how she was because she couldn't help it.

Then this is your adoptive father. He, I gather from you has. picked up on the fact that the wife he has chosen for life suffers with mental illness. Now the two of them have adopted a child and it's probably it sounds like very clear to him that she's not necessarily your number one fan. So how was your relationship with him?

And his stepmother subsequently had two more kids with my grandpa. And those were her children. And my dad was kind of really cast aside.

I think my father knew that my mom wasn't the best mom, but he had no real model to go by. And you know, he worked really hard. well, I am not going to say he worked a long day.

He lived a long day. He would usually be out of the house by 5 a. m. and he wouldn't be back till five 30 or six every night. And then he'd go to bed at eight. religiously, I think primarily to not spend too much time with my mom And then every summer he would go to Alaska for three months to fish for bumblebee seafoods and do salmon fishing up there.

I mean, your kid, you had a lot of kids because you needed the work out of them on your farms. And if you didn't work, you didn't eat. So

I've heard stories. There was a woman on the podcast a while ago, Tessita, and she said that when she was growing up, she had never seen a white person before.

That's a parallel experience to what your adoptive father had never having seen anyone of color and then being confronted by somebody who was in an environment when he first lands in this country. I mean, it's just astonishing that that's the experience of folks.

That are woven into your day to day life.

but I knew deep down that that wasn't my heritage.

With their new life.

So we have no heritage. We literally

Doris told me when she was a teen, she started being tempted by television shows like Phil Donahue and Oprah, which were occasionally broadcasting scenarios of adoption reunion. Doris all stories of people who had found their birth mother or others of siblings who were working right next to each other at the same company, then realized they were torn apart at birth.

Father's name.

because like I said, it was not a common last name. And so I found him. Or who, you know, at least who I kind of thought I was, he was, and I found the names of his two daughters, my sisters.

And I looked at my sister Kim on Facebook and boy, if she didn't look a lot like me. Actually, even there was one picture of her wearing a t shirt and a coat that I also owned that we both bought at old Navy.

And they're like, Oh, heck yeah, definitely. So I was finally able to contact them and my birth mother's maiden name was Delwo, which is a name I had never heard in my whole life, but is amazingly common in Minnesota.

I found my actual birth mother and her pictures when she was in high school, she could be my twin.

Two half sisters a whole bunch of ants. My dad came from a family of my birth dad, I think of seven, eight, nine, like a big family, lots of kids. And it's funny because my son looks a lot like one of my aunts. If my son had a wig on, it's the funniest thing. My aunt, my aunt looked like my son in drag is exactly how it was.

And I asked Diane, you know, did you guys know she was pregnant? And she said, Oh yeah, we all knew. my birth mom and my dad weren't pregnant. a really super devoted couple, but they ran around in a gang of like maybe five or six couples. And I think that they were the odd ones.

They weren't paired off. So they ended up just kind of going together because they were the last couple. So,

And I know my sister's, my, my birth dad died of pancreatic cancer and he knew he was dying. And I think there was, A lot of shock and some resentment or sadness amongst my sisters that their dad hadn't shared with them that they had another sibling somewhere in the world. And I know it, It hurt my one sister probably a lot more than the other because she and her dad were very close.

these women were shamed. I mean, it was an embarrassment to have to leave your community and go live in hiding at an unwed mother's home or an aunt's home. And, you know, my, my birth mom walked in her graduation. And she was four months pregnant and then immediately flew to San Francisco and then came back the following, I think she came back the January after I was born, you know, without a baby.

But I would have loved to have met him at least once. And unfortunately I didn't get the chance to do that.

And Doris was able to simply ask the city about where her birth mother lived. Based on the information her family had provided. Dora said, made up her mind that she did not want her birth mother to reject her outreach over the phone or through a letter. So she made the decision. She was going to drive to Prescott To knock on the door of the home.

Her birth mother was renting. I asked Doris about the drive out to try to find this woman who probably didn't want to meet her. She said that while her son and husband made the trip fun. Doris oscillated between feelings of.

Oh, I'm so excited to. Oh my gosh, what am I doing? We should go home. And my husband would be like, no, we came this far. We got to go find her. You got to do this. And I was like, Oh, I don't know.

You know, obviously it was the wrong house. And then we went to her house, we found it, and I was so excited and I went up to the door and I was literally shaking. And I had told my husband and son. Wait in the car because I don't want her to see this big group of people and maybe be intimidated or wonder why we're there.

So I'm knocking on the door and I'm nosy. I'm looking inside. Oh, this is nice. This is pretty. And I remember noticing really distinctly things. There was a cup of coffee on the kitchen counter. There was a novel turned upside down, but open like you do when you're reading a book and you put it down.

was a pack of cigarettes on the counter, which I was surprised at because I was a long time, very heavy smoker But I was like, Oh gosh, she smokes. That's so weird because nobody in my family smoked ever. And yet I've often said that I felt like I came out of the womb.

Wanting a cigarette.

And I do believe I had written to her son on Facebook Messenger. I think I might be related to your mom. I think I left it really general if I remember correctly at first, because I wasn't sure she was my birth mom.

And it was his phrasing was very interesting. And I remember thinking. Has he actually asked his mother, our mother, or is he answering just on behalf of what he thinks she wants? so when we got back to the hotel the day that we had knocked on her door, I had a Facebook message from him out of the blue saying, it's my understanding that you're in Prescott with the plan of meeting with my mother.

So no, you can't tell me what to do because that's mine. And. I would like to hear from your mother. If she does not want to see me, I want to hear her say it and I won't push it, but I'm not harassing anybody. And if you want to call the sheriff, go ahead because I haven't done anything wrong. so we were walking to dinner and we were leaving Prescott the next day.

So I said to my husband, you know, I think I should try to call her because We're leaving and maybe she's got a busy schedule. You know, I don't want to just keep going and knocking and missing her. Called and left a message. She didn't answer. We go to dinner. We leave dinner. We're walking back to our hotel and I get a call from her number.

And first I thought that he was lying. I thought it was maybe somebody my brother got to pretend to be a sheriff's deputy to dissuade me from making contact.

And so her friends called for a welfare check and the sheriffs went out there and found her pretty much within a couple of hours. After I had been knocking on her door. And so they asked me some questions and I said, well, she has a son. This is his name. This is the state he lives in, and this is where he works.

I don't know anything else about him. I don't have his address or his phone number, but I'm sure he's in her phone. And this is her half sister and her half sister's number. And she may know how to contact him. I don't. And so he said, thank you. I kind of explained why I was there and what I was doing and everything.

You

And meanwhile, I mean, I'm borderline hysterical. I have so much stuff going through my head. And I remember at one point, because I do tend to have kind of a sarcastic sense of humor, especially when things go wrong. I remember saying to the poor deputy, you know, if she didn't want to meet me, all she had to say, all she had to do was say, so she didn't have to die.

I'm trying to, like, gather myself just to get the strength to have my legs hold me up to get back to the hotel, because obviously, this is not the ending that anybody anticipated, And we finally get up and we're walking back and my phone rings again. And this time it's actually from the deputy, you know, on his phone.

And he said, can I ask where you are? And I said, or walking back to the Hacienda, which was our hotel. And he said I need you to go there and stay there until I get there. And I said, okay. And I said, you realize I've never met her. I can't like. really probably technically identify her because I've, I've only seen pictures and I'm not a thousand percent sure she's my birth mom.

And certainly he, I don't think that he did it out of spite. I think he was like, wait, this lady went to my mom's house and now she's saying she didn't get to meet her, but my mom is inside dead.

And so I sat there drinking going

And since then I've come to the conclusion that it ended the way it did. So that I wouldn't have to hear her reject me. that's how I've written the story in my head. I have, we'll never know if that's true or not, but I think if I had to stand there and have her look at me and say, go away, I don't want to have anything to do with you.

You've known her your whole life, and I'm basically mourning a dream, and you're mourning your whole reality, and I'm so sorry, and he replied and said, Can you send me your address? I have something for you. And then after that he went right back to, I don't want to know you. I don't want to see you. Don't come here.

I know I wouldn't probably be the compassionate empathetic person that I am had I not been raised by a mentally ill woman who was heavily addicted to prescription drugs that her doctors had fed her her whole entire life. I have huge compassion for people who are addicted. I volunteer heavily at our local federally qualified health center and Also, I'm very active in donating to it's called the upper room and it's where they serve free meals in our community.

psychological issues that we have to deal with, it has really, made me have just an enormous amount of compassion for people who I encounter who do seem to have heavy addiction issues. Because the first thing, I always say to myself is, gosh, what must have happened to them to get them to this place?

I won't ever know why I didn't get to meet my birth dad. All I can do. Is be happy with the gains I do have. I have two lovely, wonderful sisters. I have an aunt who is just so kind to me and loves me absolutely with no limits, you know, and these are people who have very graciously allowed me into their lives, even though I'm basically a stranger.

And the only thing I walk away from it is the goodness far outweighs the sadness.

Really? It would have been worse because as adoptees, at least back in the day, we weren't told, Oh, your birth mom was a single mom and basically was forced by, society's rules to give you away. I was told she didn't want me, And now knowing that she has a son that she loved very dearly that she In schools and preschools, pretty much her whole life.

She probably didn't want me.

guess at it. It's crazy.

Tell me about you, something else that was, stood out to me was you said that you sounded like had a long grieving process. This is days, weeks, months.

It sounded like for you, tell me what that period was like and how you got to what I'll loosely call the other side. well,

That's maybe a little gentler and not as sad um,

And it's one of the things I've made sure to let my brother know because he has a daughter and this genetic disorder is harder on women than it is on men because women tend to take hormones, which also impact our clotting ability. so I have made sure he understands that he ought to have his daughter tested, whether he does or not.

but I think first of all, in a lot of ways, I'm kind of a fatalist. I almost always expect the worst.

So,

it had gone on for so long, this search I think more of what I mourned was the fact that all the little fairy tale Endings I had imagined literally my whole life weren't going to come true.

And then the other thing that I think I mourned was my adopted mother's. inability to at least look at me once and say, you know what, I really am glad you were part of my life.

Doris has even been told. She sounds just like her birth mother when she talks and they share mannerisms to. Our biological parents are undeniably genetically imprinted on us in myriad ways. Dora said there was no way she could have searched for her birth parents Before her adoptive mother's passing as the woman would have made things very bad for Doris.

So

that's when I started really looking and my mom passed. That was a

There's no way

We don't want you to do it. It'll feel like a betrayal. You should have forgotten about those people. Look at all that I've done for you. You know, there's all kinds of gaslighting sort of guilt tripping scenarios out there that prevent adoptees from feeling like they can or want to search. And just, you've said that she's been deceased for a while, but just the sitting here thinking about it now, even though she's well gone, you still get the physical reaction of what it would have been like to bring it up.

Do you know anything about her? my adoptive mom was like, no, I don't. And we were promised. That you would never know. So just stop asking.

it's hard. When you make a choice of my feelings are more important than your feelings.

That's, it's totally unfair.

And then that just starts, everything starts rolling around in your brain. And I really want to know, but I don't want to screw up their life. And what if. You know, what if this unleashes some massive falling rock of information that just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger? And it's interesting because 1 of the good things finding everybody did.

Was a fellow on 23 and me reached out to me and it turns out on my mom, my birth mom's side of the family, one of my great aunts gave him up for adoption and he'd always wanted a brother and his. Brother who was raised as an only child with this aunt always wanted a brother and they found each other because I was registered on 23 and me.

So that makes it, even though I didn't get the tidy little dream answer that I wanted, I'm so happy for them and that they got what they wanted and that they get along and they enjoy each other. And cause that's the other thing. What if you find these people and they're horrible?

Yeah. Or

Yeah. It's, yeah, it's kind of, I could have been living

So it is, it's a, it's a sort of six, one half dozen of the, yeah.

So I'm sorry for that, but I appreciate you being here with me. This is us. This was a really, really fascinating. I gotta say, and what I loved is what you started with. You said basically what you expressed to me was this has been a net positive. And I think that that is super important

My reason for this is, I've been able to share my life with people like you that I never would have met probably otherwise. I got to share my story in a documentary. I got to meet other people who participated in that documentary that I never would have met. So, I mean, there's just so many other.

wonderful things that have sprung out of the fact I couldn't find my birth mom.

Hey, it's me. Doors grew up feeling out of place in her adoptive family and was reminded that she was adopted As she was under appreciated for who she is by her adoptive mother. Doris chose to try to meet her birth mother face to face, to prevent the woman from rejecting her via the protection of corresponding through remote means. But Doris lived the experience of what so many adopted people fear that when she found her birth mother, it would be too late. Uh, Doris is the most stark example I have ever heard of that fear becoming reality as she knocked on the woman's door, only hours after she had died. Dora said she has overcome some of the wounds from her tragic loss with the passage of time.

When Doris is asked about When to search. She always urges people that if they truly feel the need to meet their birth, parents do not put it off because you don't know what can happen tomorrow. However, if you choose to wait and unfortunately the person you're looking for leaves us prior to reunion. Try not to beat yourself up because Hopefully you made the decision not to search.

That was right for you and your family, as it was for Doris to avoid the drama of her adoptive mother's anger and tears.

It is a moving account of adoptee experiences, including that of the film's director and featured adoptee, autumn Sansom. You can find more information about the movie@reckoningwiththeprimalwound.com. I'm Damon Davis. And to hope you found something endorsers journey that inspired you. Validate your feelings about wanting to search or motivates you to have the strength along your journey to learn. Who am I really.

That was great. Well done.

There's definitely a lot of folks who have said that they ultimately realized that they sabotage relationships because that's what's in the back of their mind, that they expect that people are going to ditch them. So let me get out of here first. Let me push them away before they have a chance to reject me.

I've heard that multiple times.

when my friends, my close friends, when I mentioned it and I'm like, I know you're never going to ditch out on me, but if you don't return my call or if you don't return my text. Within an hour, I'm sitting here stewing over. Is she mad at me?