By AMY SHANKLAND
Perfectly Imperfect
Thanks to Laura with St. Joseph County, I learned that both of my biological parents were 20 years old and in good physical health when I was born. At the time of my adoption proceedings, my birth mother was a sophomore at St. Mary’s College in South Bend. She was 5’5″, weighed 120 pounds, and had dark blonde hair, green eyes, and a fair complexion. She wore contact lenses and was born in Cleveland, Ohio. She was Scottish, Irish, German, and English.
My father was apparently not named at first. He was a junior at Notre Dame with a 145 IQ. He was a native of Indianapolis, of German descent, 5’11” tall, 155 pounds, with a slight build and fair complexion. He had dark brown hair and blue eyes.
I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. When I was placed with my mother and father at the beginning of September that year, I was 27 inches long and weighed 16 pounds.
I thanked Laura profusely and hung up the phone. I was still shaking with excitement. As far as my appearance, I fall exactly in the middle of both of my birth parents. I am 5’8″, 140 pounds, and my hair is light brown, with some gray streaks now, or “highlights” as I like to call them. I definitely have their complexion and my birth father’s blue eyes. And I was blown away to read about his IQ! While I did pretty well in school, I’ve never considered myself to be extraordinarily smart. From what I could tell, my birth parents were both intelligent people.
And to learn that they both went to college just a half hour away from where I grew up was incredible. I hoped that they had graduated and gone on to live good lives. I thought about the sacrifices they both must have made. Having a child out of wedlock in the early 70s was a bigger deal than it is today, and I imagine potentially shameful, especially if they both had Catholic families.
I thought about the other decision they could have made, and a lump formed in my throat. My birth parents could have chosen to have had an abortion and spared themselves a lot of pain. Instead, they made a brave choice to keep me and give me up for adoption in order to give me a better life. Suddenly they became very real in my mind and my heart. I hoped that my birth mother at least had been able to finish her sophomore year before her pregnancy was obvious, since she gave birth to me in the summer.
So, I had learned where I got my physical features. I found out that I am mostly German, which was thrilling to finally know. And I knew that both parents had at least been healthy at the time of my birth. I wish I could have obtained more information about each of their medical history, but I had to be content with what I had found at the moment. I told my husband and some close friends what I had learned, and they were thrilled for me.
After some thought, I decided to share what I learned with my mother. I stressed to her how important it was to try to get some medical history for me and my sons.
“I’m not going to find out any identifying information, Mom,” I said on the phone one day. “I just really wanted to learn about my background and see if there are any medical issues to be concerned about.” After I shared the bits and pieces of information, I hoped to hear some sort of excitement from her. Instead Mom’s voice sounded high and shaky.
“This doesn’t really change anything, you know,” she said. “We’re still your family.” I had to hold back a sigh.
“Of course, Mom,” I replied. “This is just something I had to do. I’ve never known my real history before, and of course I want the best for my boys.” She went on to quickly change the subject, and I realized that her feelings on the topic were still the same after all those years. I had secretly hoped she would now encourage me to find out more information.
But I had gone through enough emotionally and mentally, and was content – at the time – to have obtained the first few missing pieces of the puzzle that was my background. An interesting conversation three years later, however, changed all of that quickly.