I'm a Disabled Adoptee: Here's Why That Matters

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My adoption day is a complete mystery.  The only day I have connected to my adoption is the day I found out.

October 11th.

I have known I was adopted since I was eleven years old.

I remember that night vividly.    The finding out when I never knew there was anything to find out.  

***

Here's what I know:

There is a blank spot on my original birth certificate.  I was adopted around the age of three.  My parents were married in October of that year.  Chances are, we were also adopted around that time.  I remember snatches of the adoption, though I had no context for what it was.  (A man in a brown room, sitting behind a giant brown desk, saying my first name and my parents' new last name.)  

I know that by age four, I was obsessed with the fact that my sister, my new baby brother and I all shared a last name.  I spelled it proudly.  

I know that the courthouse was a landmark in my hometown that we shouted out with the same fondness as "the meat market!"  (Not because we loved meat, or court, but because it let us know we were back home.  Back near our grandparents and great grandparents.)

***

I know the comments have stayed with me:

"I would have named you Tara and Sara."

"I would have rather gotten fishing gear..."

"You take your daughters and I'll take my sons!"

"I was young and stupid and I made a mistake."

"[Our brother's] adopted!"

"You know, [random unknown relative] is also adopted..."

"So, do you call your dad, Dad?"

"They're not really my sisters.  They're my step-sisters.  Mom and Dad explained it all to me."

***

But it was never explained to me.  To us.

We were left to fill in the blanks ourselves.

"He didn't want kids" easily translated to "He didn't want us."

"I can't afford to keep all of you myself," translated to, "Be quiet, even if things aren't okay.  If you're adopted, that's a favor so great that it entitles the adoptive parent to treat the child however they want."  (I spent the next nine years of my life - until I was 20 - believing this was true.)

So, I was left with the certainty that I (specifically) was that mistake.  I knew when we were born, no one was expecting twins.  I was second-born.  I was unexpected.  I didn't even have a name chosen for me until days later.  

At eleven years old, I was left with only a sense of "This makes sense."

The ableism I experienced daily suddenly had a reason.  Well, why would someone love me or want me if I didn't even belong to them?  My parents married because they loved each other...we came with that.  We were a package deal.  An obligation that only a saint would take on.  Two disabled toddlers.

***

Adoption is trauma, because we don't choose it.

Because children cannot consent to what adults in our world decide.

[Tonia and Tara, 3 years old, pictured in October, around the time of our adoption.  My smile is stiff.  Tara's is uncomfortable.]

My feelings are complicated.  My adoption shrouded in secrets and shame.  I still have more questions than answers.  I'll always have questions.  There are pieces of my history I'm resigned to just never knowing.

Because I find myself grateful, regardless.  Grateful to know and love my brothers and cousins.  Grateful to have had the basics I had.  But that gratefulness stems from a gut-level fear.

A knowing just where we could be, had this one person not come along and fallen in love with our biological parent.

It's a lot to carry.

There's a lot I'm not saying.

But I'm finally saying this much.

And it's about time.

***

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