“I met my adoptive dad while my bio dad and mom were still together. He was my uncle’s best friend. At 18, I made a board that asked, ‘Will you adopt me?’ He hugged me and cried. ‘Let’s get the paperwork started,’ he said without hesitation.”
‘Why do my kids not want to talk to me?’ My mom replied, ‘You don’t have anything to do with them, why would they?’ 18-year-old adopted by uncle’s best friend, the ‘most selfless’ man she knows
‘Look at that beautiful little blonde baby you made! Why would you want to adopt a biracial child?!’ My parents were appalled.’
“We could not have looked more different from one another. One day, we were walking home from school when several boys rode their bikes up to us and started throwing rocks. ‘GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM!’ We were terrified.”
‘He finished his email with one question. ‘Do you want to meet?’ I was taken aback. I went 17 years knowing absolutely NOTHING about him. ‘Yes,’ I replied. I had a gut-wrenching feeling.’
“When I was in high school, I started getting sick. I needed my full health history. My parents called my birth mom. ‘Can you get in contact with Hannah’s birth father? We need this information.’ I remember sitting in the kitchen watching my adoptive dad call my birth dad. HOLY CRAP!”
‘We thought we had reached an agreement. My daughter would live with her dad. But I had no idea how hard they would make it. It was insane.’
“I felt strongly prompted to let her live with her dad. At first I ignored it. That was the worst thing I could ever imagine, and I would NEVER let it happen. Now she’s gone.”
‘My birthmother went into labor. Her secret would soon be out. Lying on the floor, she called her sister in pain. ‘What’s wrong?,’ she frantically asked. ‘My baby is coming. I need the hospital.’
“My birthmother graduated 5 months pregnant, lived at home with her parents and even shared a room with her older sister. But still, no one knew about about me. She hid her growing bump. Her parents were on a trip when the drama began. ‘I can’t keep her. She’s not mine.’ she told the nurse.”
‘It finally happened. I was introduced as her ‘new Grandma.’ My heart was so full. This is what I’d been missing for so long.’
“I thought, ‘Well, what the heck.’ A lovely young lady messaged me. Turns out, her girls needed a grandma in their lives just as much as I needed grandbabies to love. She has struggles she is unable to disclose to her own mom, so I have become her confidant. All I ever wanted to be is a good mom, and an even better Grandma.”
‘I knew our marriage was over. He began feeling the weight of not being true to himself as a gay man. We were now entering uncharted territory – co-parenting.’
“I got off the phone devastated. Bawling. I felt like a failure. Losing a partnership like that, a friendship, felt like death. I began to picture all the holidays – separated as a family, and the awkward meet ups to switch the kids on our given days. I pictured being cold and disrespectful to other. It was the most painful things I could imagine.”
‘Is she your real daughter? Who does she belong to?‘ At 4, I was adopted with my twin sister by a white Mennonite family in the heart of Amish country.’
“‘I bet you are so glad someone actually wanted you,’ a stranger told me. I am running through the grass, almost to the woods to find my biological mother. ‘My real mother!,’ I shout. ‘Hold still,’ my mom shouts, before I trip. She chased me, and scoops me up.”
‘He had filed for divorce without my knowledge, and was granted full custody. Everything was chaos. It was my worst nightmare. I had to drop my 18-month-old daughter off with strangers.’
“I remember panic started to set in. Time went by, and no one showed up. Finally someone answered his phone. My knees buckled. I dropped to the ground. They weren’t coming. They wouldn’t tell me where she was. My daughter cried in the background. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t know if I would ever see her again.”
‘If you do that one more time, you’re going in TIME OUT.’ As soon as that door shut, she ran over to the couch. I thought, ‘Please get down. Don’t you know I’m the fun parent?! I do books, not time out!’
“Being a stepmom is so complicated. She’d only ask her dad for things. But then, hand-foot-and-mouth disease struck our house. My husband was down for the count – which left my stepdaughter completely reliant on me. Let the games begin.”
