Jennifer is a reunited adoptee from Pittsburgh. She’s a petite, white blonde of European descent whose adoptive parents are a Spanish man and a Mexican woman. Through her search, she found both of her natural parents are deceased, and she had half brothers on both sides, both named Tom. Unbeknownst to Jen, her maternal half-brother attended the same high school she did and bullied her! On her maternal side, she experienced secondary rejection which will never be resolved because her grandmother developed dementia and passed away.

The post 046 – I Am Adopted, It Is Who I Am appeared first on Who Am I...Really? Podcast.

Jennifer (00:04 ):

She literally told me, she goes, you know, you focus too much on being adopted and you ask too many questions and I'm like, but I get them adopted. It is who I am. I had no information about myself for 30 years. And you think I'm not going to ask questions.

Damon (00:25 ):

Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? This is who am I really a podcast about adoptees that have located and connected with their biological family members. I'm Damon Davis and on today's show is Jennifer. She called me from Wellsburg West Virginia, where she's a caregiver for the elderly. Jennifer is transracially adopted, but I have to admit not in the way I usually think of that kind of adoption. She stood out in her family and her family stood out in their community. Jen shared that she was completely close to looking for her birth relatives until she got some stark examples of the importance of knowing your family's medical history. When she found her birth family, one of her gut feelings about her birth mother during her search was confirmed, but she also learned a crazy cruel irony about her high school past. In the end, Jen experienced a secondary rejection from her birth family. After she made a mistake at a huge family function. As you listen, decide for yourself, what you think the factors were in that rejection was that misstep as major as her family made it seem or where the history of guilt about hiding the truth or even the early onset of mental illness also factors. This is Jen's journey.

Damon (01:52 ):

Jennifer's adopted father's relatives are from Spain and he grew up in Pittsburgh. He got a PhD in chemistry, then took a job with a pharmaceutical company working for a while in Mexico city. Her adopted mom was her father's secretary there. They fell in love and her mother got pregnant immediately giving birth to Jen's older sister. Then her father took a job back in Pittsburgh. So he moved his young family back to Pennsylvania. Jennifer's mother wanted a big family, but after several miscarriages and her husband's health problems, they were starting to settle into the notion that it would just be the three of them,

Jennifer (02:29 ):

Our neighbor, who was a nurse. She, I don't know the connection here, exact details. And she has since passed away. So I can't ask her, but she somehow knew the doctor who delivered me, who was my birth mother's doctor. He worked at Allegheny general hospital in Pittsburgh, and his name was dr. Bell. And he was known for, and I'll say in the air quotes, helping girls in trouble. So she had mentioned this, my parents, you know, that there's these babies up for adoption eventually. And would you be interested in my parents thought about it.

Damon (03:04 ):

Jennifer's parents didn't hear anything back for a while. Then they received a phone call. They were informed that there were a couple of different babies available for adoption and her parents should go have a look. Jennifer told me the viewing of babies, like their puppies has always been a sore spot with her. When her parents arrived, the recently born babies had families already. So they went home.

Jennifer (03:27 ):

I only know this story because I heard my mom tell it so often. My mom says her and my dad were in the dining room painting. She was up on a ladder and the phone rings and she heard my dad, all of a sudden, he goes, well, you better tell her my mom and our neighbor, who was the nurse, said there was a baby girl born this morning and she's yours if you want her. And my mom said immediately, yes. And her hands were shaking. And they went and dropped everything and went to the hospital and she was able to hold me that first day.

Damon (04:00 ):

Her mom dressed her at the hospital that very first day, but Jennifer had to stay in the hospital for a week among other issues. Her mother tried to hide her pregnancy, but her methods caused problems for Jennifer's development in her womb

Jennifer (04:15 ):

because she, she worked hurdle while she was pregnant. My right foot was bent in such a way that my shoulders were touching my shin. So they had to do X rays and put a cast on my foot, that kind of stuff to correct it. So, yeah, my parents brought me home a week later and my sister, their biological daughter is nine years older than me. And you know, so it was like all of a sudden they had to prepare for a baby. As far as I know, everybody in the neighborhood knew I was adopted and I am of European descent. I am born, as pale as you get. Obviously I'm not Latino. He was Spanish. And he had black hair and dark skin and Brown eyes. And my mom had Brown hair and Brown eyes.

Damon (05:02 ):

Jen says that there was such an age gap with her and her sister that there was no sibling rivalry. They just weren't the same age to be in contention with one another. When Jen was starting school, her mother pulled her aside to have a conversation about adoption.

Jennifer (05:17 ):

So when I started kindergarten, um, I think my mom was worried that I didn't know I was adopted, even though it was never a secret. So she kind of, um, like had to, I guess in her way, she was like, reminding me, you know, I have a very vivid memory of this. I was about six years old, five or six. She was like, well, honey, you know that, you know, you're adopted. And then I must have asked her, what does that mean? And she said, well, I'm not your real mom. You know, your mom couldn't keep you. And the only information we had all my life was that they were teenagers from the North Hills of Pittsburgh. That's, that's all we knew. I had a tantrum like, and I wasn't one of those kids that would do that, but I can remember kicking and screaming and saying, where's my mom. Why didn't she want me? I want my real mom and all this. And I can't even imagine how painful that must have been for my adoptive mom, you know, to see me going through that. But I did. And it was hard. It was a really emotional time.

Damon (06:27 ):

Bet. I mean, it's, uh, it's great that she told you it's in, you did grow up with the knowledge, but you know, that's a volatile time there where a child is starting school. They're already sort of going to be in a place of comparing themselves to other children. And then they get this huge piece of news dropped on them. Jen's mom was afraid. One of the children in her school was going to spring. The news that she was adopted on her, Jen says her neighborhood was an upper class white collar enclave. So their family was the minority because there were nearly no families of color. And her adoption was well known. She talked about her relationship with her adopted paren