Every day Leslie’s birth mother called the orphanage where she was left for adoption. So when Leslie located her birth mother 30 years ago, then tried again to connect with her six years ago, it was shocking that the woman wanted no contact with her. Leslie’s birth mother left her with no clues about her birth father’s identity, but DNA helped her settle the mystery. It turned out that the closure Leslie need came from meeting her birth father, whom she simply calls Dad.
Read Full TranscriptLeslie: 00:03 She’s had a lot of time to make all the choices and I’m now in control and so I will be calling my siblings unless she would like to do that and I think it would be better coming from her, so I’m giving her one week and then I’m calling them.
Voices: 00:23 Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?
Damon: 00:34 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 Leslie. I spoke with her from her home in Spokane, Washington. Leslie tells the story of locating her birth mother nearly 30 years ago. Then trying to connect with her again more recently it was baffling to everyone involved why the woman was so distant, especially given that Leslie knew about how thoughtful the woman had been when she was born. Unfortunately, their reunion left, Leslie feeling empty, especially because she walked away with no clues as to her birth father’s identity. Luckily DNA testing opened new doors to discovering her paternal connections, allowing her to finally feel the wholeness she sought in reunion. This is Leslie’s journey. Leslie spent seven months in an orphanage in spokane after her birth. Listen to the story her adopted mother tells about her early life.
Leslie: 01:39 I was born in Spokane, Washington. My birth mother was from Montana and she was an unwed mother and she had me and then I was put into basically, which at the time in ’69, it was like an orphanage and I was in there for seven months prior to my adoption and so my birth mother used to call every single day to see if I had been adopted. So when my parents adopted me, my mom told me that she felt very sorry for me because they were really understaffed so they didn’t hold, you know, all the babies and so when they would feed me they would just prop the bottle with a pillow. And so she said, you were kind of a little nervous purvis when we first got you. Um like, you would make my hands bleed, holding your bottle because it was like your only security and you, um, have, you weren’t doing things at seven months old that normal babies were like holding up their head and that kind of thing.
Leslie: 02:40 So she said I just loved the up and down and you just kinda started blossoming right in front of our eyes. So she gets me and I have two other siblings that were naturally born to my parents. And so then we adopted my brother who’s younger than me. And then my mom had one more child by natural born. So two of us of the five are adopted and my mom always made it seem like, you know, I was super lucky because they got to pick me and they got stuck with their other, she would say cute little things like that that would, you know, try to make me feel better about being adopted.
Damon: 03:16 Leslie had adoption in common with a few of her peers growing up. But it was the non-adoptees, who found out she was adopted, that made things really weird.
Leslie: 03:25 Most people would, when they found out that I was adopted, they’d say, Oh, I’m so sorry.
Damon: 03:30 Really?
Leslie: 03:30 And I was like, why are you sorry?
Damon: 03:35 How did that make you feel when you heard that from them?
Leslie: 03:38 Well, I mean at the time I was just like, well that’s, you know, I’m not sorry, at least I’ve got a family that loves me and you know, that I’m a part of. So, people’s comments never really impacted me too much. But internally I always had a very strong yearning to find my birth mother. I didn’t give much thought to the birth father for whatever reason, but I just.. And my Mom said, when you’re 18 we’ll do it we’re going to do it. And so..
Damon: 04:09 So you had expressed it enough that she was comfortable with your idea to do so when you came of age?
Leslie: 04:17 Yes, and my family was always, all of them, very supportive of that and my mom would be like, oh, I can’t wait till she meets you and sees what a great person you turned out to be.
Damon: 04:26 When Leslie turned 18, the search began and her first impediment was her sealed adoption file. She wrote a letter to Catholic family services to try to get more information, but they were not permitted to release any details. Eventually, Leslie tracked down a third party advocate who worked for the Washington adoptee rights movement or WARM. For a $400 fee WARM, represented Leslie in court, citing medical reasons for her records to be unsealed. Nothing could be disclosed to her directly, but at least someone acting on her behalf had her records. Within a couple of weeks, the representative located Leslie’s birth mother in Maryland. Leslie wrote her introductory letter only including her own non identifying information.
Leslie: 05:14 and of course, that letter took me like a couple of weeks to write, because you know, I was so ecstatic that I was going to have an opportunity. I said, I’m not looking for anything. I just would like to have some medical background and if you’re open to it, I would love to have a relationship with you, but you know, and our contact can be a secret if you haven’t told anybody. I mean, I didn’t really know her situation and she wrote back to the lady, the intermediary lady and said, returned my pictures and said, don’t contact me further, I want nothing to do with this person, and she said, I have my own needs to satisfy. She, that was kind of a dead end because once my file was open and, the lady that did the search said, you know, maybe come to this support group that we have a big hospital here for adoptees, birth moms, and so I went one time, but it was really, really hard for me because everybody had really happy stories and she said, I’ve been doing these searches for 30 years and this is a first mother that has said no.
Damon: 06:20 Oh Man. So what did you think when you got that back from. I mean, that must’ve been a tough call for you to hear from the intermediary.
Leslie: 06:26 Oh, it was horrible. I mean, it was devastating. It was one of the lowest points in my life. I was just so distraught about it and I kept thinking, you know, why? And I had some choice words for her, like, oh my gosh, how could you do this to another human being? And My mom who raised me would say, you know, she called the hospital or the orphanage every single day for seven months. So we were just assuming that she would want to meet. But she didn’t.
Damon: 06:55 Wow. You’re right. That’s totally misleading.
Leslie: 06:59 Totally misleading. Yeah.
Damon: 07:00 Fast forward 20 years, and Leslie and her husband are out on a leisurely walk. Her husband asked,
Leslie: 07:07 so what’s your bucket list? And I’m like, I want to find my birth family. It’s just like a big hole in my stomach and I just, there’s nothing I can do to fill it.
Damon: 07:15 The couple hired a private investigator who found her birth mother again. He learned that Leslie’s maternal grandmother had passed away and her birth mother had signed the death certificate, which told the detective the woman’s name
Leslie: 07:29 when we found it. My husband and I just got on the computer and started doing a lot of research and I found out that she had three kids. So I’m like, well, she asked me not to contact her ever again. So I’ll contact my siblings.
Damon: 07:43 Leslie’s siblings were also in Maryland. Her next closest sibling is six years younger than herself and the others are all within a few years of her own birth. Leslie’s nearly 50. So calculating their ages, she felt comfortable that she was reaching out to adults who likely had established lives of their own.
Leslie:
