In Debby’s home adoption was an open topic because she was fostered by her grandparents and adopted by their daughter. Unfortunately, she wasn’t welcome as an adoptee by her adopted father and she and her family faced abuse by her stepfather. In reunion Debby found out her birth parents tried to stay together and she has full blood siblings. But her biological father has tried to deny she is his, even though she and the rest of the family know their truth.

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Debby (00:03):

If someone had said, maybe you should wait and meet your mother first. I would have, but I didn't know and it's just that my birth mother had never, ever wanted to give me up, had lived with this and buried it for so long that she should have had the op the first opportunity. Who am I?

Damon (00:35):

Am I? Who am I? Who am I? Hello, 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 Debby who called me from central Pennsylvania. In her home adoption was an open topic because she was fostered and adopted by the same family. Unfortunately, she wasn't welcome as an adoptee by her adopted father and she and her family faced abuse by her stepfather. In reunion Debby found out her birth parents tried to stay together and she has full blood siblings, but her biological father has tried to deny she is his even though she and the rest of the family know the truth. This is Debby's journey. Debby was born in Baltimore County, Maryland later adopted into a family with a biological son, five years, her senior, but her adopted mother had a unique relation to Debby and the adoption process.

Debby (01:44):

Her parents actually were my foster parents.

Damon (01:49):

Oh really? That's really interesting.

Debby (01:52):

Yeah. I was taken to them at three days old and I was there until I was about to, but they had, their daughter had already decided that she wanted to adopt, she had some health issues and was having trouble conceiving again. So, um, I had, I was born with crossed eyes or a lazy eye and whatever you want to call it. And so the social workers felt that I probably was not going to be adoptable because admir County wasn't going to pay for that surgery. But, um, so she decided to adopt me and um, then they had it corrected. But so adoption was a pretty normal thing because my grandparents were foster parents, so kids came and went.

Damon (02:45):

Debby's parents went on to have another son. So she is sandwiched in the middle of two biological boys in her family. She told me her father was a great dad to them taking them fishing and setting up those old school army men in mock wars. But she, and he never bonded because he never wanted to adopt the child. They never really did anything together.

Debby (03:07):

He told my mom that, you know, he adoption was not normal. It was not natural and he was not for it. Um, but he, you know, consented to the adoption anyway. I don't know why they're both deceased so I can't ask them and I never really had a comfortable relationship with him where I would have asked him. Anyway,

Damon (03:29):

I asked Debby how she got along with her brothers, given her adoptive father's position on adoption and his clear favoritism towards them. She said there was a sizable age gap between herself and her older brother. So that coupled with their general differences in interests in personality meant they weren't very close growing up.

Debby (03:49):

No, I don't think that it impacted either one of my brothers because I think they were oblivious to it. They're still kind of oblivious to, um, adoptee feelings. Like, like when I shared that I was meeting my birth family, um, and they were all happy and they were like, well, now you'll get the answers you need. And then I sent them some photos after I met my birth mom and I got back. Good. Now, you know, looks like that's the only thing. Yeah. Like there's like, it's not complex at all. It's just you go, you ask a question and you move on. You know, that's how a lot of the world feels. So I don't think they're any different than any other non adoptees.

Damon (04:38):

Learning more about Debby's adopted mother, especially juxtaposed against her adopted father who was open about not wanting to adopt her. She said her mother did the best she could. She was a kindergarten teacher and after her divorce from Debby's adopted father, her mother worked nights and enrolled in college.

Debby (04:57):

Actually none of us saw her a whole lot for about four or five years. So, you know, we had, it wasn't a bad relationship when I was a kid, a young kid. It was a really good relationship. Things changed as, um, as I grew. Once I hit teenage years, things kind of really went to crap. Well she got married again and so my stepfather moved in and that was not a good situation. It, there was some, um, a lot of abuse, physical, emotional, sexual, so.

Damon (05:40):

Towards you?

Debby (05:42):

Um, yeah, and there was physical and emotional towards, you know, everybody. Um, shortly after that is when my older brother left. As soon as he was 18, he went in the air force. So he didn't have to really grow up with it. But, um, that cost, you know, a little disconnect, a lot of disconnect between my mom and I.

Debby (06:06):

um, cause she didn't believe me. It was tough, you know, I would say from 12 to while I left home, you know, the day after I graduated from high school, just to get away. But you know, it took her a while. When I got married, she actually wanted to bring my stepfather to the wedding and I'm like, no, no, not happening. So it, it was an uncomfortable relationship after, you know, after she was aware and came to believe me and it, you know, it injured our relationship. I wouldn't say it was horrible, you know, I still loved her. It was just an uncomfortable relationship, like a hug or something and we just felt like disconnected.

Damon (06:54):

Yeah. Unhealthy because there's this awful thing happening in the middle.

Debby (06:58):

Yeah. It's like I, I was at a point where I still hadn't forgiven him or move past that. So I think that, you know, that, um, just caused that, that disconnect with her and I, I don't, we tried to move past it, but I don't know that we ever really did. So, yeah. That's one thing I regret.

Damon (07:26):

Debby said in her junior year of high school, her aunt was living with her family and the stepfather attempted to victimize her too. Not one to bite her tongue as Debby had been forced to do as a teenager. Her aunt outed the stepfather in front of Debby. Debby said her mother never came around to believing she had been abused until she left home and moved across the country. She said she's not sure why. Her adoptive mother finally left her stepfather.

Debby (07:53):

And it wasn't until he tried the sexual abuse on my aunt that it came to light because my aunt was like, no, she is very outspoken. And he just picked the wrong victim there. When that happened, I remember that we were out on the deck and my aunt brought it up and I was like, Hey me too. And that was my opportunity to get it out in the open and stop it. And I think I was, I had just finished my junior year in high school and she didn't believe me at that point and she didn't believe my aunt, but my aunt was like, I'm outta here. And she, cause she was living with us. So she took her young son and left and I was there, stuck at home, but he had been called out. So there wasn't any more after that. It was just really, really tense being at home. So I wasn't home a whole lot.

Damon (08:50):

So adoption is out in the open in her home. She had been fostered by her adopted grandparents. Her adopted father had openly expressed that he didn't want her. So when I asked, when she felt the desire to search for her biological family, she said,

Debby (09:05):

I don't remember a time that I didn't want a search. Honestly,

Damon (09:10):

in third grade, she was tasked with writing an autobiography about her family tree for class. The kids were asked to include information about who their parents were, when and where they were born, and the hospital they were born in, et cetera. Since Debby did her homework by herself, she made up a whole story about herself. The teacher called her mother in for a conference about the assignment because it was clear to the teacher that Debby had fabricated her story.

Debby (09:38):

You know, I was like, well, what else did you want me to write? I don't know. I don't know what time I was born. I don't know what I weighed, you know, I have no clue. So I made all this stuff up and so then, you know, my mom was like, well, she's adopted. We really don't have any of that information. And so that's when it hit me that this is different. No one else had this problem, you know, I need to find this information. So I always had this need to find and I had always sent, the adoption was so open. I was free to express that. You know, I was never told not to talk about adoption, not to talk about my birth parents. When I was placed in foster care, the social worker told my foster parents who ended up being my grandparents don't go out showing her in the neighborhood and that's all she said. So that led us to believe that my birth family was close by. So you know, I was always scanning the crowd. You know, maybe I'll find someone who looks like me because I know they have to be close by.

Damon (10:56):

In 1981 at 19 Debby moved back to Baltimore from California. She made a trip to Towson high school, her Alma matter and started scanning the yearbooks from 1961 62 and 63 she took her one page non identifying information which said her birth parents were in their teens. Her birth mother was a slender five foot, two inch tall blonde with blue eyes and was artistic. Her birth father was tall and slender, dark haired, dark eyed, and he was studious and college bound, which was the main reason for her adoption placement. She went through the yearbooks looking for anyone who might fit those descriptors, but she also said

Debby (11:38):

I was intent on finding my father, not my mother, and I think that's because I didn't have a good relationship with my father. I had never had like a a positive father figure in my life. So looking back, that's what I concluded is that's why I was looking for my father.

Damon (12:00):

So she searched for this guy in the yearbooks and made a list of the men then went to the gigantic Baltimore phone book and started cold calling them. Everyone was very nice, but they all apologized and said they were not the guy. Debby searched for females that were in one yearbook, skipped a year, then reappeared in a subsequent yearbook figuring pregnancy might have kept her out of school. It was harder to do the cold calls to those women because of course her birth mother could have been a married woman and might have changed her name. Debby contacted Baltimore County social services and registered on their mutual consent registry. Back then, both parents had to consent to either one being in contact with their daughter. Nothing ever came of that registration. In 2015 her adopted mother who had always been interested in genealogy, offered to buy Debby an ancestry DNA kit. Debby only knew that the kit would reveal her heritage. She didn't know at the time that the test could actually match her with family members.

Debby (13:03):

She bought it and brought it to me and I spit in the tube and mailed it in and unfortunately she passed away like two days before I got my results.

Damon (13:13):

Debby didn't know anything at all about genetic genealogy after her mother passed, so her third and fourth cousins were clues, but she didn't know how to reverse the knowledge to explore her tree. She messaged a few people to learn more, but the people who replied didn't have any helpful knowledge. Only one guy, a third cousin, was as curious as she was and maintained contact with Debby throughout her multi-year search. Years later in 2018 Debby opened ancestry DNA to find, she had a close family match. She messaged the match explaining she was born and adopted in Baltimore in 1962

Debby (13:52):

so I said, are you also related to, and I said the name of the second cousin and then the guy, third cousin that I had been messaging with for three years and I got back a message. We need to discuss this in a safer forum. Can I have your email address? Whoa. So through email, you know, I sent her every increment, all the information that I knew and, and she emailed me back. She said, I'm your aunt. I was there when you were born. Yeah. But she didn't give me any names of anybody.

Damon (14:28):

Her aunt's husband had recently passed away. She was selling her home, buying into moving into a new place and she needed a few months. She had a lot going on and Debby's return was big news and she needed time to tell folks what was happening between them. Debby said the whole time she was checking her email daily and was waiting on pins and needles to get a message from the woman. Months went by, but Debby...