As a kid, Rebecca was considered quirky. Unbeknownst to her, that quirkiness was an after effect of fetal alcohol syndrome. She tells the story of learning her birth mother’s lonely and troubled past, and the closure she finally got after she learned of her mother’s death.

The post 027 – I Got A Picture Of My Mother’s Sadness Though Other People appeared first on Who Am I...Really? Podcast.

Rebecca (00:03):

I went to bed that night and I woke up and I went back to the picture and I'm like, Oh my God. I was like, that's exactly how I looked in high school.

Voices (00:16):

Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?

Damon (00:28):

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 you'll hear the story of Rebecca. She's one of my people from Columbia, Maryland. She went to a rival high school Centennial, but that's okay. Everyone knows Wilde Lake is the best. Rebecca's parents told her very early that she was adopted and she loved it. As a kid, Rebecca was considered quirky. Unbeknownst to her, that quirkiness was an aftereffect of the alcoholism that plagued her mother's life. She tells her story of learning her birth mother's lonely and troubled past and the closure she finally got after she learned of her mother's death and her quest to find answers about her paternal side of the family. Rebecca was adopted as an infant and she lauds her adoption as a positive experience with her family. But she had challenges with her brother, her parents' biological son. And he admitted his feelings about Rebecca the night before her big day.

Rebecca (01:34):

I was adopted at one month old, so my parents told me, I think when I was five or six, like as young as I could understand and um, they didn't hide it from me and it was.. I mean I always felt like I belonged to them. I never felt different. Like I, I had written that I was quirky, but that turned out to be something totally different. So, um, it was cool. Like I loved it cause I loved the attention. Like my mom would tell the, you know, how they adopted me to her friends when they would go out and I just, it was awesome. And like nobody ever, from what I remember, nobody ever looked at my parents like, Oh poor you, you know, you had to go the adoption route. It was a very positive experience. My brother was biological and he was four years older than me.

Damon (02:26):

He was biological to them?

Rebecca (02:28):

Yeah, yup. So him and I constantly butted heads. I don't know. I think part of that's because my parents, after they had him, they had a daughter and she passed away at a week old due to being a preemie. So, um, that's why they looked into adoption after that. So I think my brother felt a little like I replaced her, which I get. I get it.

Damon (02:55):

Yeah.

Rebecca (02:55):

I had asked him at one point, the night before my wedding actually, I had asked him if he ever resented me and he said there were times when he did. So I got it. I mean it's, you know, it had to be, he was four it had to be hard.

Damon (03:10):

Yeah, absolutely. Especially as a four year old part of the whole process for you to get used to another child coming in. There's a nine month runway where you're watching your mother's belly grow. She's talking to you about what a great big brother you're going to be. And then, you know, kids can be challenged to really figure out what death means and understand it is even with grandparents who you kind of are, are taught are going to leave this world one day, but for your newborn sister to come and immediately go and it would be replaced by another child. That sounds so hard.

Rebecca (03:49):

I know, I know. And he didn't really get it. He, um, and he wouldn't go to her grave. He, um, I don't, it's, it was hard and I feel bad. I do. I feel really bad. There was a horrible thing for everyone to go through.

Damon (04:01):

If you don't mind. Out of curiosity, did you get a little bit of closure for him to admit his resentment the night before your wedding?

Rebecca (04:09):

Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It made me understand that he's, pardon my french, wasn't, he wasn't intentionally a ***. It made me realize that him and I had more sibling rivalry than other kids. I felt we constantly fought and it made me realize that I think he was just hurt and I wish I could've changed it, but it made me understand him better. Actually.

Damon (04:35):

Rebecca's adoption automatically put her in an interesting family dynamic with her brother's grief over his lost sister. So I asked her how her parents made her feel comfortable in that same space. They had also lost a daughter, but Rebecca was their daughter too, and they made sure she knew she was theirs and that adoption was okay.

Rebecca (04:53):

But they, yeah, they never made me feel like adoption was the second choice. Like I know it kind of was like, you know, they had a baby, she passed away. You can't have kids, turn to adoption. But they never threw that in my face. They always said, you know, they're happy they adopted me. I was meant for their family and they always made me feel wanted. So I never felt second.

Damon (05:17):

That's amazing that they were able to do that given the adversity that they had come from. But then in unimagined to a huge degree, it's absolutely true. They so badly wanted a daughter that they came after you. That's really fantastic.

Rebecca (05:29):

Yes. Yeah. I mean, they hurt a lot. They just didn't show it. Or if they did, I was oblivious to it because I was young.

Damon (05:38):

Conversely, I would imagine too, I mean you go through a period of mourning, but similarly you still like you had built up this love that you are ready to give to a child and then they adopted you and they are able to actually pour it on someone as opposed to like not any place to pour it or or um, you know, maybe overcompensating with your brother or what have you. They think you provided, I would imagine some kind of an outlet for the morning and the love and everything that coincides, right?

Rebecca (06:11):

Yeah. Yup.

Damon (06:12):

Rebecca went to college and it was there in her junior year that her search began. She had taken with her, the non identifying information her parents gave her when she was eight years old, she used a primitive online search engines of those days to casually look for her mother's name. At the same time she used writing as an outlet for her feelings about adoption. Those early internet searches didn't yield any results, but when she started her own family, the trigger flipped and Rebecca was ready to search more fervently, but it wasn't her first son that motivated her.

Rebecca (06:43):

And then I graduated and then the, I would say the switch was when I had, after I had my, um, my sec, my second son. Um, yeah, it was weird. It's weird because I had my first son and that was really hard looking back because, um, due to that, I mean part of it's the fetal alcohol. I had my son, I didn't know, I mean any first time mom is scared and doesn't know what to do and, but it was so overwhelming for me. I had to do everything I could just to focus on him and what I had to do.

Damon (07:16):

When you say it was hard for you to focus would, what do you mean?

Rebecca (07:19):

It was hard for me. Like I couldn't, I became consumed with taking care of my son because my brain, it's hard to take care of a kid. I mean, I didn't really have the motherly instincts, I guess like it.. With my brain, everything was overwhelming. Like when just everything. Like when the baby cries, when does he need a diaper change? Does he need this? Does he need that? And my brain goes so fast and it was just, it consumed me.

Damon (07:49):

This is because you had fetal alcohol syndrome?

Rebecca (07:54):

Yes.

New Speaker (07:54):

Okay.

Rebecca (07:55):

So because it was so consumed with him, I didn't even think of searching. Like he was born and he was really big and I'm really tiny. So yes. I was like, Oh my God. He got his height from my birth family because I knew they were tall. But beyond that I just focused on him. But then by the time my second kid came around, I was like, you know, I pretty much had it down. So he came out and I'm like, Hmm. He was big too. Not as big. And I'm like, I just, that was the switch. I'm like, I want to find her. I want all these pieces answered. My first son was huge. This kid's big. I want to know who they look like. So that's when I decided I was going to search until I found her. Um, and then it kind of, then I became consumed with the search because that's what happens.

Damon (08:48):

So you go from hyper focus on one thing to hyper focus on another.

Rebecca (08:56):

Yeah. Yep.

Damon (08:57):

Fascinating.

Rebecca (08:57):

And that's my brain. That's the brain damage. It's crazy. It's, I didn't understand why for so many years because I would become obsessed with things and some people do and it's not because their mom drank. Some people just have that ingrained in them. Some people are just like that. But with me, that's why it's crazy. And I became hyper-focused and um, I found her, I found way more than I bargained for.

Damon (09:21):

So you mentioned earlier you said something along the lines of people thought I was quirky and I found out later it was something else. Are you basically saying that the quirkiness that was, you know, a trait of your personality when you were younger was actually the signs of fetal alcohol?

Rebecca (