My Adoption Story  

For the first 27 years of my life, I thought I'd been born weighing 7 pounds 6 ounces. Knowing that, and the fact that DH was born at a whopping 9 pounds 4 ounces, my OB predicted G would be born weighing somewhere in the high sevens or low eights.

So when she was born just shy of 7 pounds-- at 40+ weeks gestation-- it was a shock.

For those first few days, I wondered if I'd done something wrong during my pregnancy to give birth to a baby who was so much smaller than either me or DH when we were born. I gave myself grief over it. And then, I got the real explanation.

It happened when my parents came to visit us during the July 4th holiday. My mom had found my baby book-- and my hospital discharge papers-- in the midst of a kitchen remodel at the house I grew up in. Apparently, my mom hadn't cracked the cover to the book in decades, because we were all surprised to learn that I was not 7 lbs. 6 oz. at birth-- I was 6 lbs. 3 oz.

Now, you might be wondering how any mother could forget her child's birth weight. I know 6 lbs. 15.5 oz. will forever be etched in my mind. But my mom had a very good reason for getting the numbers mixed up. Yes, I had been born weighing just a hair over 6 pounds-- but I was 7 lbs. 6 oz. the day my parents met me.

I've always known I was adopted, and I've always been proud that, in the post-Roe v. Wade-era, my biological mother chose life for me. And a great life. I've had the privilege of being raised by amazing parents who have been able to provide me with every emotional and physical comfort imaginable. I've also been very open about my adoption, even as a child. As family legend has it, I introduced myself to my classmates on the first day of pre-school by saying, "Hi, I'm Elizabeth, and I'm adopted." And while I knew some of the most mundane details of my adoption (it was a closed adoption, I was 5 weeks 6 days old when I "met" my parents, my biological mother was in her teens and of Polish decent), that was all I knew.

That's why my hospital discharge papers caught me so off-guard. I'd assumed (bad idea-- we all know what happens when you assume) I knew everything there was to know. Not only did those papers contain my real birth weight, they also contained other tidbits of information I'd never known before. For example, my biological mother suffered from pre-eclampsia and had a very tough delivery. When I was born, I was blue; my 1-minute agpar score was a 1 (for those non-mommies out there, that's a 1 out of 10-- or very bad shape). I was given rescue breaths immediately after birth, and still was only a 4 on the agpar scale at five minutes old. Like G, I too spent eight days in the hospital before being released. It was amazing to finally know all this!

Growing up, I never wanted to find my biological parents. They had made their decision, I loved the life I was living, and I felt-- in a way-- that searching for two parents I'd never met would be like betraying my mom and dad. And then there was the whole issue of whether my biological parents would even want to meet me. Maybe they weren't together anymore? Maybe she'd moved on, and her new family didn't know about her past? I never felt like opening that can of worms. But, in a way-- and this is probably the "journalist" in me-- finding out those pieces of information about my birth has me craving even more knowledge. It's like a vault has finally been opened for me, and I've only just stepped in. I'm curious to see what's in the very back, buried beneath the years.

Despite all that, I still am not ready to begin the search for my bio-parents. It's part fear, part malaise, part stubbornness that keeps me from doing so. All I know is, when the time is right for me to open that chapter of my life-- or, rather, return to that chapter of my life-- that I'll know it, and only then will I be ready to embrace what I find behind those closed doors.