I have a long story to tell.

MY STORY I was 17 when my father died and 20 years old when I learned that I was adopted. My parents kept my brothers and my adoption a secret from us for 20 years. I have learned from this that secrets can never be kept for long no matter how hard you may try. One day my mother and I were on the phone with my brother and he asked me if mom had told me. I said ғwhat do you mean, told me what? My mom put the phone down and told me, ԓWhen your dad and I got married, we couldnt have kids, so we adopted Greg҅. I didnԒt let her finish. I became hysterical and ran to my room. I then heard my mom tell my brother that he had better not tell me anything or she would never speak to him again. My mother and brother always fought and never seemed to get along. I thought that it was because he wasnt really hers. She and I always got along. I was her ғbaby. I thought, ԓthat explains it -- they couldnt have kids so they adopted Greg and then 3 years later, they had me.Ҕ That was why there were no pictures of Greg under 3 years of age. I went back to college and told my mom that I didnt want to talk about it. Much later, after I had a chance to calm down, I went to visit my brother to talk to him about this. He then told me that I was adopted too. I canҒt say I was really shocked to hear this because I sort of thought that might have been the case. When he told me this, all of a sudden, so many things became clear to me. It was like a time warp thing. I heard that I was adopted and all of a sudden, in my mind I had flash backs of all of the things I couldnt understand all my life and many of my questions were answered. First of all, I never looked like anyone in my family. I used to fantasize that I was the adopted daughter of my favorite movie star at the time and that one day they would come to see me. I felt guilty having these fantasies because I had a great mom and dad and they didnҒt deserve this. There were no baby pictures of my brother under three years old and no pictures of my mom pregnant with either of us. When I would ask my mother when I was born (hour and day)and other particulars of my birth, she would say she didnt remember. I would get angry and tell her, ғIf I went through the pain of having a child I would certainly remember details about the birth. If we were watching a movie about a child being adopted, my mother would always get angry and say, ԓA mother is more than someone who just gives birth. She cares for that child through sickness and health. I never could understand why she would get so upset over just a movie. My grandmother always seemed to favor my cousins more than my brother and me and did and said things that hurt me. IԒm sure she didnt mean to, but thatҒs how I felt. My brother just recently told me that he always had a feeling of abandonment. He always had memories of before he was adopted but didnt understand them. I never felt abandoned. What I feel is more of a feeling of not belonging. After my visit with my brother, I was a complete emotional mess. I was crying all the time and had so many conflicting feelings. Then one day I was in the grocery store with a friend and we saw an older couple with two infants around the same age in the grocery cart. We stopped to talk to them and I asked them if the babies were twins. They said that they werenҒt but that they were foster parents and they explained what they did. They said that the children will be adopted and that makes them very special because they will be chosenӔ by two people and not be just an accident. They will be picked out among all others to be someones child. I went away with tears in my eyes but also with a better feeling in my heart. I felt special because my parents had picked me out Җ had chosen me to be theirs. This was a turning point for me. But there was still an emptiness in my heart and the feeling of not belonging was still there. I felt unwanted by my birth mother even though at the same time I was feeling special because I was chosen to be someones child. The word that was going through my mind then and even now is ғwhy? Why was I given up? I wanted answers, so I went to visit my aunt and uncle. My uncle is my fatherԒs brother. They told me that they didnt know that Greg and I didnҒt know the truth. We hardly ever saw each other because of my father and uncle being in the Air Force and both families did a lot of traveling. So, no one ever said anything about my brother and I being adopted. My aunt told me that the first time she realized that I did not know was after my father died and my mother had to go to the Social Security office to fill out some forms. My aunt took her and me over there. When they called my mother up she told me to stay in the waiting area and she was insistent about it. I tried to get some information from them about my adoption but they said that my parents never talked about it. One day my brother appeared and then a few months later, I appeared. My aunt said that she and my mom had trouble early in their marriages conceiving. My mother said that it was because of the brothers, but then my aunt became pregnant. I think that my mother had some very strong feelings of not being a whole woman because she couldnt have kids. At least, I think it was her who couldnҒt have kids, not my dad, simply because of the things she would say or do as I was growing up. She always seemed to be very insecure. My aunt and uncle said that the agency my parents got us from was in New York City but they didnt know which agency it was. So, when I got back to college, I wrote to every adoption agency in New York City asking for information about my adoption. I got letters returned to me saying that I wasnҒt from their agency. Then, about 3 months later, after I had just about given up, I got a letter from The Catholic Home Bureau for Dependent Children in New York City. At least from this letter I learned that I was Portuguese and it further confirmed that I was indeed adopted. Until this time I was still a little uncertain. My mother died in 1978 and she died without knowing that I knew the truth. I kept wanting to tell her and have her answer some questions but I loved her very much and didnt want to hurt her. I felt that if she knew that I knew and if she knew that I wanted to find my birth parents/family, that she would feel that I didnҒt love her. I felt that she was insecure enough as it was even though I gave her no reason to feel that way. I felt that she felt that way all my life simple because she couldnt have children. When she died, my brother and I searched her whole house looking for our adoption papers. We didnҒt find them. Then we talked to our aunt and she said that she used to keep them in her purse. I remembered then how she always had her purse with her and she never would let anyone look into it. I think that when she knew she was going to die that she destroyed the papers. She went to her grave with her secret. Several years before my mother died, I got married and then had a son. I was wondering how she would react to me being pregnant. I tried not to talk to her too much about it fearing that it would make her feel even more insure knowing that she never could have a child and never experienced the amazing thing of being pregnant. But she was a great grandmother. She died when he was 2 years old. I always wonted to have children all my life. I used to say that I wanted 12 kids and the reason for it was because my family was very small, only my brother. I never grew up with any other family. My father only had one brother and he was in the Air Force as my father was and he and his family traveled as we did. I only saw my cousins perhaps twice during our youth. When my father retired from the Air Force, we moved to Melbourne to be near his brother who had retired there. My mother had a brother but didnt grow up with him and never really saw or had anything to do with him till after my father died. They got into contact at that time and my mother decided to move to Miami to be close to her brother and his family. So, never being around any other family, I told myself that I was going to have a lot of children when I got married. As it turned out, my husband and I only had one child, and that almost didnҒt happen. After 3 years of marriage, my husband decided that he didnt want any children. I was devastated. I desperately wanted to have children but at this time, it wasnҒt only to have a lot of family, but it was because that now that I knew I was adopted I wanted to have someone who was a part of me and who looked like me. Even though I had my husband, I still felt all alone in the world. My husband was my husband, but not my blood family. I wanted a blood connection. We went to see a marriage counselor but nothing got resoled from the sessions. The only thing was to split up but we loved each other. I was on birth control, but decided one day that since he was the one who didnt want children, that I would leave the birth control to him. I told him that if I got pregnant and he didnҒt want the baby, that I would raise the baby by myself. I had finally achieved peace in my mind and decided that whatever happened I would live with it. Well, one day, my husband didnt take the time to use protection and our son was conceived. I was scared because I didnҒt know how he would react to the news. When I told him, he said that he had been suspicious that I was pregnant because I had been felling sick lately. He took the news better than I thought he would. All during my pregnancy he was great and when our son was born, he was just as good a father as I thought he would be. My son has my coloring and my eyes and even though he looks more like my husband than me, I finally have a connection to someone. When our son was about 3 months my husband decided to have a vasectomy. He was insistent about it. I would have liked to have had a little girl, but I went along with him because we were both older parents. I was 32 at the time and Gary is 8 years older than me. Having a child is expensive and a lot of work, so I went along with my husbands decision. Our son grew up longing for a brother or sister. He never liked being an only child and I was very sorry for this. After my mom died, I took a more active role in trying to find my birth parents. I signed up with every adoption search board that I could find on the internet. I even paid a detective agency to search for me. When our son was 4, we went to New York City to search for my birth record in the birth index in the public library there. There were 2 books and the print was very small. I have my birth certificate number but do not know the name of my birth mother. The books had births listed by birth mother name, not birth date. So, we spent two days going through the books and also at the same time trying to keep a 4 year old entertained so that he wouldnҒt bother anyone in the library. Andy was really very good but we didnt find out anything. I think it was because our eyes just missed it due to being so tired. At times the pages were even blurry to me. So, IҒm sure we just missed it. We went to the adoptive agency that I was at to see if they would let me see my records. They said that there were in the basement, but of course, we couldnt see them and the director there couldnҒt/wouldnt tell me anything. She told me to fill out a form and they would send me non-identifying information. When I got home, I fill out the form and received back some very interesting information. First of all, and the most amazing thing is that according to the papers I received, my mother did not know she was pregnant. She had been dating my father for about 2 years and then broke up with him due to his jealousy. She then married another man and while they were on their honeymoon, she gave birth to me. Apparently, I was born in Hotel Victoria in New York City. I donҒt understand how she could not know she was pregnant as I was a normal birth baby at 7lbs. She and her husband felt it was my best interest to be put up for adoption. And, this is where I am at today. The older I get I know that there is less chance of meeting my mother, but perhaps I have siblings and other family somewhere.