Mary Chapin Carpenter’s not REALLY my mom…

The fact that I’m a sista from another mother has been on my mind this week, as Columbus Day is my coming home day. For you non-adopted folks, what that means is that, although I was born in August, I met my parents for the first time in October.

Last night, I read an amazing post by Jen at Steenky Bee, a wonderful mom to two adopted kids. She asked about my reunion with my birth parents, which got her the longest, rambliest, craziest email in the world for her troubles. Since it’s so in my universe this week, I decided to just put this out here.

Before I came home to the suburbs to become a doted upon first child, I was in St. Ann’s Infant and Maternity Home in DC, and my name was Madeline, after the little French girl in the books. My 15 year old birth mother was trying desperately to think of a way to keep me, but every day as she walked over to visit me after school it became more apparent that that wasn’t going to work out. She thought about putting me in foster care until she graduated high school, but in the end, decided letting me go was the best thing for all parties involved. Not the easiest, not by a long shot, but the best.

I spent so much time as a child wondering Every. Single. Day. if my birthmother was OK. If she know that I was OK. That was all I ever wanted for both of us, was to know that the other one understood why things went down the way they did. I grew up knowing how young she was, that my birth father was 18. That she had lots of brothers and sisters, and not a lot of money.

My parents are amazing and wonderful and everything anyone could ever want in
parents. But that didn’t make me stop thinking about her. (Never so much him…I don’t know what that was. I think I always viewed him as the one with the dumb stick that got her into this whole mess. Not fair, I know.)

From a very young age, I was struck by the fortitude it would take at 15 to follow through on a pregnancy, and then walk away, assuming it was for forever. I think trying to get in her head is the one of the reasons I went into Journalism. I always wanted the who, what, when, where, and why, because I was always looking for the key to this one central tenet of my life.

The cruelty of the closed adoption system broke my heart. I hated birthdays, because I thought of her and couldn’t enjoy myself, knowing on some gut level that she was thinking of me somewhere. She wasn’t the forgetting type, I knew that. I found out later she used to slip out to a diner and have cake every birthday, and that her husband and later kids (not my birthdad) were never told what day it was, although he did know about me.

Yet I didn’t search right away when I turned 18. I was scared of the power of it- I knew there was a chance she wouldn’t want to meet me, and that would be the end of that. But I never really believed that would be the case. I just didn’t know if I was ready for the fallout. When you have a system that keeps people apart for decades and then throw them back together with the title affiliations, but no real world connections to back it up, it gets weird. I knew that, I think.

But I came to a point where I just couldn’t not do it anymore. I was 26. I had already followed in my birthmother’s footsteps 2 times, as so many adoptee girls from closed adoptions do. It’s the only way we know to emulate them.

I got pregnant at 17 and had a baby that was stillborn. Went a little crazy and rebellious for a while, went out West, lost myself. Came home a year later, trying to get found. Got pregnant AGAIN, not married- at 20. Had a beautiful boy. But having a child brought up so many feelings- the first genetic connection I had had! It served to emphasize how there had been another, but it was severed.

The final straw was a weekend of listening to Mary Chapin Carpenter, over and over again. I love her music, and was playing “Come on Come On.” These lines shifted something in me:

“Come on come on, it’s getting late now
Come on come on, take my hand
Come on come on, you just have to whisper
Come on come on, I will understand

It’s a need you never get used to, so fierce and so confused
It’s a loss you never get over the first time you lose

And tonight I am thinking of someone, seventeen years ago
We rode in his daddy’s car down the river road”

And suddenly, it all came into crystal clear focus- Mary Chapin Carpenter was my birthmother. She hailed from the Washington DC area. She had the same number of sisters as my birthmother. She was born in the same year. And most importantly, she knew. She knew the feeling that haunted me, the yearning.

The reason I’d been listening to so much MCC is because I was going to see her play at the 9:30 club. So, I reasoned, what better way to test my hypothesis than to drop off a letter at the box office? So I did. I wrote a a 2 page tome explaining my question, and asking, probably very, very awkwardly, if…you know…maybe I was her baby???

Amazingly, no bouncers came and found me and dragged me out. But nothing else happened either. No shout out from the stage, no, “This one’s for my kid! (Wink.)” As I drove home that night, I cried and cried. I was an idiot. There was something wrong with me. At the time, I had no idea how common it is for adoptees to shift their longings onto celebrities, because it’s easier than fixating on that lady 2 aisles over at the grocery store. We know as much about celebrities as we do about our birth parents. Often more. And shoot, who wouldn’t want to claim Madonna? Why the heck not? It could be anybody.

That weekend, I felt like something had shaken loose deep inside of myself. I cried as though someone I loved deeply had died. I sobbed at the playground. In the car. Whenever I thought about how outlandish my need to know had become, how it couldn’t be shut away anymore, but how terrified I was to unleash it.

On Monday, very quietly and without consulting anyone, I filed a petition with DC Superior Court to have my records opened for a finite period of time, long enough for the Catholic Charities social worker to find my birthparents, contact them, and determine if they wanted to know me. I had to pay a $500 fee to Catholic Charities, which always really pissed me off. I have to pay YOU to find out who I am??? But I did it. It seemed a small price to pay, although noxious.

A week later, a letter came. The record were open. The next week, I met with a social worker to go over my “reunion expectations”. Again. I was resentful. Why was it her business? Did people interview HER before she went to Christmas at HER parents house? But, it was part of the process.

By this point, I’d told my family and fiance that I was searching. They were all supportive, if nervous. My mom really worried that I would be hurt. But I felt it would hurt far more to keep plugging along, quietly breaking into pieces.

Three days after the meeting, I got the call. She’d found my birth mother. This was her phone number. Could I call her that night?

Ummm. Yeah. That would be cool, I guess.

That first night, we talked for two hours. That’s how it still is when we talk, 8 years later. We have a similar rambling conversational style- we both love to tell stories. We both drink coffee at night. Love popcorn. Cuss a little bit for fun, if there’s no small children around. She has three other children. My birth father, whom I’ve talked to twice and seen twice, has 4, 2 girls in their 20s from his first marriage and a 5 and 2 year old.

The second I heard my birthmother’s voice, that longing and yearning disappeared. All I’d ever wanted to accomplish with a reunion was done. I could say, “Hey, I’m OK. You?”

And most of all, I could say, “Thanks.”

The fact that we’ve built such a friendship is a great bonus. My parents invite her to family gatherings, she sends cards when my mom has operations. Sometimes, it’s awkward. She didn’t really want to give me up, but felt a lot of pressure from her family. I think it’s sometimes hard for her to be faced with all that I did have, all the love for all those years from parents who were not her. But I think she knows it was best, too.

She said to me once, taking a drag on a cigarette, “If I had kept you, kid? Peanut butter and jelly, alllllll the way.”

So we just breeze through it with the best social grace we can all muster. There are no rules, no right way. My mother had her sit in the front row with them for my wedding. I can’t begin to describe the feeling I got, looking down from the altar and seeing the trifecta of people who loved me in such different ways.

And Chapin, If you read this, don’t worry…I’m not a stalker. No, seriously…ok, musically, yes. But you can play 9:30 again. Soon.

Below is a live version of this song, from 1995 at Wolftrap. It’s much slower than the studio version, but really highlights the amazing power of her voice. I’ll always thank MCC for getting me off my ass and making me take a step that truly, truly changed my life.