Carmen Martinez Jover

Here my newfound values related to all things adoption and foster care bump up against my decidedly new age tendencies and personal experience. It’s always about the bunnies in my household. Though these bunnies have human hands. Oh my. That part is a travesty.

The adoption group I am a part of does not appreciate Carmen Martinez Jover because of her books on adoption. One adoptee writes – “My thoughts to you Carmen Martinez Jover: I did not chose this, I did not want this, I reject this, fuck adoption!” This is tough ground. I am not an adoptee but I know too much now to ever dismiss the feelings and trauma an adoptee experiences in being separated from the mother in whose womb they grew.

Her books seek to explain adoption to adopted children. She and I also share an interest in past lives. The manuscript I have in process is actually about reincarnation and being given a mission to deliver a message in a Syrian refugee camp.

As a matter of fact, her theory is that adoption occurs by the choice of the child’s soul. This is hard because we really can only theorize about consciousness before physical life. However, due to my own personal beliefs, I find it difficult to criticize her on that point. I see this belief structure as being about empowerment, not fault finding.

Here’s one quote –

“The soul is with its soul group, then goes and visits the Elders who give the soul advice on how to be happy when it’s born. The soul is then shown glimpse of possible lives and chooses the parents it wants. Understanding that it cannot be born in a conventional way and is born in another woman’s womb and with the help of adoption lives happily with its chosen parents.”

I do realize that such thinking is not for everyone. Jover has experienced infertility firsthand and is a fan of Dr Bruce Lipton, who I once met in person and also deeply appreciate.

What I do know about adoption has led me to feel that, of all the options for addressing infertility, egg donation is the kindest to the child. That is my lived experience thus far. My obstetrician suggested it to my husband and I when an attempt to jumpstart my very last egg failed.

I would not call it a fully informed decision based on what I know now. Both of my sons know as much as they are interested in as teenagers about their conception and we are fortunate because the egg donor for each of them was the same woman. There is some sadness in my youngest son that he doesn’t have any of my genes, though my emotions and the foods I ate throughout his pregnancy contributed to the body his soul inhabits. My sons would not be who they are otherwise. This is the bottom line truth.

There is some adjustment needed in my own feelings and emotions as we have all done 23 and Me. My grown daughter (who is biological to me and my first husband and thus carrying our genes) is also there at 23 and Me. I see her shown accurately as my daughter. That feels good. But I do not see my sons. The woman who donated her eggs also has a 23 and Me DNA result account and she is shown as their mother. Genetically, that is the truth that I can’t deny.

This is the world modern medical science has made possible. I loved my pregnancies with both sons. I loved breastfeeding them each for over a year. I love that I have been here for them from day one and will continue to be in their lives until I die (hopefully, before either of my boys). It means a lot to me to have mothered them because I have faulted myself for being a horrible mother. Due to poverty and my ex refusing to pay child support, my daughter ended up living with him. He remarried a woman with a daughter and together they had a daughter. This gave my daughter a family with two sisters, the same family structure I grew up within.

I paid a steep price for not raising her, I lost so much and know it, and I continue to pay a price for the choices I made as a young adult. Though I have a good relationship with my daughter now, her childhood wasn’t as good as I once believed but I didn’t know the truth then. Just like once upon a time I didn’t know anything about adoption. Just like I never saw inexpensive DNA tests changing everything for donor conceived children. I do still believe in eternal souls. I do believe there is much more to this thing called Life than any one person can know or understand. Only the “All That Is” intelligence can know that. Some people call that God. I am good with whatever anyone wants to call what I have discovered for myself somehow exists.

To Whom Do You Belong ?

My mom was fiercely an individual, even though to all surface appearances – she was passive and submissive. I think I am, in a lot of ways, like her.

Even though she was appreciative and showed responsibility towards her adoptive mother as she aged and needed assistance, my mom knew clearly that she did not “belong” to that family.

She had to give up creating a family tree at Ancestry based upon both hers and my dad’s adoptive families because she knew clearly it was NOT “real” in the sense of genetic lineage.

Though my own work to recover each of my parents true family trees remains incomplete, I do intend to do that and thread them back into the identities I grew up with.

Most genetically based sites do not fully allow for complex relationships such as adoptive or reproductive assistance kinds of familial relationships; but because of my parents, I do recognize that DNA matters.

So in answer to the question, who do you belong to ?, I believe that both my mom and I would answer – our souls, that which created this physical lifetimes experience.

Secrets

I think because my parents were both adoptees and I spent most of my life with no idea of my heritage or our family’s origins, I am particularly sensitive to the need to know. Most people take what they know about such things for granted. Adoptees are grateful when they are able to gain such information, since so very often they encounter only obstacles, sealed records, hidden identities and struggle with a lack of family medical history when they have unusual health challenges.

So I have gifted my husband and both of my sons with 23 and Me kits. I want them to have a clear and honest understanding of their own origins. For me personally, it isn’t the most comfortable situation but as my own family history indicates, it is important and I understand that.

Inexpensive DNA and the matching sites of 23 and Me as well as Ancestry do out family secrets now and even 20 years ago this was not an obvious risk to keeping secret children conceived in novel ways made possible by advances in reproductive science nor does it keep secret the relationships of adoptees to their true genetic relatives.

I think it is all for the good because genetics is now proving that DNA has more influence than previously believed. A book – Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are by Robert Plomin – makes a persuasive case for the primacy of genes over environment in shaping our individual personalities. The genetic influence is great even in areas we’d hitherto assumed were almost entirely environmental.

So, you may need to reconsider those “secrets” you thought possible to keep from your children because chances are, they will know the truth for themselves eventually and if they didn’t hear it from you, they will likely feel they were deceived.

One Retail DNA Test Away From Truth

If a child has been adopted or conceived via sperm or egg donor, that information is significantly about who that child is at a biological level and they deserve to know the truth. That truth can be introduced in age appropriate bits.

Withholding that information would be a lie and it is simply wrong.

Before anyone embarks on adopting a child or decides to utilize advanced reproductive assistance in order to become a family, it is important to become comfortable with what you are doing – BEFORE you do it. If necessary, seek counseling regarding your infertility issues. Denial will come back to haunt you.

There’s no reason for shame, no matter what medical assistance you needed, which includes IVF. Adoption, however, has its own unique circumstances. Every prospective adoptive parent needs to learn as much as possible about its impacts on every member of that triad before becoming embroiled.

The Blessings Of DNA

This morning I was reading, repeatedly, the sad stories of mothers who gave birth and were denied an opportunity to hold their newborn babies because they had made a decision to surrender their child for adoption. I suppose some psychologist at some time decided this was a wise course of action – though totally misguided in reality.

Then, I read a story about a woman who surrendered a daughter 17 years ago and now she has shown up as a match at Ancestry because this young woman had her DNA checked. My adoptee mom tried this too without any real results but she was so ahead of her time.

The availability of inexpensive DNA testing has been a large measure of my own success in discovering ALL 4 of my original grandparents (both of my parents were adoptees). It has played an interesting role in my own life as well. I have two children conceived with the help of a donor egg as I had passed reproductive age when my husband wanted to have children (we married with him being happy I’d been there, done that, no pressure on him).

Because of my own unique heritage, I have now given to each of my sons DNA test kits for 23 and Me. I also gave my husband one. It is a bittersweet decision because our donor has also had her DNA tested. Though my children grew in my womb and nursed at my breast and have known only my own self as their mother for decades, at 23 and Me it now shows that another woman is their mother. We are a brave new world of people but there is nothing un-natural or unusual about my children.

My donor said to me, “Who would have thought this could happen 20 years ago?” and that is the truth. Families touched by “adoption” of some sort are legion now and the tools to reconnect all the threads of our existence are within easy reach of every one of us.

I prefer reality to fantasy and live with the truths.

If Not For You

How humbling and profound it has been to learn about my family’s true origins. If not for . . . so many things, I would simply not exist.

Had my Danish paternal grandfather not been allowed to immigrate, I would not exist. One could say he is an example of chain migration because his uncle came first and then his sister.

Had a superflood not complicated the possibility of my maternal grandparents reuniting, my mom would not have gone where she had to go to meet my dad. I would simply not exist.

There is a comfort in understanding that what may appear unfortunate on the surface of things eventually serves a good purpose. There is a sense of peace and rightness about the world that allows one to take a long perspective on everything that happens.

Understanding

I believe one of the most surprising aspects, of finally knowing my family’s origins (both of my parents were adopted), is fully realizing the suffering and/or sacrifices my grandparents experienced that enable my own existence. That may seem like a self-evident conclusion but it actually was not.

Not only did I finally feel whole but I was compelled to understand the realities of adoption for ALL sides of the equation. While I may never personally know how it feels to be adopted, I have 4 adoptees to inform my perspectives for not only were my parents adopted but each of my sisters surrendered a child to adoption.

So I have two birth mothers who are very close to me as siblings and a niece and nephew who have reunited with our family, so I’ve seen that aspect as well. I also had two pairs of adoptive parents (the grandparents I knew as such my entire childhood into early adulthood) to inform me.

Due to an adoptee group I have joined at Facebook, due to TONS of reading from all sides of the adoption triad, I am much more fully informed than I was my entire life and that has been the side effect of learning my origins.

Origin information is very important to any person who has been impacted by adoption and that is something that those not impacted seem to struggle to fully understand. If you’ve always known where you came from, even if you were not all that interested, you can be forgiven for not knowing how truly important that is.

Ancestry

Julie Sue Dittmer Hart
born as Frances Irene Moore

My mom had her DNA tested at Ancestry. I know what she was trying to do, she was hoping to uncover someone she was actually genetically related to. I had mine tested too and over the last year plus it has paid off for me in my search for genetic relatives.

My mom diligently tried to create family trees based on my adoptive grandparents. She admitted to me before she died that she just had to stop. It wasn’t “real” to her. I understand.

A little over a year ago, a writer’s guild friend quizzed me. If the adoptive family is a good one (and both of my parents were thus blessed), why does it matter ? And I explained to her the loss of heritage and knowing who and from where one’s roots are sourced. She understood and continues to encourage me to get my book finished (and yes, I am working on one).

So it happened in the last week or so, my mom turned up on a family tree at Ancestry that made absolutely no sense to me. So I reached out to the person responsible for it. Just last night she cleared up the mystery and the connection for me – the “relationship” is with my dad’s adoptive mom.

Yet, what she wrote to me in conclusion (“Therefore I would be related to you. Unless you are adopted.”) had me opening up to her in reply. “BOTH of my parents were adopted. So in truth, you are NOT related to my dad either nor would I be” related to you.

It DOES matter. I now know I have more than a bit of Scottish and Irish in me, quite a bit of Danish, a smidgen of Neanderthal and Ashkenazi Jew and though it is true that DNA testing (including at 23 and Me) has informed me about all of that, the VALUE goes beyond all that. It is that when I match a genetic relative who would not know me from Adam, I have credibility now.

A Sacred Quest

Art by Stephen Delamare

If every life is actually a sacred quest to know who and what we really are, mine has certainly been easily viewed as just that.

I feel as though the “real” me has finally emerged out of the broken family tree that once concealed my true origins.

Now I know that we never were what we were forced to pretend we were due to adoptions.

We now have family, always had family, but that family was intentionally hidden from us until I was able to discover it in only the last year and a half.

Certainly, there are shadows and unanswered questions and it may be impossible to shed light on them now that so many years have passed.

But I am grateful for what I know and the “new” family I can build relationships with now. They are no more “perfect” than the members of the adoptive family that I still consider my “relations” as well.

It’s just that I know the same blood that runs in the “new” family’s veins, runs also in mine and for that I am eternally grateful.

I feel that I have fulfilled some part of my life’s purpose now.

DNA & Paternity

It’s becoming very common for people who do the inexpensive DNA testing available today, utilizing the matching sites Ancestry or 23 and Me, to discover they are somehow a “surprise”, as in their father is not who they thought he was.

During my study into all things related to my own family origins I have read two books related to this kind of discovery – one by a man and one by a woman. In the book by the man – The Stranger in My Genes: A Memoir by Bill Griffeth – he is totally into genealogy, only to discover that he is the product of an affair (or in the age of #MeToo maybe it wasn’t totally a complicit situation) between his mother and her boss.

The other book by a woman – Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro – describes her discovery that the legendary Jewish heritage that she believed was hers – isn’t, when the percentage of Jewish genes she carries isn’t what it ought to be.

My dad’s mother was unwed and I thought it would be nearly impossible to determine who his father was. A series of fortunate events uncovered him for me (after two suspects who turned out not to be him). First a cousin tested at 23 and Me and wrote me that we had the same grandmother. Then, another cousin through her had my grandmother’s photo albums in which she left us breadcrumbs. Both in the headshot (shown above) with a name attached and in how she named my dad with the same name.

Interestingly, 8 month before that, Ancestry told me someone was my cousin. He finally replied to my inquiry – “I have no idea how we could be related, none of those surnames are familiar to me”. I gave him the “new” one and he came back – my grandmother and your grandfather were brother and sister.

My paternal grandfather was a Danish immigrant. That made my dad half Danish. And it explained why my strongest genetic contribution was Dane.