Barely Surviving

Heartbreaking. From the National Institutes of Health – The odds of a reported suicide attempt were ∼4 times greater in adoptees compared with non-adoptees.

An adoptive mother writes – My daughter intentionally overdosed last Friday. This is her 3rd attempt which started at age 12. I have zero ideas what to do. She was adopted with her sisters 8 years ago, after being in foster care 2 years starting at age 5. She has had experiences that have caused pretty significant trauma beyond with the actual removal. We have tried to keep family ties as open as possible but she wants zero to do with her natural mom, at the moment. How do we help support her ? What can actually help? I love this girl with all my heart and I don’t know how to make things easier for her.

The obvious question, with an important suggestion, when it comes to any adoptee – Is she in therapy with a therapist who is adoption trauma informed (and NOT an adoptive parent, ideally an adoptee) ? If she’s not in therapy, she needs to be TODAY !

To emphasize the point, one adoptee shares – I am 52 years old but was forcibly taken, at under a year old by my maternal grandmother and put into adoption against the wishes of my parents. Mom was a minor. Dad sued my grandmother but she and the adoptive parents had more money. After 4 years of fighting for custody, my Dad lost. At that point, I was adopted and my name changed when I was already 4 years old. I started self harming behavior by age 12. I have done therapy. I had my DNA analyzed and now have a relationship with my genetic Dad and my mother’s sister (sadly, my Mom had died, before I found her, which hurts). I now have siblings. I was raised an only kid. Which sucked. Reuniting helps but even so, it brings up so much more pain. I’d advise you to find a therapist that works with adopted child’s trauma. “Adoption is Violence”. This is a said by many adopted kids in safe adoption groups. My adopted Mom was great but it doesn’t fix the PTSD trauma of being taken from your birth family and losing your DNA. In elementary school, they have you do a family tree report on your ancestors. You can’t. When you go to a doctor, they need a family medical history but you have none.

Another adoptee can relate – it’s all horrible. They steal us, then expect us to be a blank slate for them. I’ve never heard adoption is violence but I always say adoption is trauma. If you’re adopted, you have some sort of trauma – even if an adoptee thinks their adoption was good, deep down there’s trauma. My adopters had a biological daughter who was 8 years older than me and she was horrific to me – tortured me. My adoptive parents were very abusive and neglectful.

Emphasized – No matter how good your adopted parents/guardians are, most adoptees feel abandoned, unwanted, thrown away, more worth less than kids whose family kept them. A kid raised by their grandmother or aunt at least still has a DNA connection and family history. Without that, you feel afloat with out a paddle. Being taken from a birth parent is traumatic. Especially so for an infant or small child who will have PTSD even before they can verbalize their feelings.

Finally, some actual suggestions – a youth group of other adoptees would be wonderful. She likely feels very alone in these emotions and it can be very isolating. She could also be very over stimulated in addition to navigating her current emotions. Does she enjoy outside activities like hiking or is there an animal sanctuary she can go to decompress? Therapy is great, but also it’s nice to have a safe place to feel the feelings without feeling anybody else’s. Horse therapy is a great option as well. She can learn to ride and care for the horses. She may find that horses provide emotional support and understanding that people don’t. She needs to have an outlet to dig deep into herself. I would inquire with her previous social worker about about other resources and groups too. I always found it comforting to be around other kids who were going through similar experiences because it can be very triggering to see traditional families not having to deal with the same type of emotional turmoil.

An adoptee with a similar background (adopted from foster care at age 12 w her 2 younger half sisters) suggested looking into the Safe and Sound music listening protocol for the girl’s emotional regulation and nervous system. She had found this helpful in her own struggle w PTSD and an Attachment Disorder. She said this was for her an amazing life changing resource.

Another adoptee shared her own history and resources – As an adult, I have done the following in conjunction with regular talk therapy: inpatient at a psychiatric hospital, outpatient therapy at the same hospital, 18 week program as an outpatient for 4 hours a day, group therapy program for people with severe mental health issues, online zoom group for suicide attempt survivors. She suggested this adoptive mother ask her doctors, therapists, honestly anyone who will listen, for community resources.

Chile’s Illegal Adoption Scandal

I wrote about this before in 2021 – LINK>The Chilean Scandal. Today, the story is back in my awareness thanks to The Guardian LINK>She was told her babies were dead.

Siblings Sean Ours, 40, and Emily Reid, 39, walked into Santiago airport arrivals together, having arrived on a flight from the US. Even though they had never met the mother, Sara, in person, there was no question that she was their biological mother – they share the same eyes, the same infectious smile.

These adoptee’s story is just one of tens of thousands relating to Chilean families torn apart by illegal adoption. Parents were typically told that their babies were lost or dead. In reality, they had been stolen and sold, facilitated by a network of social workers, faith officials and health and legal professionals across the country. Thousands of dollars were paid by American and European families for newborns they believed had been given up willingly.

LINK>Connecting Roots is an NGO dedicated to redressing the damage caused by decades of Chile’s forced and illegal adoption. Tyler Graf lives in the Houston area and is happily married with a son of his own. He has served as a firefighter for the Houston Fire Department since 2009. In 2012, destiny gave him an opportunity to connect to his Chilean roots. During a week-long specialized training session offered by the department to foreign firefighters, Graf met members of the Fire Engine 20 Department of Santiago, Chile. He was excited to meet the team and assist as they trained in techniques to combat high-rise fires. As Graf became acquainted with one Chilean fireman, Juan Luis, he shared what he knew about his adoption.

Nearly 10 years later, Graf received a message from Juan Luis. The humanitarian non-profit organization, Hijos e Madres del Silencio, had located documents that linked Graf with his potential birth mother. After submitting additional adoption documents and DNA testing to confirm he and his mother’s relation, the match was verified.

During the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) an estimated 20,000 infants were stolen from their mothers, mostly from poverty-stricken areas. Poor, young and Indigenous communities were targeted, and a climate of fear made it impossible for families to question or dispute the loss of their child. Knowing there are other Chilean adoptees within his age group, Tyler Graf founded Connecting Roots.

Some individuals have been named as being actively involved in facilitating illegal adoptions abroad, but the network was so extensive and the practice so longstanding that no one has been held accountable. One judge, Jaime Balmaceda, stated in March that so far he has “not been able to establish that a crime had taken place”.

The various non-profit organizations, Connecting Roots, Hijos y Madres del Silencio and Nos Buscamos, work separately and have helped facilitate at least 700 reunifications.

Bribing DNA Test Sites ?

I do have my doubts about the bribing but it is a real concern for the adoptee in today’s story.

I have semi-recently remembered that I am adopted, something that my parents hid from me and still do not admit. So are my siblings, but all of us are not related to our parents and each other. Certainly, not as closely as immediate family. We started to guess that we were adopted when we were children. Our allergies were very different. And for me again in 7th grade, when we did a genetics unit. My siblings and I don’t talk about it now as adults. When I was in college, I hired a private investigator and he unearthed so much that everyone was lying about, including this. I’m really wanting to do so again, but can’t afford it. A DNA test isn’t a given, because my parents have money (I don’t) and they can bribe the testing site to give fake results, it’s happened before. I did get real results when I was an adolescent, but I can’t remember what they were except for a few parts. I don’t know what happened to the test result papers. I had wanted to keep them forever.

One suggestion – Once you do an Ancestry or 23 and Me test, I suggest joining DNA Detectives and ask for a search angel. Search angels are volunteers who help you find your biological family for free, if you are interested in that.

Someone else pointed out – Ancestry, 23andMe etc have very strict rules and I very much doubt that they could be bribed to give you false results. You wouldn’t even have to get your parents to test. With a bit of detective work and some close enough matches, you can prove if you are related to your parents or not.

Yet another person notes – you’d probably be disturbed to learn the extents small local places are willing to go to protect recipient parents. I wouldn’t be surprised if a local facility was supportive and even somehow involved with misinforming the adoptee. Something can be illegal, yet people/businesses can still (and often do) break the law. “Illegal” doesn’t mean “impossible” or even “unlikely”.

More than one expressed this thought – now is NOT the time to tell original poster to seek mental health help. Dissociation is a trip. It’s not surprising someone would suppress or dissociate away from the information that they’re adopted. Imagine finding something like that out after being lied to. People are going to process something like that at their own speed and seek help when they feel ready.

One adoptee added – don’t we all need some professional mental healthcare for our adoptions and lifetimes of traumas!? The lucky few have access to those resources.

And something like this DOES happen and so someone shares this story about a person that didn’t find out he was adopted until he was 40. His sister said that they tried to tell him when he was 6 years old and he got really upset – so they decided to just not bring it up again. He was very different looking to his parents. He finally got tested. It took him a bit to be ok with it all but now he is.

Swapped at Birth

Richard Beauvais and Eddy Ambrose

It may not appear to be an adoption story but it is. The story of two men living alternate reality lives. Both of the men ended up in foster care as children. Richard Beauvais, 68, believed he was Indigenous. Eddy Ambrose, who shares the same birthday, always understood that he was of Ukrainian descent. I learned about this story this morning in LINK>The Guardian by Leyland Cecco. After a series of DNA tests, the two men learned they had been mistakenly switched at birth.

It is expected that today, the two men will receive an official apology in Manitoba. The painful saga highlights the fragile nature of identity and the complex meaning of family as well as embodying the damaging effects of Canada’s colonial policies.

“To have the core understanding of who you are – and who your parents were and who your siblings were – taken away from you, is a shattering experience,” said Bill Gange, the Winnipeg-based lawyer who represents both men. “But this apology is also for the siblings who didn’t grow up with the brother they should have, for the parents that never knew their own child. I don’t think either man knows what it will fully mean for them down the line, but hopefully it will help them.”

In 1955, the staff in a newly-opened rural hospital gave each of the families the wrong baby.

Eddy Ambrose was born to a Cree mother and French father, would spend his youth in the farming community of Rembrandt, oblivious to his Métis roots. The parents who raised him taught him Ukrainian folk songs. They died when he was young and in the years that followed, he was cared for by other family members until he was placed in foster care with a family he came to love immensely.

Meanwhile, 60 miles away, Richard Beauvais life experience reflected the pernicious nature of Canada’s attempts to break Indigenous families and culture. He grew up on the eastern shore of Lake Manitoba speaking French and Cree. His father, Camille, died when he was three years old. His mother, Laurette, struggled to raise Richard and six other children.

Beauvais recalls foraging in the dump to feed siblings. He was barred from speaking Cree and French while attending a residential day school. When he was around eight or nine, he became one of the thousands of victims of an episode which became known as the “Sixties Scoop”, in which the government forcefully removed thousands of Indigenous children from their families and placed them in the foster system. Officials entered the family’s house, striking Beauvais’s sister when she could not stop crying, and then herded the children into a car.

He was teased as a child for being Indigenous. “I saw what the government did to Indian kids because they thought I was an Indian kid. Not many white people have seen what I’ve seen. It was brutal and it was mean.” But he was eventually adopted into a family that he came to love immensely.

In 2020, Richard took a DNA test – a Christmas gift from his daughter – to learn more about his father’s French heritage. Instead, the test suggested he had Ukrainian and Polish ancestry. “He thought it was a scam, one that didn’t even acknowledge his Indigenous roots,” said Gange. Richard believed he ran the only fully Indigenous fishing crew in the region.

Gange is trying to work out a settlement agreement. He suspects there are more cases that will be revealed as home DNA tests become more and more common. “None of this would have happened and nobody would have known if they hadn’t taken tests. The challenges they faced in the child welfare system, especially Richard, are problematic,” said Gange. “But the redemption of both men, who ended up with beautiful foster families who loved them so much, is also a powerful testament to what family can mean.”

Bangladesh Sisters Reunite

Kana Verheul, center, with her niece, right, and her long-lost sister Taslima, left.

Excerpts from a story in The Guardian – LINK>The stranger across from me was my sister: how one adoptee uncovered a tragic past.

After decades of trying in vain to find her siblings, Verheul joined forces with other people in her situation to set up an organization called the Shapla Community, creating a network of hundreds of Bangladesh adoptees raised in the Netherlands. If she could not find her own family, she could at least help others find theirs.

Verheul was among those from Shapla who spent hours interviewing Bangladeshis with extraordinary stories about their children, many of whom claim they were taken for adoption abroad without their consent. It was one of these interviews that led her to the cafe meeting with a woman from the area where she was born. Verheul tried to see if there was any family resemblance with the woman, but could not see any. “Some details matched but some did not,” she says. “Her sister was called Nasima. I truly believed that Kana was my real Bangladeshi name because it was in my birth papers. I couldn’t comprehend that I may be Nasima. Then I asked them the name of the village I have in my Bangladeshi passport, and she said, ‘Yes, that’s where we lived before.’”

Verheul was still not convinced, so she asked if there were any birthmarks. “The woman said her mother would often tell bedtime stories about the sister who was lost, that they both had the same birthmark on their leg. This was a shock because I have one on my knee.” In disbelief, the women headed to the toilets and revealed their almost identical birthmarks. They hugged and cried, and soon afterwards, Verheul says, “I finally saw the resemblances between us – in her hands, her mannerisms. I have really funny feet, and she has the same funny feet,” she laughs. “It felt undeniable, but I couldn’t accept it fully until the result of the DNA test came in.”

Verheul returned to the Netherlands and anxiously awaited the results. Two weeks after they met, a DNA test confirmed they were sisters. “I remember like it was yesterday. I was driving on the highway when the doctor called. I could finally accept that this was my sister. Immediately I got a huge headache. I had to stop next to the road. I started crying. From all over, from my ears, from my toes, from deep inside me. I cried for an hour.”

Amid the joy of finding the woman she had spent decades trying to find, her sister, Taslima, was able to explain to Verheul how she came to be adopted abroad as a baby. The story she shared horrified Verheul, but it also confirmed suspicions that she had had for years. Verheul, a mother of two, clearly adores her “wish parents”, the term she uses to describe couples who adopt. Taslima told Verheul their mother had never intended to give her away. She explained that her father had three wives, and one of them had convinced him to take Nasima to a daycare home nearby when her mother was away because she had become ill and needed medical care. When Verheul’s mother came back and discovered what had happened, it was too late. Nasima had already gone from the children’s home. She had been adopted by a couple in the Netherlands who believed she was an orphan. “My mother divorced my father because of this,” says Verheul. “My father passed away in 2012, my mother in 2014,” she says. “But they were still alive when I was searching for my family in Tongi. At one point, I had even stood on the doorstep of my father’s home. That still hurts.”

In 2017, Shapla was officially founded, to help adoptees find their relatives in Bangladesh. The organization began recruiting fieldworkers in both countries – volunteers who would interview relatives, collect data and identify leads that could eventually result in a reunion. They set up a DNA database and started to collate everyone’s adoption documents. “That’s when we saw certain patterns – the adoption storylines were all the same. The mother had died of poor health, father died in an accident, and grandmother or aunt brought the baby to a home.” Some information was identical, says Verheul, like “a copy-and-paste job”. The group believes that instead of international adoption, the focus should be on supporting vulnerable families, strengthening youth care systems, and improving quality of care in countries of origin so children can be cared for in familiar surroundings. Their argument is in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which recognizes the right of children to grow up in their own culture, befitting their own identity.

“As an adoptee you often hear, ‘You’re lucky, now you have a good life.’ But you cannot really compare the two,” says Kana. “In one sense I feel lucky that I have the best of both worlds. But nothing makes up for the loss you had to endure. Because I lost my family and my real identity.” She recently bought a plot of land in the village named in her passport. “I want to build a house there, for my sister to live in if she wishes. I would like to spend time there too.”

Wanting Limits To Discoveries

I am a fan of the two big DNA testing and matching sites – Ancestry and 23 and Me. As a child of 2 adoptee parents who died knowing next to nothing about their origins, both have been important for me in putting back together the threads of our broken family.

An adoptive parent writes – A few days ago my 13 year old daughter asked for a DNA test to determine her ethnic history. Though she was unaware of it, I have had a 23andMe collection kit on hand for her to submit if ever she wanted. She was excited, and collected the specimen yesterday.

The service that I originally purchased offers several components in addition to a basic ethnicity report. One is a health risks evaluation, the other is a match with likely relatives. She is considering whether or not she is interested in this additional information.

While she was interested in a birth parent search when she was younger – and we support this 100% and laid the groundwork then – she has switched positions as she has grown. She is currently adamant that she does not want to know about relative matches, but she is interested in knowing if she has siblings. Obviously I cannot limit the matches from the company to just siblings. So, she is asking me to gatekeep here, but I want to make sure that the information is easy for her to access if and when she wants it, if something happens to me or my husband, or of she doesn’t want to ask us.

As it is, I have set up the relevant accounts and told her how to find the login information. We logged in and toured the site together.

She has a safe deposit box at a local bank with her adoption information that she goes through whenever she wants. Should I keep a hard copy of all the results and matches in this box? Or is that violating her wish not to be told? Should I share sealed copies of the information with a family member or attorney? How do you suggest that I honor her wishes without pushing her (even by accidental discovery) to know more than she wants to, while still allowing her the freedom to access the information without me if she wants it?

I am a firm believer that knowledge is power, but knowledge is also something that cannot be undone. How do I minimize anxiety while keeping the information available to her?

There were many responses and I won’t try to share all of them as I am short on time today. One of the wiser persons wrote – I would not assume her telling you she’s only interested in siblings is accurate. My guess is she’s dealing with adoptee loyalty and can’t tell you otherwise. She’s 13. She should have access to all of it on her own without you involved. If she matches, Don’t read her messages and communications. It’s her family. If she wants to talk to you about it then she will.

blogger’s note – My sons are egg donor conceived. Our donor did 23 and Me. I bought a kit for my husband, then kits for each son. I do not gatekeep. It allowed us to fully discuss our reasons for conceiving them the way we did. The egg donor is willing for contact – if they chose – and 23 and Me offers them a private communication channel.

Disconnected by Fear

An adoptee writes –

I was adopted soon after birth in a very closed adoption. Through DNA testing and Facebook stalking, I found my biological mother in 2021. Though reserved, she agreed to meet in July 2021. I flew to her state (11 hours driving distance) and spent 4 hours with her in a restaurant, and then we went our separate ways. She was nice but said she had “memory issues” and couldn’t remember a lot of that time in her life. She has no pictures on social media and I didn’t take one when I met her.

In June this year, she said she wanted to drive the 11 hours with her husband and their camper to see me and my family. I was both ecstatic and very anxious, but made plans with her anyway. I checked in a few times between June and this weekend, because I knew she might change her mind. She frequently “likes” my posts on Facebook but we don’t talk much outside of that. She drove 10 hours in my direction and camped overnight on Friday in a town 1 hour away.

Saturday morning, she was supposed to come over to my house to meet my kids and husband and have breakfast. I scrubbed the whole house, bought a fruit and cheese tray, croissants, donuts, etc. At 8am, she texts me and says they need to bail and go back to their home state, because “storms” were in the forecast that night (storms were forecasted about 15 hours after she texted me, so not imminent.)

I’m struggling so much with feelings of abandonment and rejection resurfacing. I want to totally shut down and block her from my Facebook (where she gets daily insights into my life and my family, and I get nothing in return because she never posts and has no pictures on hers). How could she drive 10 hours in my direction and turn around with only 1 hour to go? I’m really having a hard time knowing how to navigate this. She hasn’t texted me since and I just told her I hope she has a safe drive home, because I don’t want to admit how much this hurts. Is it futile to try to have a relationship with someone so closed off and inaccessible?

One direct response was – She is afraid. She feels bad and she doesn’t want to hurt you more that she already has.

Blogger’s thought – it really is difficult to build a relationship, even with the advantage of genetic familial connection, when there is no physically shared family experiences and there has been no real relationship for so many years, decades even. This has been my experience in connecting with biological, genetic relatives as the child of parents who were both adoptees. It is awkward and so much is lacking due to the passage of time between people with no daily, monthly, yearly history together.

To make the point, another person commented – I’ve been in similar situation with my “biological father” and he never makes any effort. It hurts. I drove half way across the country to meet him and don’t hear from him unless I reach out. I’ve spoken to him maybe 2 times since 2017. My biological mother isn’t any different really, except she’s much closer.

Another person reaffirmed the earlier comments – I read your story. What I infer from it is that she is struggling mentally / emotionally with how to navigate a relationship with you, and unfortunately that has an impact on you, causing more harm. For her to want to make such a long trek and to get 10 hours into an 11 hour journey tells me that a motivation / desire is there, but stopping one hour away and bailing with a pitiful excuse indicates to me that she is overwhelmed or afraid, she doesn’t know how to handle the emotional toll and show up for you, so she ran away. Fight / flight / freeze; she chose flight.

A mother who surrendered a child to adoption wrote – She panicked. Maybe even had a anxiety or panic attack. She might also have PTSD from this whole situation and from being that close to you. I went up to DC so my husband could meet my family. It was the closest I’d been to my baby since his adoption finalized. I was on edge for two hours as we were leaving and even cried, while holding my second child.. It is truly so hard to navigate those feelings. Nothing can replace you and nothing can help that pain except for time. Give her time.

A Happy Reunion

Jimmy Lippert Thyden with his mother, María Angélica González

Though so much time may have been lost, I always love reunion stories. Both The Guardian LINK>Hi, Mom. I love you and USA Today LINK>Virginia man meets Chilean family.

From USA Today – It has been 42 years since María Angélica González saw her son. He was a newborn. A nurse told González he needed to be put in an incubator because he was premature. Not long after, she returned with devastating news: The baby was dead.

For 42 years, that’s what González believed. For 42 years, it has been a lie. Gonzalez’s son, Jimmy Lippert Thyden, was stolen from González, adopted out to unwitting parents in the United States and raised in Arlington, Virginia. For 42 years, Thyden believed he had no living relatives in Chile, where he was born.

Then one day in April, Thyden read a USA TODAY story about a California man who had learned he was stolen from his mother in Chile and illegally adopted out to an American couple. It got Thyden thinking: Could the same thing have happened to him? Within weeks, Thyden learned the truth. And last week, González finally got to hug her son.

From The Guardian – Under the brutal 1973-1990 dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, tens of thousands of babies were taken from their parents and adopted by foreigners. Thyden was raised as one of three siblings in a loving, two-parent household. Thyden knew he was born in Chile. He grew up to serve with the US Marines for 19 years and established himself as a criminal defense attorney. But he and his adopted family believed he had no living relatives left in the South American nation.

Human rights groups believe more than 20,000 babies were snatched away from mostly low-income mothers in Chile and then put up to be adopted by people in foreign countries who paid what they believed were legitimate fees – yet who had been lied to about the babies’ circumstances. Midwives, doctors, social workers, nuns, priests and judges all had roles in the plot, which was financially lucrative for its participants as well as Pinochet’s government.

Thyden made contact with an organization named LINK>Nos Buscamos, which means “we look for each other” in Spanish. The group’s volunteers use DNA tests donated by the genealogy platform My Heritage to reunite families who were separated by Pinochet. In 2014, reporters for the Chilean investigative news agency Ciper exposed the human trafficking operation that existed under Pinochet. In addition to his biological mother, he also has four biological brothers and a sister.

Regarding his adoptive life, he says – He was grateful that his adopted family gave him “every opportunity” to thrive in the US. “They … spared me nothing,” said Thyden, who lives in Ashburn, Virginia, with his wife and two daughters. “I had a loving home, opportunities, strong values and a great education.” However, regarding his genetic mother, he says – “To know [her] is to know she is a loving and caring person,” Thyden remarked. “It becomes very real. We feel as though we have fit in all along – like a missing puzzle piece now found but meant to fit all along.”

The Unthought Known

My mom was full of sayings, actually my dad too. “Honesty is the best policy” was one. I guess it was a deep one for me, for I’ve always tried to be what I refer to as a “straight” shooter. I have a friend who says somewhere deep down inside, she always knew, even if what she deeply knew could not be fully articulated. Eventually, the truth came out. It usually does.

So, maybe I also knew that secrets never keep very well. As ignorant as we were, we never kept the truth of how they were conceived from our sons. Following advice I had seen offered, we told them abbreviated origin stories when they were yet very young, even if these were stories they were too young to fully grasp. After I learned our egg donor had done a 23 and Me test, I bought one for my husband and then test kits for both boys. They were older now and we could honestly discuss the whole situation with them and they could comprehend it fully. 23 and Me gives them a private channel of communication with their egg donor (genetic mother), if they chose. They have also spent time with her and her youngest son, when they were yet very young, though they’ve only seen photos of the other two. Distance and financial constraints negate our having very much contact.

Since learning my adoptee parents’ origin stories (they both were adopted), I’ve also learned a lot about all things adoption and that extends into donor conceived persons’ stories, as well as what is referred to as a non-parent event – meaning that someone discovers that at least one (or sometimes both) of the parents they thought were theirs – were not. This can be painful and difficult for one to wrap their mind around, especially if this knowledge comes late in life. That is what happened to Jon Baime when he was 54 years old.

His subsequent documentary is available at LINK>video on demand. This can be rented from the Microsoft Store, Apple TV, Amazon Video, Vudu, Google Play Movies, YouTube, or Spectrum On Demand.

Baime shares his journey in the interview with LINK>Severance Magazine. It is this interview where I got the title of today’s blog. It begins with this background – Imagine yourself in this scenario. You tell your 92-year-old father that you want to take a DNA test to learn more about your heritage. Your father says, “I don’t want you to take that test until after I’m dead!” You ask why, and he can’t or won’t tell you. What do you do? Naturally, you take the test, and your father says, “Fine, piss on my wish,” and you spend weeks waiting for the results and wondering what’s the big mystery.

That’s what happened to Jon Baime when he was 54-years old. You might think he shouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the man he believed to be his father wasn’t related in any way, that he was in fact donor conceived, that his parents had been keeping a secret from him, about him. But even if you were raised in a family that keeps secrets, as he was, where children were often told that certain matters were none of their business—and even if you’ve always known that something in your family wasn’t quite adding up—it’s always a shock to find out your identity is not what you’ve always believed it to be, that your relationships changed in the moment you received your test results, that your whole world flipped upside down and there’s suddenly so much you don’t know that your head spins.

During the four years after his DNA surprise, he used his professional skills as an Atlanta-based producer of non-fiction projects, to unravel the family’s secrets and lies -researching and scrambling through a trove of family history in the form of photos and home movies, and traveling the country to interview his older brothers (also donor conceived with mixed reactions) and his new siblings (who had appeared as DNA matches). One sees why genetic mirroring can be important to a person in the photo below.

Baime and his biological father, Harrison.

Saving The Little Native Kid

This is the truth – “red and yellow, black and white – all are precious”. A song we sang when I was a child in Sunday School. It is disturbing though to know such things are used against any child. Today’s story –

Adoptive parents telling an adopted child that they “saved me from growing up in a reservation,” her adoptive parents exact words. Problem was – this child turns out not having been Native American at all. Her natural grandmother claimed she was Native American and Mormon, something she believed until she was 30 years old because of a) trauma b) wanting to believe?? She says, “I thought I was this like special little native American princess because my a parents made it seem this way … also my name means princess, so it’s always been something they kinda said was related to my “native American history” (and after my adoptive mom’s gran) …”

So yeah, she studied with vigor Native American art, history, especially Cherokee traditions… But now she is embarrassed – “How fucking stupid I must have looked.. were my adoptive parents laughing at me behind my back? Were other people laughing at me behind my back? They *must* have been…”

She goes on to add – “Meanwhile, I have a gran I’ve never met who desperately wanted to keep me, enough to lie to multiple government agencies about it, but I’ve never ever met her or seen a photo or even know her name.” She ends on this note – Trauma really boils up when you least expect it.

One commenter said – “I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through. And whether it is or isn’t your culture, I’m sorry they even degraded it with their comment about the reservation.”

Another adoptee offers this – “I was also raised being told I was Native, although they had no way of possibly knowing. I spoke to a few friends who are Native American about it once, and they commented that they have seen that happen often. Get a child and connect it to something negative (not my view) and you can make a better case for saving the “poor little Indian kid”. It’s so disturbing… and disappointing to learn they could lie so easily. I’ll say this though, nothing I learned, studied or love about Native culture has been a waste. My passion as an adult now lies with endangered Native languages. Take what your parents used against you, and make it into something beautiful.”

Another adoptee shared some history behind this practice – if you feel like doing some research, look into the LINK>Dawes Rolls and “Five Dollar Indians” (ie some white people bribed government officials to obtain land allotments, but this was not as widespread as some would believe). A LOT of white people claimed Native ancestry for the government benefits and paid to have the records falsified. I think there’s probably thousands of families who truly think that they’re part Native, but it’s actually based on a century old land-grab lie. I was also told that I was a large percentage Native and it was a big shock when my 23 and Me came back at 1%.

An adoptee who is also a lawyer suggested – I’m betting your biological grandmother made the Native American claim in order to invoke the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). That act puts restrictions on adoption of children who have Native heritage. It’s a way to block or slow an adoption, while it’s being worked out. It would explain the “hoops” your adoptive parents had to jump through.

How did you find out it’s wrong? If it’s from commercial DNA testing, it might not have shown up because DNA testing is still quirky. Meaning — both could be true. You might have some Native heritage but it might be attenuated enough not to show up. She answered – “my birth father said it’s absolutely not true.” To which the lawyer suggested – I’m betting your biological grandmother said it as a last ditch effort to fight the adoption. That would make everyone jump through ICWA hoops and give her time. If it helps — I bet she said it meaning well, trying to fight. And your adoptive parents believed it. There’s no right answer on that one. Not believing her would be awful. Believing they lied makes you feel betrayed. I’m so sorry.

One adoptive parent commented – when we adopted one of our children, we were told that the father was blond, blue eyed, light skinned English heritage and the mother was 1/2 Czech, 1/4 English and 1/4 Spanish (from Spain). The report was very detailed and specific. The agency said in a very snotty way that “all the rich Mexicans say they are only Spanish but the baby may darken up a bit”. Fortunately we were open to an interracial adoption because our child looks like many Mexican Americans—pin straight jet black hair, black eyes, olive skin. DNA testing done when this child was already an adult showed that in fact the father must have been mixed Latino or just Native American. The heritage is 1/4 central European and the rest is the mix of a little Spanish/Italian and a lot Native American and that is fairly typical of Mexican American immigrants. My point is that 1) Biological mothers sometimes misidentify the father—maybe to involve someone more compliant in signing paperwork, maybe for other reasons 2) birth parents themselves don’t know their heritage or have shame about their heritage and believe myths about where they came from 3) agencies are selling a product and have every incentive to romanticize the story (Cherokee princess) or make the product more appealing in other ways (75% European vs 35% European). It is one of the tragedies of adoption that not only is the specific connection to the adoptee’s biological family lost but also the connection to cultural heritage. I’m really sorry that you were led astray. It sounds like your adoptive parents were complicit in perpetuating your heritage as “exotic.”

And this sad story – My birth mother told everyone my birth father was this Hispanic man. I think I knew it couldn’t be true because I am very obviously white, but wanted to believe because I wanted to trust her (and I look so much like her, so that was my reasoning for almost 20 years). My husband bought me a DNA test a few years back and turns out that was NOT my father – my father was actually her step brother (my grandparents got together when their kids were teens). She was well aware of who my father was. I can’t even describe the level of hurt I walked through during that season. It really sucks being lied to, especially after growing up and never knowing my heritage really. Not to mention feeling like a big dirty secret and so incredibly ridiculous for believing such a big lie.