I don't think I've ever known the time at which I was born. Last night I decided to see if I had that information. I dug through all my adoption files and finally found a document from the hospital records. Handwritten across the top of the form was "June 22, 1950 5:05 am" How come I'm now 57 years old and that's the first time I've seen anything showing my time of birth?
Have you ever really stopped to think about all the little things you know about yourself that an adoptee never gets to know? I'm not saying "poor me." I'm saying there's good cause for all the holes I've sensed in my life for my whole life.
Here's the short story and some tidbits:
Daddy and Mother decided they wanted a daughter. They had two sons already, and mother had been pregnant once shortly after they were married and gave birth to a stillborn daughter. For whatever reason, they decided not to get pregnant again and take their chances on another son, but rather to adopt a daughter.
So Daddy told all his colleagues who had obstetrics practices that he wanted to adopt a daughter. He asked them to consider him as the potential adoptive parent should any of them have a patient come into labor with no identified recipient for the child.
In the evening of June 21, 1950, the phone rang in their home. The doctor calling told them he had a patient in labor and if it was a girl, they had a daughter. I imagine they didn't sleep very well that night. The next morning they received the second call, congratulating them on the birth of their daughter.
Mother had an appointment that day at the beauty shop to get a permanent. She told the hair stylist she had just had a baby, and the woman looked at her like she was crazy.
On Mother's sister's birthday four days later, Mother sent Aunt Helen a telegram, stating, "Happy Birthday. Announcing Janet Gail Crews, born June 22nd." Her sister was very angry with her for hiding her pregnancy for nine months. (Okay, I never said this was a functional family!)
On June 28th, a family friend drove Mother in his car to the hospital to pick me up. She had a little cotton batiste dress for me. Daddy didn't go along and they didn't drive a car that was identifiable to Mother and Daddy because they didn't want my birthmother to be able to later find them and decide she wanted me back.
Daddy brought the rolling metal baby cart home from his office to be my crib until they could get a nursery together. Many years later when Tyler was so sick as an infant, Daddy let me have that cart so I could move Tyler around the house and keep him near me at all times.
Mother tells me she was so thrilled to have me. She says she loved me so much she would stand by my crib and cry.
One of my earliest memories is of Daddy telling me I was his "special delivery baby."
As I did for PianoLady, I'll tell you a couple of people who share my birthday: Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Kris Kristofferson, Bill Blass and Meryl Streep (who is a year older than I and looks darned good for 58!).
And I'll thank you for all the good wishes and close with a quote from Anne Morrow Lindbergh, whose writings I love.
"We tend not to choose the unknown, which might be a shock or a disappointment or simply a little difficult to cope with. And yet it is the unknown with all its disappointments and surprises that is the most enriching."
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