When I Was Jennifer

Hi All,

After reading the story of adoptions in The Chronicle Herald yesterday, http://www.thechronicleherald.ca/Front/1038595.html I had some of the same feelings as the people in this story on adoption reunions. Sometimes they work, often times, they don’t. It’s funny because my Mom and I were talking about what people expect to get from meeting their birth parents just yesterday.

You see, before I was Michelle Symes, SuperMom and blogger extraordinaire (LOL), I was Michelle Kozera, student and athlete, and even before that I was Jennifer MacDonnell.

I was adopted when I was about two months old by my loving and caring parents. I NEVER call them my "adoptive parents" because to me, they are just my parents.

I can not remember a time in my life when I didn't know that I was adopted. My parents tried to explain adoption to me when I was about four years old. After thinking they had done a bang up job trying to explain something so complicated to a young child who had never had any other Mom and Dad, they took me to visit my Grandparents. My Mom tells me the story of her asking me to explain to my Grampy the story of adoption they had told me. I told my Grampy I was "dopted". He looked puzzled and asked me what dopted meant. I confidently told him that "someone dopted me on the floor and Mommy and Daddy picked me up and took me home." I don't think their efforts had failed, I think that's about as much as a four year old could understand at the time.

Being the most curious and nosy person I know, I myself am always a bit surprised that I have never had the need that some adoptees feel to meet their birth parents. My parents have told me all they know about my birth Mother. She was 18 at the time of my birth, came from a large family, and didn't feel like she had the resources to raise a child. Being a mother myself, I can not begin to imagine the grief she must have felt having to give me up. But I am glad she did. I don't mean glad as in the fact that I don't think she loved me, I know she did. She came from the very small community of Inverness, and in the 1970s, it was not like it is today when teens often raise their own out of wedlock children.

I have never not known love. Even when I was Jennifer in the orphanage before I was adopted by my parents, I know I was loved and well cared for. I know this because over the years, my parents and I have run into people from that orphanage and they have always treated me with kindness and expressed genuine interest in my well being.

The only frustrating part of being adopted that I have run into is the fact that I have very little family medical history. And I can't get it unless I meet my birth mother and ask her myself. Although I would like to have this medical information for myself and especially for my children, I don't seek it. My birth Mother was young when she had me, and hopefully had more children. Maybe she's married. Maybe her husband doesn't know about me. Do I have the right to just barge into her life and ask her to divulge medical information? Technically I do have that right, but what kind of pain and disruption would that cause her? I have always known that I could probably bypass all the “red tape” of government to find my birth Mother. Chances are if I pick up the phone book and make one call to Inverness, I would probably find birth relatives or even my birth Mother in a couple of hours but I never have. And I probably never will. Maybe knowing I could easily find my birth family makes me not so curious.

I have a wonderful family and two younger brothers who were a surprise to my parents as my Mom was told she could never give birth to children. I had Grandparents who adored me, a large extended family, and I have NEVER felt like an outsider in my family.

I must admit that I have always wanted someone who looks like me. Maybe it's vanity, I'm not really sure why, but it's just something I've always wanted. I must have "one of those faces" because throughout my life, I have, more times than I can count heard that I look "just like-so-and-so". And I can't tell you how many times people have called me Jennifer, or told me I look like a Jennifer. Strange. When my oldest son was born, I remember wondering if he would look like me. And I'll never forget the day we Mom came up to visit us and met her first Grandchild. I met her at the door with the baby in my arms, and told me he looked just like my husband. I told her I knew (and he did look like my husband), but she was supposed to tell me that he looked like me because no one else did!

I have always wanted a sister, and when my brothers were born (when I was seven and eight years old), I was honestly disappointed. Especially since my Mom had sworn to me when she was pregnant with my youngest brother that he was a girl. I'm over it now, of course, and love my brothers dearly. I remember grumbling about the story of my youngest brother being a girl to my husband one day and he asked me if I had a sister and she contacted me, what would I do? I had never thought of that before. I told him I would be surprised, but she would not be my "sister". Physically she would be my sister, but she was not there when I was growing up, my brothers were. She wasn't there for all the family trips around the Cabot Trail, all the fun times we had as a family. She could possibly become a friend, and biologically a sister, but not emotionally.


People always ask me, when they find out I'm adopted if I've met my birth family. I tell them that the only thing I would want to tell my birth Mother is thank you. Thank you for not getting an abortion and thank you for giving me life.

To my parents, thank you for always loving and supporting me and giving me a wonderful life. To my birth Mother, thank you for giving me the opportunity to live this wonderful life.

Until next time,

Michelle