So what is my story?

To my kids: I want you to understand the journey I am on and how it came about. I have found huge areas of my life and emotions have been shut away because for whatever reason, I was afraid to admit them, let alone explore them.

A big realization is that if I am curious about the circumstances of my birth and the family I came from, that in no way diminishes my adopted family, how I feel about them, and the gratitude I feel for being adopted into the family I was.

I hope you can understand this so that you can allow me to travel this path. I don't know where it will lead and am on the roller coaster of emotion as I travel it.

I hope as I let myself live this experience and the emotions involved I may become a better husband and father. I suspect that the shut off areas of my emotions prevented me from relating to all of you as I should have.

I love you,

Dad

If you haven't seen the movie October Baby, some of this may be hard to follow. Solution: see it!
Here is a link to buy on Amazon: October Baby Movie

You can rent it here: October Baby Movie

12-18-2012

So what is my story?

I watched the movie October Baby tonight and I am overwhelmed with emotion as I have been every time I have seen it.

Where did I come from?

I was adopted into a wonderful, imperfect family with a mom and dad who loved me and wanted me.

Why am I afraid to feel?

I have been afraid to admit that I wonder who my birth mom is. Could I even wonder if there was a guy who was my dad?

I think if I have these feelings it somehow diminishes the family I was raised in.

Was I wanted?

This thought is present in almost every day I live.

I remember how sick my adopted mom was. I remember my dad asking my mom if something should be done with us kids, as my mom was not coping well. Can I admit that the overheard conversation took root deep in me and has, like a vine, intertwined itself through my everything?

Could other people want me?

I have a hard time believing that other people care about me. I feel so wrong to feel that way. It seems so wrong to even have an expectation that people should care or want to be my friend.

So I don't know what to do with all of this but I see that it is part of my story. Right or wrong, it is I and how I feel. I will admit that I feel.

12-19-2012

So I realize there is a hole.

Not realize but admit.

I don't know if it is big or small, deep or shallow. It may not even be a hole -  just a black spot in the distance.

Throughout my life, I have wondered.

I know my birth name: William Paul Bibelhausen; Born on July 20, 1955 at Porter Sanitarium and Hospital.

I have searched the Internet a little and looked in the phone book. Never found anything that seemed worthwhile.

But do I even want to go there. Are things better left as they are? Could I find more pain? Would I be happy or sad if I found out more?

I have thoughts but I will wait, think, and move slow.

12-20-2012

Why the tears?

Why am I moved so deeply by October Baby?

It has opened something so deep. I feel pulled to watch it over and over until I find what it is.

12-21-2012

A trail to the past?

My adoption papers are the only ones that survived. I have what my siblings David and Lucille don't - my birth name. I can't remember when I first discovered that. It almost seems like I have always known but I know that is not true.

So I have printed out the papers to request my birth records. One of these days I will look them over and maybe fill them out. It is not a request to find who my birth mother was directly although a name may come from the records. It would be interesting to see what information is contained in them.

12-22-2012

I watched October Baby again this afternoon. Here are my thoughts.

Writing

A journal is a safe place to "think out loud" - to put feelings and thoughts into words. Sometimes I need a private place and sometimes I want to blog and reveal my inmost place to anyone who would care.

Unwanted?

Hanna felt unwanted and as if she had no right to exist.

I have felt unwanted a lot. Another feeling is that many things I become involved with stagnate. It's like there is something inherently wrong with me. As if things would have been better without me.

Who am I?

Hanna wanted to see her birth certificate - "To know who I am." "I want to know who my birth mother is."

 I know who I am - I think. Yet there is mystery. What kind of person was my mother or father? What kind of family did they come from? Were they good or bad people?

Did my mother hate me or did she give me up with pain, regret and hope of something better. Did she wonder about me through the years? Did she try to forget me?

Answers?

Hanna said, "I want answers; I want to get on with my life; Right now I feel stuck."

I don't know if feel stuck but sometimes I wonder why I feel so insecure and afraid of being abandoned. Does that emotion come from this black hole in my life?

I don't even know me...

Sometimes I think I am a good person. Most of the time I feel like a huge failure who probably should never have been married or had children so less people would have been hurt by me. Am I really a bad person?

I do my job well and get many good comments. Why not in the rest of my life - at least by the people who matter most?

Questions?

The policeman asks, "What will you say if you find your mother?

I think I would be so scared of that meeting unless I had an indication before of something good to come from it.

Hanna later said, "I'm starting to think that I shouldn't have found out about all this."

The search may reveal things that could not have been imagined or expected - good or bad.

Hanna: "I found my mom."

How loaded that was. Yes she found her and fresh rejection.

20 weeks

Hannah's mother tells her that she was pregnant and lost twins at 20 weeks.

I know that place. Wendy and I had twin boys who died at 20 weeks. If only we had known how we should have dealt with it. There should have been a funeral - a proper good bye. Instead there were and probably still are wounds.

Will things be different?

In the church, Hanna says, "Somehow I thought I would get all these answers and when I got back would feel different."

Is that the risk? Should I avoid the risk - play it safe so I avoid something that is possible?

Hanna: "Why didn't she want me? What is so wrong with me?"

That is the feeling we have. It is us. We are somehow defective. But maybe it isn't. Maybe it is the other person who is. This could be true in many other areas too.

Hope

The priest to Hanna: "Live your life - live it to the full!"

Yes - hope of something better.

Healing

Hanna to her dad: "Thank you...for wanting me."

Wanting to be wanted. I know it well.

2-14-2013

Valentine's Day

I filled out the papers to request my birth records. Also the papers to put my name on the Colorado Volunteer Adoption Registry. I sent them in the mail. I won't know anything for at least a month. I wonder what there will be? Dare I hope for something?

March 6, 2013

My original birth certificate came in the mail today. I now know the names of my birth mother and father. They were unmarried and 23 when I was born. No previous children.

To be continued in My New Story