Please Listen to me...
I found both my bparents, but I've lost my child!
Submitted by Gina, Harare, Zimbabwe
I was born in 1972 in Zimbabwe to a couple aged 17. My adoptive parents (amother died 1996) were honest, upstanding people but older than most, in fact old enough to be my grandparents.
Both of English descent and having been brought up in strict Victorian-style conditions, they tried to keep my sister (their natural child born 10 months after my adoption) and myself "on the right track".
We were taught to respect our elders, unconditionally and conform to "the system". This worked fairly well until my adolescent years (the usual time of rebellion) when I attended the "best" single sex, private, senior school in the country (my adoptive parents could never afford to "buy" my place there - I got in on pure merit) and I later became mixed up in the "wrong" crowd and my grades dropped etc. (need I say more). But I have to mention that I was not involved in the sex, drugs and rock and roll side of things - I just did not get on with the elderly spinsters etc. "teaching" us (I was a complete non-conformist).
Subsequently, my parents were told my bursary would be taken away and I was sent to an unmentionable school where, with no effort and all the odds against me, I completed and passed my O'levels and was then sent to a mixed academic and secretarial college where I started but never completed a secretarial course and met my Yugoslav husband.
1989 was probably the best and worst year of my life - I met the my soulmate and became pregnant at 16 years of age. For six months I kept it secret from everybody (Vojin - my then boyfriend/now husband was the only person who knew) and denied everything if friends etc. questioned me about weight gain. I was scared to tell my parents for fear it would be shameful to the family.
Vojin persuaded his constantly absent mother to pay for me to go to Cape Town with him - he was to start at UCT in Jan/Feb 1990 and we became separated due to his visa problems.
I eventually found a home for unmarried mothers and there I was easily coerced into following the adoption route.
To cut a long story short, I gave birth to a girl whom I named Ylenia, left the hospital and due to visa restrictions returned to Zimbabwe at the end of the month. As we were so young, this had a terrible impact on my relationship with Vojin and we went our separate ways for a few years. That experience has left me numb and even now I find it difficult to take myself back.
Part II - 1996 to date. After several false starts and stops (2 years in fact) I was given information regarding my birth mother who was living in Port Elizabeth, South Africa and she arranged to come up and meet me and gave me details of my father who had been back in Zimbabwe from Europe and USA since 1983/4. He immediately wanted to meet me and we discovered we lived one suburb away from each other.
My relationship with my birth parents has definitely had its good and bad moments and we have plently of unresolved issues. My relationship with my adoptive parents and sister took a huge nosedive in the early stages of my reunification - I do feel guilty about that because it happened in the last few months of my mother's life. We are now more or less back to normal and I think that is has, in fact, made our relationship much more positive.
My husband and I, with the encouragement of my mother-in-law want to make contact with our daughter's adoptive parents because, from my own experiences with my birth parents, we feel it is very important to have contact and to know where your roots, family tree/history etc. originate (I am 1/2 Polish (father), Russian, British, South African (mother) - strong Eastern European blood). Our daughter has a full (not half or step) sister and brother who, at 4 and 2 years old respectively, know they have a sister who is the mirror image of her younger sister.
We do not want to take the issue up in court - although it may in the future become necessary - ideally we would like her to be offered the option of meeting her birth family and we would be able to arrange this at any time with as little notice as it takes.
If I had had the choice when I was a child, I know I would have wanted to meet my natural family/ies. But that is where the problem is - it's always some beaurocratic, unsympathetic body who makes these decisions - and I therefore appeal to the parents themselves or anyone who may know them - I am speaking from my own experiences as an adopted child who is now a birth mother.
Thank you for taking the time to read my story. If anyone wants to contact me for further details regarding my search for birth parents, my reunification, the period when I had to give up my child, please reply via this web page.
Good luck and please remember, nobody chooses to be born and we should unconditionally love and respect all children - our future.
Note from Website Manager:
This story has been edited (with the submitter's knowledge), omitting details about the child being sought as she is under the legal age.
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