CABBAGE PATCH KID (Adoption)

Member Name: leeanne160480

Product:	Adoption
Date:	20/10/08 (149 review reads)
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Little update - Thanks to those of you that have nominated this for a crown, you'r personal messages have been nice!

Adoption, which way do you look at it? The mistake that is going to a better place? The mother who didn't realise motherhood was such a tough job and wants her old life back? The thought in the back of the mothers head for the rest of her life that she gave her creation away and the thought in the innocent child's head for the rest of their life that "what did I do wrong?" Yes, that child is me and that could be the thought in my head. This story may get confusing, but I will try my best to get it out.

Way back in the late 1960's there was a married couple, Mr and Mrs Marshall. They wanted children but with every pregnancy followed a miscarriage. All they wanted was to be parents and give their children lot of love. Unfortunately this was not to be and the conclusion came that Mrs Marshall would never carry a child. Their long to have children never went away though and they decided they would adopt. They went through whatever process they had to do and at the end of it they went to the children's home in Edinburgh to get a child or children. They ended up picking 4 children to adopt, all of similar ages 8 years old and under, the youngest was 4 I think. 2 boys and 2 girls. They had been living in the home for a while now since their parents had gave them up. So they adopted them and became their carers.

1 of those children was my mother.

So the 4 children grew up. Mr and Mrs Marshall done a good job of bringing them up. Mrs Marshall was a total home maker, tea always on the table, bath times and bedtime stories and Mr Marshall worked hard to keep his now extended family so they could have the odd little holiday and the luxuries at Christmas.

In 1979 all the children were all still living at home, but things with my mother Valerie was not going well with Mr and Mrs Marshall. Who really knows what was happening, I don't as I wasn't there and no one wants to talk about it. Anyway Valerie decided to leave home and get her own place. Then the rumours started - Valerie was pregnant at aged 19. Was it true? She said no, so they believed her. Although the weight was going onto her, she still denied it and then she disappeared for a bit.

She was pregnant and I am that baby.

Fast forward a couple of months and the Marshall's had tracked Valerie down and she admitted that she'd had a baby girl and her name was Leeanne. The Marshall's asked if she needed any help or needed them to baby sit some time to let her go out and so on, as this was potentially their grand daughter. Valerie said no and they left. Again the rumours started again that Valerie wasn't coping and she would palm Leeanne off to her neighbours to watch and sometimes Leeanne's babysitter was a Great Dane dog, while Valerie went out for a few hours. Again the Marshall's tried to offer help, but again it was refused.

When I was 5 months old the Marshall's got a phone call from Valerie's neighbour that sometimes babysat. Valerie had offered them Leeanne to keep. The neighbours were roughly the same age as the Marshall's - early 40's and were happy to take care of the child, but thought if Valerie was going to do that, then it would be better if her grandparents were the ones to take care of me. So they went to Valerie's house and no answer, however they heard a baby inside the house, which was I. The neighbours had a spare key, so they opened the door and found me lying on the floor up against my babysitter - the Great Dane dog. So the Marshall's waited the few hours for Valerie to come home and find out what she was up to. She admitted that she would rather go out than have to deal with me and she was going to give me away, or do "something stupid" It was arranged that the Marshall's were going to take me and raise me as their own. However on any paperwork it was left that Valerie was my mother, so the Marshall's didn't really have any legal rights.

Fast-forward to 1987 and I was a happy 7 year old. Lots of friends, lovely dog and a good mummy and daddy. Some nasty person at my school said that my mummy wasn't my mummy, so I come home and said was I was told at school. This was the time I was told I was a very special girl, I had been chosen and I had lots of love. I remember feeling hurt and unwanted, but things just muddled on. After all there was nothing I could do to change things and it sounded like I was in a whole better place.

They usually say that children that go through adoption and so on maybe tend to rebel or that but I don't think I was that bad. I started to have a few ciders at weekend with my friends at aged 16 ½, but I think that's the norm anyway and I was no different. Unfortunately I made a few mistakes where boys went. I was sometimes looking for love, as I felt a bit unwanted and boys were happy to be nice to me, but this didn't last forever. I met my now husband in 1997 so I've put the past behind me in regards to the others.

In 2005 I got word saying that my sister had been looking for me. It turns out that after giving me away Valerie has given her next child away. My sister was born 14 months after me, so chances are Valerie was pregnant with my sister as she was getting rid of me. As soon as she had my sister I think she gave her straight up for adoption and she was placed with a family. So she was done by the official way. It turns out the Marshall's already heard that Valerie was pregnant again and offered to take my sister in and raise us both tother, but again Valerie denied it and adopted my sister out before the Marshall's knew. I now work in the same place my sister works and although it is a large place and she is on a different shift to me we bump into each other now and again. We went out for a meal together with our husbands, and it's not that I dislike her, but I'm used to being alone in this world with no known relative that I am not sure how to handle the situation. It's now been over 3 years and we've not bonded at all. I should want to I guess, but it's a lot to take.

The problems I face is that when I'm asked if any of my family have any heath problems and so on I can never answer, as I will never know. Also when I got married I was told I had to put my parents details on the marriage certificate. I said that they weren't my parents and the Marshall's were. I was given an address to write to and state why I wanted the Marshall's on it, as they had never legally adopted me and was told the department of births marriages and deaths would make the decision and their say was final. I promptly got a letter back from them to say they accepted my point and I was free to state the Marshall's could go on the certificate as carers. After all I didn't want such an important document with the names of people I hated on it?

It turns out that Valerie gave away my sister and myself and went on to have another 5 children, who she kept. Myself and my sister think we have the same dad, as we both used to have a slight turn in our left eye, that as corrected by glasses and that was from our dad's side, but we don't know any of the history.
So is adoption bad? I've had a good enough life so far. My job is good and it pays well. I have a great, supportive husband, my "family" is normal, in short life is good and I may not have had any of that if I had stayed where I was. It's hard to think what if, as I may have landed a better job and so on, but life is alright how it is just now, so maybe I was saved. I do get down sometimes though and wish I knew at least 1 blood relative (not counting my sister). I often feel I am so alone in the world and unfortunaly it is up to my husband to hold me sometimes and let me get some tears out.

I can't change the past; all I can do is work on the future.

Thanks for the read/rate and thanks for sparing the time to read about my life.

God bless

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