When the “Deceased” Birth Mother Isn’t
I began to think about
Aster’s birth mother long before the nanny handed her to me. It took many
months for my daughter’s biological mother not to enter into my daily thoughts.
I felt such a deep sadness for this child who, we were told, would never have
the opportunity to know the woman who birthed her. She supposedly had no other
blood relatives, so seeking out her birth family would never be an option for
Aster.
I wrote the above for the epilogue of my book, and as that
part of the story evolved, both solicited and unsolicited information began to
arrive, clearly indicating that not only was Aster’s birth mother alive, but
other blood relatives were too. Though we had come upon this surprising and
comforting news in the summer of 2009, it wasn’t until the fall of 2012 that my
husband and I committed to hiring EthioStork to conduct a birth family search.
* * *
With shaking hands,
and tears already welling in my eyes, I pushed the DVD into the computer.
Traditional music accompanied a panoramic view of Wukro, located in the north
of the Tigray region, the birthplace of our daughter. We had not taken the time
to travel north of Addis Ababa during our short stay back in December 2008, so
this visual addition to what we thought would only be an interview felt like we
had struck gold. Once the camera became still, a girl who looked to be pre-teen
entered the frame (Aster’s sister, if you can imagine that!), then slowly the
focus was the birth mother of our child, the woman who had allowed me to become a mother. By now, I could barely
see the computer screen; tears marred my view. But the interview that was about
to begin would make my initial emotions seem meaningless, for the questions and
answers that were about to be revealed would bring solace as well as longing,
two intense feelings that I would have to deeply experience before knowing what
to do next.
* * *
You may ask why, after uncovering some of the facts of our
daughter’s social history that we were not originally given, did it take us
three years to move forward with a professional search? The reasons are many;
so let me take them one at a time.
1. Back in 2009, in what now seems like the dark ages of
international adoption, we did not know what a “professional birth family
search” was. Without this awareness, we had to “be good” with knowing that
someday we would be able to go to northern Ethiopia and find birth family on
our own. Some day.
2. But … as the months, then years rolled on, my anxiety
grew. What if she is ill? What if she becomes so ill, she dies before Aster has
a chance to reunite with her? My worried mind would not rest; the negative
thoughts accompanied my every waking and sleeping moment. And each time my
three-, then four-year old daughter would mumble words about her “first mommy,”
such as, “she’s probably dead anyway,” my heart shattered. I knew I could not
live this way indefinitely.
3. With the publishing of my book in early 2011, my story
slowly entered the ethers, with the book cover image of Aster and I tugging at
others’ curiosity. I heard from a woman in Addis Ababa who wanted a copy of my
book. Her daughter, by the way, just happened to be living in the USA, in Virginia.
That daughter was Duni Zenaye.
4. When I made contact with Duni shortly after this
communication with her mother, a glimmer of hope poked through soggy corners of
my mind; perhaps my tears of frustration and grief could turn to tears of joy?
Still, another 18 months would pass before we chose to send
in the deposit for a birth family search. Why? Because, What if it doesn’t work? We will be out a lot of money,
and a whole lot of heartache. It was a gamble. Though we were lucky in that we
did have a name for Aster’s birth mother, and we did have the city where she
was born, that was it. Would the crew be able to get way up north and ask the
right people and the right questions in order to help our wishes come true? And
once we got the information, then what? Would this be the best thing for our
daughter, to see her first mother’s image? To know that she is alive, and gave
her to somebody else to raise? Would it be better if we didn’t know?
As a memoirist who has spent much of her adult life
encouraging others to know thy past in
order to better know thyself, there was no way in this world that I could
deny our daughter the right to know from where she came.
Thus, in the fall of 2012, we made the most important
financial decision of our lives: we hired EthioStork to find Aster’s birth
mother.
Weeks later, the results were in. Two copies of the DVD
arrived in the mail, and our lives absolutely changed for the better (such an inadequate word), forever.
By, Dina
McQueen, M.A.
I
hope our story will bring other adoptive parents, children, and first families
an opportunity for answers and perhaps even reunification.
