The Beginning

THE BEGINNING

Aug 29th at 6:18 I was born, into a cold and unloved, unwanted world around me, If, one could only talk when they are born to express their wishes or to try to change the minds of the powers that are in control, my life probably would have been quite different. My mother a twenty-six year old woman, educated only to the eighth grade, married only once, divorced three years later with a son, George, thereafter two other children came along Kathy and Tammie, both bastard children, and then came me another bastard almost a year and a month after Tammie. My sisters know not of their fathers at this time, and my mother feels that bringing me home, another bastard child, would harm my other two sisters cause they lived in the same neighborhood their whole life, and most know of how Kathy and Tammie were born, and currently living with her maternal grandparents, who give her no support and despise her life, she feels I deserve to go to a family with two parents and new start on life, so she proceeds with turning me over to the state of Massachusetts for adoption.
Sept 10th is the day I officially enter a foster home, I guess back then they called them boarding homes, twelve days after I was born, I waited patiently in the newborn section of the hospital touched only by nurses doing their job, and longing to enter a family.
It seems rather funny to me writing this new stuff about me, you see I had no idea of who I was before I was three or four years of age, I just recently asked for my birth records from the state in which I was born, the earliest memory I have is riding in a car with an older woman and another little boy , I remember stopping at a gas station slash food mart, and Mrs. Brenan getting us ice cream cones, and I was happy as a bird, and on my way to a new home, I remember running from the car and into this lady’s arms that I would now call mom, but this shall be in the next chapter.
So from what I am gathering in my files, on Sept 10 1963, a lady came to pick me up from the hospital, her name is Theresa, and she would be my boarding home mother till my biological mother signs over adoption papers, and an adoption home is found for me. This family apparently fell in love with me from the start, starting calling me “princess”, and buying many dresses, showing me off like a proud doll. It was here when I started with my skin condition called eczema, the boarding mother says I had a patch of it when she brought me home from the hospital. Within a month it got worse where it covered my whole body, my worker at the time said I was “being constantly held” and that the foster mother seemed to “derive satisfaction in saying she wasn’t spoiled much”. It was here also that I had a a few tests from a psychologist, it appeared that I was dropping toys and having a difficult time picking them and not looking for any help or support or comfort from my caregiver, so the doctor evaluated me as an “emotionally upset baby” and felt that the baby “needed a change rather desperately to a more secure home without all the complicated emotional aspects of the current home” This family had also made inquires as to adopting me, but they could not because the state required them to sign a non-adoption agreement, for they were just a boarding house. They went as far as calling a senator in regards to this. The state felt they had to move me to a different home on account of the doctors evaluations, and because they kept asking to adopt. So on Feb 13 1964, I was removed from George and Theresa home on Daytona St in Springfield Mass and placed with a new family on Berkshire Ave Southwick Mass. There is not too much documentation from this home, as I was only here for seven months. I was doing well the skin condition was clearing up, the foster parents knew what their job was as to preparing me for an adoptive home. The worker described me as “a plain, but somewhat appealing child and quite nervous”. I am going to say here those words when I read it didn’t exactly make me feel any better, being the second time a worker calling me plain somewhat appealing child was wrenching, I mean cmon what the hell did I look like here, at least the fucking files could have come with pictures so I could see what the hell I looked like. The eczema seems to have a pattern when breaking out more, when I am nervous or upset. So I guess this was a good home, but then again only a boarding home. The foster mother here fell ill which resulted another disruption for me and off I go again to another home on Fisher Ave in E Longmeadow Mass in Oct 22, 1964.Where I stay till another psychologist evaluates me, and says they need to remove me to a more stimulating home. I was in this home for almost 2 years, with many other children who had been adopted; the foster mother described me as a “difficult child to take care of”. I didn’t care to eat many things, but was beginning to make progress. I am wondering how I can be a difficult child at 27 months of age, but with so many placements from the time I was born one can only wonder why. I was slow to learn many things, I still could not talk, but the worker says I was “slowly overcoming the emotional problems that were evident in previous testing”. They say in looking for a home I would need a family that was flexible and with understanding of this type of girl as I am sensitive and rather slow, but again an appealing child and I should continue to thrive. Another psychologist tested me while I was in this home, and again said I was not attaching like a normal child would, and that the current foster mother would laugh at every mistake I made at testing, I was made to feel inferior, and not good enough, so once again I am removed from this home and placed with the Arial’s on Popular St in Montague City Mass. I come to this home on Oct 14th 1966, where I live as a foster child till the Arial’s adopt me on Jan 5th 1968.
So, I am five years of age before a family adopts me, I didn’t think it took that long for newborns to get adopted, but such was to be my fate I gather. Writing this first segment of my life has been quite difficult, because I always thought my life sucked from the age of three, but now it sucked even as a baby. Do I hold anger towards my mother, no, I cannot, for I know partial of her life from the records, she was a sad women, looking for love herself, she had two other daughters that meant the world to her and I know she loved me enough to have me have a better life than what she had, she didn’t exactly have a lot of support in her life from family members, although I think the state could have helped her more, at such times in our history, there was a commodity in babies, such a time that baby black markets were heavy at the time, women could go to houses have their babies and just give them away with no birth records, the wanting party would pay the doctors, the mother, and whoever else was involved, and they would have their baby, no questions asked, till many years later. If I didn’t feel like a troll then I sure feel like a troll after reading the beginning of my life, my fate was sealed at birth. Till I unsealed it myself in the coming years.