sorry, don't mean to be so emotional here, but the writing of it helps
I can't concentrate. I'm going through the motions, making peanut butter sandwiches for school lunch, chopping fruits and veggies for the big bad bird, tossing kibble to dog and cat and cavy, passing out Avon brochures, and keeping the house one step ahead of germ condemnation. It's all good. I'm alright. Or I'm not alright, I can't tell. I'm scared.
The day before yesterday I got a call. The area code was from the town and state in which I lived twenty years ago.
"Hi, is this Birdie?"
"Yes?" I racked my brain, trying to place the woman's voice with a face from my past.
"Birdie Jones?"
"Yes?" I still didn't recognize her, but she spoke with the slight hesitation of someone who bears uncertain news.
"My name is Janet Andrews. I'm a social worker with Catholic Charities."
My heart stopped beating and my brain exploded. That sounds like trite hyperbole, but I can't describe the stop of all time mixed with searing emotion any other way.
Janet heard the sharp intake of my breath, and she continued her greeting. The baby girl I gave up for adoption oh so many years ago was now an adult, and was seeking her birth mother.
"She's inquisitive. She's certain she wants contact with you. Her adoptive parents are supportive of this, and her father came into our offices with her."
Janet carefully relayed the information, speaking slowly, deliberately, not allowing herself to give anyone's name or location. I didn't speak much at all, only made small noises into the telephone. She talked for an hour, explaining my options. I could choose to remain anonymous. Or I could write or email or take my birth daughter's call. I only remember part of the conversation. I stopped hearing her nasal voice. I thought about what happened. I was so young. I remember the doctor speaking to me.
"Can you describe the rape to me?"
I was silent.
The hardest thing I ever went through, those nine months. I was alone in labor, I was all alone for hours, and the nurse called me weak when I asked for pain medication.
I wanted time with the baby after birth, but they wouldn't let me have it. I only had a glimpse of her - dark eyes so green and alive like mine and dark wavy hair - before they snatched her away and sent her to live with a foster family until the adoptive parents signed the papers. They put me in the worst room of the maternity ward, a room cold and metallic, purely functional without comfort, and I felt like I had done something terribly wrong. I was just a kid, and didn't know I could ask for something better.
The next day I lay still in my steel bed and they wheeled me into a cozy and cheerful room with another new mother. Friends and family came to admire her baby, bearing flowers and baby clothes, and candy. My stay was a secret from my family, they lived many miles away and my tongue refused to say the words when I talked to them on the phone. I lay alone, my body ached for my baby.
A hospital worked in pink and blue came into the room and announced it was time for us to have our babies' photographs taken, and I was too grief stricken to explain. She kept telling me it was ok, it was free. She thought I didn't have the money for the photographs, I looked so young and poor. I needed to explain it, over and over again, to everyone I saw for weeks afterward. I had two stories: the real one, and my cover story that the baby died during birth. Retelling the rape each time I explained why my belly now appeared flat and why I had no baby in my arms tore at my heart and I was silent.
I suspected this day would come, and though I relived it a thousand times in my mind, the emotions it brings to the surface are raw and unexpected and surprisingly unrelenting. I don't know what I will choose to do. I'm waiting for Janet to send a package of release of information papers. I might meet with a therapist to discuss this. I'm OK, I think. I just don't know.
4:39:04 PM 
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