Steve, from London, Ontario, Canada shares his story of being adopted after his mother lost a child. Steve and his mother never connected, in fact, she stifled his social development and seemed to be holding him back because he didn’t look like their family, and didn’t fit in. As a teen, Steve was out on his own in the streets when he learned that he had fathered a child – that’s when he became a single father.

In reunion, he found a connection to his birth mother, but her empty promises ended with rejection that surprised him.

Damon: 00:00 Hey there. I just wanted to take a sec to let you know that in between producing the show, chasing my son Seth around and generally living life, I took time to write a book about my own adoption journey. It’s called Who Am I Really? Of course. If you’d like to pre order a copy, go to WhoAmIReallypodcast.com and click shop, where you will be redirected to the publishers bookstore. I hope to make it to your reading list. Okay, here’s this week’s show.

Steve: 00:33 My birth mother tells her, look, I’m not allowed to have contact with him. The kids have his contact information. If they want to contact him, they’re welcome to. I’ve given them, you know what I mean? Everyone’s aware and man, that felt like a knife through the gut, and I don’t know why. Like I guess in that moment I just, I felt orphaned.

Voices: 01:02 Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?

Damon: 01:13 This is, Who Am I Really? A podcast about adoptees that have located and connected with their biological family members. I’m Damon Davis and on today’s show is Steve. He called me from London, Ontario, Canada. Steve shares his story of being adopted after his mother lost a child, but Steve and his mother never connected. In fact, she stifled his social development and seemed to be holding him back because he didn’t look like their family and didn’t fit in. As a teen, Steve was out on his own in the streets when he learned that he had fathered a child, that’s when he became a single father. In reunion, he found the connection to his birth mother, but empty promises ended with rejection and that surprised him. This is Steve’s journey. Steve doesn’t recall being told he was adopted. He just always knew it, but he doesn’t know how he knew that fact. By his description, his parents were typical adoptive parents in the 1970s who wanted the dreams of family many parents aspire to back then, but his adoption came about out of adversity.

Steve: 02:19 They wanted their 2.3 kids in a white picket fence. They had a girl. Then they had a, a baby who was stillborn and they were told that they would never be able to conceive again. And so at that point, um, they pursued other options and, and ended up adopting me. A year and a half after that, my mom got pregnant, so my little brother was born as sort of the miracle baby. And I think that sequence of events affected me and my life in a number of ways, that I didn’t really understand until, until much later. So here I am and I’m in this family. This is a Norwegian family. Everyone in my family is over six feet tall, blonde hair, blue eyes. They get a sun burden walking under a light bulb. And I am not like that at all. You know, I am, I am on a shorter side. I’m five, seven now, fully grown. I got black curly hair. Well, it’s gray now. Yeah, just didn’t look anything like them. And it’s very obvious, you know, in the family pictures and whatnot. So I think I always felt different. Also, I have a really unique surname. Uh, you’ve never heard it before. And so when people comment on the surname, they say, oh, that’s, and I still get this often. Oh, that’s a nice name. Um, and then I have to explain that I’m Norwegian and uh, I am obviously not Norwegian.

Damon: 03:52 Hmm. Interesting. So you have to explain something that people can see in your surname as unique and different, but they don’t know how unique and different it is because in fact, you are not even of that surname.

Steve: 04:06 Right Yeah. And I just, uh, yeah, I mean the truth is, uh, yeah, my name is, is an anglicized version of a Norwegian name that a grandfather, I guess changed it when he came over here. Regardless of that, I don’t, I don’t bother explaining it any more, now. People say, oh, that’s a nice name. I’m like, yeah, I didn’t pick it, but thank you.

Damon: 04:26 Steve has had time to explore his lack of connection with his adopted mother and his research has helped him understand why the creation of a family through adoption doesn’t always follow the script for parents and children to connect.

Steve: 04:39 But I’m still sort of trying to sort this out. So I had a decent child life. I have a childhood. I don’t really have anything to complain about. My needs were looked after, but I wouldn’t say it was a, I wasn’t happy. And I always, honestly, I just felt like my mom in particular, she just didn’t like me. But I think, and so like I’ve come to some understandings much, much later after going sort of through my reunion thing and starting to read some books and do some research and I’m coming to understand that, you know, a lady who’s grieving the loss of a, of a baby was handed another baby who was 11 months old and, and told, this’ll take all your grief away. You know, and then there’s a baby that’s been ripped away from a parent handed to another lady and you know, they’re convinced that lady’s going to take all the babies grief away. And there’s two people who, you know, needed something from each other and didn’t get it. And I, and I think that kind of explains, you know, that that’s where the relationship started and it just, it ne...