The Body Connection

While sitting in the doctor’s office on Thursday afternoon, filling out the ubiquitous health forms, I smiled to myself at the family “health history” section. The first time I completed such a section on my own, I was a freshman at college. I didn’t realize it was relevant only to blood relatives. The college doctor scribbled, “adopted” across my answers and moved on. Back then I was just an adoptee that had completely embraced the only family she had ever known. I really don’t know if it was because my parents did such a good job of making me feel connected, or if it was just “me:” the kind of person I am. Probably both.

After I turned in all the health forms, Gale the receptionist and I chatted about our children – she thought it was “simply wonderful” that I had adopted two daughters on my own. It still surprises me when people think I was being altruistic when I adopted. I wasn’t. I just wanted to be somebody’s mother and that was the way I found to do it. There was divine matchmaking, however; I can’t imagine having any other daughters than my own.

I sat on the examination table with a pink drape across my lap, giving Dr. Schmitz my allergies and medications, previous surgeries and the like. She scanned the forms Gale had given her, including the one with “adopted” written across it. We talked about my autoimmune disease, sarcoidosis, mostly likely inherited from my birthfather. I seem to be among the lucky ones whose symptoms went away as mysteriously as they came on. And we discussed the need for my upcoming hysterectomy, which I inherited from my birthmother.

Truly, it’s odd to learn from your body what connects you to the past. Diseases, eye color, body shape.

One of the early stories in my book is about trying to get out of the genetics unit in 10th grade science. I find it very interesting that my daughter Chloe, who is now 15, is just finishing her genetics unit. She’s been talking about dominant traits – and she talks about it without concern for her own traits. She’s done the diagram and the formula and learned what her dominant traits are. She seems to be accepting them as she accepts herself – it is what it is…  Or is it? As her mom, and as an adoptee, I do wonder, which makes me disgusted with myself for doing the same thing to her that I don’t want others to do to me, dissecting her, looking for adoption issues. So, I sit and watch, saying nothing, loving her.

A week from tonight I will be preparing my bag for the hospital. If everything goes as planned, I will have my surgery on Monday, November 22.

I Got My Wish

It’s been a long silence from my corner of the world, and I’m sorry for that. Some of you know that I’m dealing with a health issue. Tomorrow I see a specialist and I’m hoping to get my surgery scheduled. I won’t go into details, it’s a girly sort of thing, but it does make me pretty uncomfortable and tired, and I'm ready to get it taken care of.  Thanks for staying with me.

Tonight I was saying to my writer’s group that I’m almost hoping the agency will send a rejection so that I can rewrite my book.

I thought I was finished, ready to submit. But lately I’ve been given good advice about how to open my story. I’ve reworked it and the response at group tonight was positive. I like it better myself. I have other ideas for integrating some of the memories from the first chapter into later chapters. I’d thought about it before – pushing the memories into the storyline instead of starting with them. I thought I was explaining how it felt to grow up adopted, but now I see that they need to be memories that come up now and then.

I’ve also found a new voice. Not so pedantic – more personal.

So, with all that said; I got my wish tonight. I checked my email and there was the response. They sent a generic note: thank you so much for submitting…. After a careful reading…sorry to say that we don’t believe this project is right for our agency… The business of publishing is subjective…opinions vary widely…  They recommend that I submit to other agents. “After all, it just takes one “yes” to find the right match.” And they wish me good luck.

But what I really appreciate is the added note: “There is some lovely writing here and the search for one's natural parents is an important story. Ultimately memoirs are tough and we'd have to love something 100% to take one on. We aren't the right champions for this story. We are so sorry not to have better news for you. Good luck with this project.”

I am encouraged.

And I realized something else. Am I being too picky about the “natural” parents reference? We don’t call them “natural,” for that would make our adoptive parents “unnatural.” Just a bit of adoption humor. I guess I actually do care if my representatives are sensitive to adoption life… 

I’ll think on that awhile.

I feel a little happy dance coming on. I did it. I submitted. I was rejected. And now I take my place among the legions of writers who did it too, and were ultimately successful.

Lots to do. Be back soon.

Did I Send the Pages?

Last Sunday, late in the evening, I finally stopped tinkering with the first 30 pages of my manuscript and sent them to the literary assistant, Anita Mumm, at Nelson Literary Agency. Anita said at our meeting at the writers’ conference that it could take up to two months to hear back, and I’m okay with that. I'm trying to decide what a literary assistant is - I suppose she's the keeper of the circular file, culling the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. I'm curious about when the agent will actually step into the process.

People are encouraging me to submit my query letter to whatever agents I can locate that represent memoir. How do I do that? I'll go online, of course. I learned from the conference just how necessary it is to approach only agents that deal with my genre. To do otherwise is a waste of time - theirs and mine. So, that's what I'm going to do.

Something I learned while getting the first 30 pages ready is that I want another opportunity to go back over the rest of the book. Editing those pages helped me see places that could use some work - so I'm going to take this opportunity to do that, and send out the query letter.  I've let enough time pass now since looking at the manuscript that it will be fresh for me - and I think that'll be good.

I'll be back.

So What Happened?

"How did the meeting go? You haven't posted anything on the blog yet about it. Did she ask to see more? What did she say? I'm really excited to know." Hillary Houston, an incredibly talented young adult novelist in my Wordsmith Writers Group, sent me this email yesterday, and she wasn't the only one who wanted to know.

Hillary's right - I haven't blogged about my pitch session with Anita Mumm, the agent from the Nelson Literary Agency. My friend Sandy and I went to Castle Rock High School for the writers workshop hosted by the Douglas County Library last Saturday. It was very good, with instructors who covered things such as topic choice, speaker preparation and more. My only complaint was that they didn't repeat any of the offerings, and there were four session times throughout the day, one of which we missed because of our agent appointments. But overall it was worth every penny.

My appointment was scheduled for 11:30, and at 11:30 sharp the library volunteer opened the door of the classroom and I walked through it, finding Anita sitting at a student desk and holding her hand out to shake mine. I'd queried her a couple weeks before and received a return email saying that she found my book intriguing, so I was a bit surprised when she had no recollection of it. She said something about not having read through my query completely, and would I just go ahead and give her my genre and a synopsis. She said she gets 100 queries a day.

We had all of eight minutes and so I was relieved that I'd completed my synopsis the night before and could go through the four parts of my book in pretty concise detail. We had about 30 seconds left when I finished.

Get on with it, you say. Okay, well, the reason I haven't updated my blog yet is that I've been busy getting the 30 pages that Anita requested ready to send. :o)

I have only another week before they have to be in, with the original query letter included, and I'm feeling a bit in crisis mode because suddenly my manuscript doesn't feel as good to me as it used to. My daughter Chloe gave me an idea of a different sort of opening, and I love the idea, so I'm going to try putting it together. Perhaps I'll post it here and see what everyone thinks.

Thank you for your support - it carries me.

Almost ready

Last week I sent my very first query letter to the agent I'll be meeting on Saturday, Anita Mumm of the Nelson Literary Agency. She wrote back the other day saying she was looking forward to meeting me, too, and that she was going to save my query until after we talk. She wrote that she thinks my book sounds intriguing! Oh, how I hope I can impress her on Saturday.

In the meantime I'm working on my synopsis and coming up with chapter titles. I've never been much good with titles, and so I tend to follow advice given long ago: find them in the work.

The first chapter, for example, I've decided on A Most Disquieting Loneliness, which comes from a quote by Alex Haley, the author of Roots: "Haley also described what happens when, for whatever reason, we are denied the stories of our selves, “Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning.  No matter what our attainments in life, there is a vacuum and emptiness and a most disquieting loneliness."'

Chapter Two is going to be My Real Mother? which is from the first paragraph: “I hate her,” I said.  I hated my real mother.  I was five and I didn’t know what a real mother was, but the little girl I was playing with told me we were both adopted and then she asked how I felt about my real mother.  She was older than I was, perhaps eight or nine, and she parroted her parents’ words, “She loved you enough to give you up.”  Who loved me enough to give me up?  I was given up?  For all I knew, my mother was sitting in their kitchen drinking coffee with her mother. I had no idea who she was talking about."

Chapter Three will be Like Meeting a Stranger, which comes from the first adoptee I'd ever met who had actually been reunited:
“So, you just found your birthmother?”
“Yes, up in Vermont.  It wasn’t here.”
“Oh, how was it?  How did it go?"
“It was okay.”
Getting information out of her was going to take work.  And so far this wasn’t the information I was expecting to hear.  Like Faye, this adoptee wasn’t going to give me any false hope.
“Oh?  But what was it like?”
“It was like meeting a total stranger.  We talked together some.  She answered all my questions, and we got everything cleared up.”
I waited for her to say more, to say that since then they’d talked every week on the phone and that they were making plans to get together soon.  I must have looked discouraged.
“I think we might be friends later on though,” she said finally.

And While I Wait for the fourth chapter, which actually contains more of what I learned while I was waiting than anything about my story:
Reform in the United States began in 1851 when the Massachusetts Adoption of Children Act was passed.  Some observers felt that adoption was more acceptable in America because of our “melting pot” tradition.  Relationships created intentionally, they felt, were stronger, even more American, than relationships created merely by blood.  Regardless, “baby farming” became a profitable business and babies relinquished or abandoned to such institutions often died of disease and neglect.  The “farmers” made money coming and going, first through the extortion of pregnant women in desperate circumstances, and then by milking desperate adoptive parents for huge sums of money.
One report from the 1910s revealed that children in Chicago could be bought for $100, with an installment plan available for parents who needed to spread out their payments.  Most of the children were sent out of state, but no one was asking any questions.  The report also revealed that newspaper advertising was used extensively.  One “baby farmer” advertized, “It’s cheaper and easier to buy a baby for $100.00 than to have one of your own.”  When reformers successfully stamped out advertising, commercial adoption all but stopped.

Do you find this portion interesting?

Do these titles give you an indication of what might be in the chapter? Do you like chapter titles in general? Some people do - some don't - some don't care at all.

An Alternative Sample

In just nine days I have an appointment with Anita Mumm from the Nelson Literary Agency to pitch my memoir, Finding Me. I emailed her a query letter on Monday, so I may hear back from her before the appointment. Maybe not. I'm nervous about it. I'm trying not to build up false hope by focusing on the materials I'm going to take with me. A few days ago I blogged here about which sample pages I should take with me just in case she asks for more of my manuscript. One of you offered some really sound suggestions, which I appreciated, so now it's time to look at an alternative choice. The book is divided into an introduction and three parts. Parts I, II and III each end with a big surprise, a twist that will carry the reader into the next section or to the climax. I'm not going to give those surprises away, so I'll have to pick a portion that represents the best of my writing without being too obvious. The least important of the three parts is the first one. In this scene my parents and I have traveled to New York over the holidays and we go to see a play written by Neil Simon, which was performed at his theater. The play is Jake's Women, and the scene I recall is a reunion between a mother and her daughter. So, here goes. There is much more to the chapter, which I can't reveal here, but does this piece work? Is it too much Neil Simon and not enough me? Please do let me know here on the blog what you think - it'll help me make an important decision.  Thanks.


    After dinner that night, we took a cab to 52nd Avenue and the Neil Simon Theater to see Alan Alda play the lead in Jake’s Women.  I’d never heard of it before, but the storyline sounded interesting.  A middle-aged writer, Jake, has imaginary conversations with the women in his life.  As the play progresses the therapist, sister, daughter and dead first wife appear on stage to “talk” with Jake about his various problems and failing second marriage.  It is typical Neil Simon humor and pace.  In one scene, Jake’s dead wife, Julie, asks him to include their daughter in their next “talk.” Julie didn't get to see their daughter grow up.  She asks Jake to imagine that she lived past the age of 24 and allow her to talk with Molly, who is now 21. 
    At first I didn’t realize that we were about to watch a reunion between a mother and her daughter, between Julie and Molly.  But as Molly begins to understand what is happening, and responds with excitement, I know her.   
Molly: Hello.  Mom.
Julie: Hello, Molly.  Would you like to sit down here with me?
Molly: Yes, of course.  I have a million things to ask you.  It’s like meeting someone you’ve always heard about.  Like a movie star.  I feel like asking for your autograph!
Then Jake makes the moment a human one, ”Haven’t we all done this?” he asks.  “Who hasn’t thought about what it would be like to speak to a father or a mother who died five or twenty years ago?  Would your mother still be proud of you?  Would you still be your father’s little girl?  We’ve all played out that scene.”
    Molly goes on to say what I wanted to say, and her mother comforts her with the words I wanted to hear.
Julie: No, it was terrible for me to leave.  You must have been so angry.
Molly: Not angry.  I just never knew where you went.  It happened so fast.  I kept thinking you’d come back.  All I had was your picture by my bed…Sometimes I could hear your voice so clear, so comforting, telling me not to worry, telling me you missed me, telling me you loved me,” Molly says,  …I felt so cheated.
Julie: I’m sorry about that, Molly.  I’m sorry about all the years we didn’t have together. 
    Jake’s imaginary conversation has to come to an end, but Molly doesn’t like it. 
Molly: I’ve been waiting for this day since I was ten years old.  I don’t want her to go.
Julie: Your dad kept his promise to me.  He’ll keep it to you, too.  I’ll come again.  I swear.
Molly: No!  You said that to me in New Hampshire and you never came back.  I don’t trust you anymore.  I don’t trust anybody any more.  I need you to fill in the years we didn’t have together.  Please don’t stop talking, Mom.”
    Like Molly, I wanted my birthmother to talk to me, to say the words that would heal me.

How the Book is Coming Along

One of the pastors I work with dropped by my office today to ask how the book was coming along. I told him that I'm looking forward to meeting an agent at a writers workshop on October 2 and that I submitted my query to her yesterday. Sounds impressive, doesn't it? To have an appointment with an agent? The truth is that sometimes agents are paid by authors for "pitch" meetings, which this is. But I think the $25 will be worth it - to have 10-15 minutes of uninterrupted time with an agent who won't be able to just throw me in a pile or her trash can. In the meantime I've been working on getting everything ready for her – in case she wants to see more. I've got seven sample pages ready - and I hope that she'll take seven because the scene just takes that long. And then there's the synopsis. I've read somewhere that a synopsis is like a Table of Contents with complete sentences. I think those three elements should cover it for now.

I'm struggling with which sample pages to include, and I hope you'll be willing to help me. I'm going to put here a small sample from the opening chapter - and see what you think. Then in a couple of days I'll give another sample, one from a more climactic scene and see which one you think is the better one. Thanks - I appreciate your help.

     Being born is messy business.  It’s hard work, it hurts, and being pushed and squeezed all slimy and shivering into this frigid world is nothing short of cruel.  It’s that unforgettable first cry of the newborn that breaks the tension, bringing the kisses and the tears, and spinning the wheel of life one more time. 
    Mama looks like she’s been to hell and back, but then her baby, resting on her chest, is soothed by her voice and lulled by the familiar beat of her heart.  Daddy announces to the friends and relatives in the waiting room that the baby is here.  They toss cheers and prayers into the air like confetti in celebration of someone new to love.  When the baby is brought to the nursery window, the search for familiar features begins. 
“She looks just like her mother,” someone suggests.
“I think she has Grandma’s eyes,” another corrects.
Once Grandpa spots his name on her tiny hospital bracelet, the newborn is claimed and with her birth comes the promise of connection, a connection called family. 
     I wonder sometimes what my birth was like.  I looked it up once.  I was born on a Saturday.  My birth certificate says I was born at eight in the morning, which means my mother was alone through a long and cold Colorado night in March of 1959.  I can just see the nurse, in a white dress and cap, padding quietly into the room to check my mother’s pulse, her level of pain, the timing of the contractions.  I imagine the obstetrician speaking quietly and professionally, but never quite saying what he must have been thinking.  Fathers weren’t allowed in the delivery room back then, but it didn’t really matter since there was no husband to hold her hand, to kiss her, or to deliver my statistics to anyone in the waiting room, “She’s 6 pounds, 2 oz., 18 inches long, and perfect in every way.”  Nobody looked in the nursery window.  There was no soothing voice, no familiar heartbeat, and there was definitely no hospital bracelet bearing my father’s name.  For six days I was called Baby Girl Sullivan.  No one claimed me.  No one promised me anything.  There was no connection called family. 
    When I was small, the man who would become my father often told me that I had been found as snug as a bug in a rug.  I’d imagine myself a six-day-old, roly-poly bug balled up in the beige carpet of the dining room.  That was the day that man and his wife became my parents.  They adopted me.  They claimed me.  They gave me a connection, a connection called family.  As their daughter I would embrace their stories as my own.
    Don’t we all love to hear them – those stories from when we were too young to remember?  My Aunt Annabelle still tells me about the time I giggled at her during a diaper change.  And apparently I mumbled so badly as a toddler that my mother worried no one would ever be able to understand a word I said.  I love those stories, and I crave those stories, because I’ve never actually seen anyone that looks like me.  Instead of sharing family features with my parents or my siblings, I share their stories. 
    I have a hunch that most people don’t even think about their birth stories, so seamless was their connection to family, but I think about mine.  I think about my stories because they are missing.  The stories from the first six days of my life, and any stories from before I was born, simply do not exist.  Who fed me and changed my diapers?  Did my mother hold me?  Was she ever allowed to see me?  And the most important story would explain why: why she left me there.  Why she couldn’t promise me a connection called family. 
    I thought about those questions for a long, long time, but I always knew there would be no answers.  My stories aren’t just missing, you see.  My stories are secrets. 
    When I was born, adoptions were closed, the documents sealed, guaranteeing a birthmother’s right to privacy and giving adoptive parents the freedom to raise their children without interference.  Of course, that also meant that adoption records were closed to the people most affected by them.  The people responsible for my life: my birthmother, my adoptive parents and a judge in his chambers made the decision for adoption on my behalf.  To tell the truth, I’ve never thought it was about me at all.  It’s what they wanted: to have a child or not to have a child.  Adopted children couldn’t be consulted about what we wanted, and even as adults we’ve had no rights to the information that would tell us who we were. 
     My senior year in high school Alex Haley’s book Roots: the Saga of an American Family started a genealogical revolution.  The subsequent television mini-series captivated us as Haley’s lineage was traced through nine generations.  Suddenly everyone wanted to know their roots, and if they were persistent, they would find them.  Of course that was if they had the right to look.  "In all of us there is a hunger, marrow deep, to know our heritage, to know who we are and where we come from,” Haley once said.     My parents were no exception.  Once they retired, they set out in their RV to look for what Cousin Jackie called the “dead relatives.”  When I was invited to join them, I tasted for the first time the excitement of the search, the anticipation of acceptance or rejection, and the euphoric liberation of finally hearing the stories.  Haley also described what happens when, for whatever reason, we are denied the stories of our selves, “Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning.  No matter what our attainments in life, there is a vacuum and emptiness and a most disquieting loneliness."
    Yet the day did come when the secrets could be told.  Lawmakers in Colorado were finally convinced that adoptees should have the same rights to our personal information as anyone else.  Three weeks after my 30th birthday, the governor signed the bill that created a system that would allow a confidential intermediary to contact my birthmother and, if she agreed, to arrange a meeting between us.