Coming into the Fog - By Fred Nicora

I love bringing new voices and stories to the blog, it fascinates me how different our adoptee lives are, and how similar we appear to be in our minds. This time the Who’s Wally? Take Over is by Fred Nicora. Fred is an LDA (Late Discovery Adoptee). I still struggle with acronyms in the adoptee world, there are so many aren’t there? I have to Google them!

I’ve been lucky enough to get to know Fred a little through the wide Facebook adoption community as he is a member of almost all the groups that my face appears. He is an author and an awesome baker. Well, his bread looks awesome, I’ve not been able to sample any due to the small issue of the Atlantic Ocean.

While reading his amazing book about his discovery journey Forbidden Roots, I discovered Fred is also an LDMBR (Late Discovery MotorBike Rider) Obvs! - I’m a little jealous here as I’d love to be able to do that. Like Fred, I tried learning to ride a motorcycle later in life, But I crashed into an oncoming car on the first day! Don’t ask.-

Back to the point Wally.

Fred was a baby when he was adopted by a same race typical American couple in Milwaukee Wisconsin. His parents loved him, this he knew. What he didn’t know was he was adopted.

Although he struggled to figure out what didn’t fit in his life, the thought of being adopted just didn’t seem to be the answer. That changed in 2000. Today, Fred works to help bring truth and transparency to the entire adoption process through his writings and work serving on the advisory board of the Wisconsin Journeys Program. This grant-based organization offers supportive services covering a wide continuum of needs for individuals and families in Wisconsin who have been impacted by adoption, foster care, kinship care, or guardianship.

Thank you Fred, over to you …

I am a Late Discovery Adoptee (LDA). At the age of forty-one in the year 2000, I was at a large family gathering of about 250 extended family members after my parents had passed away. Through the slip of the tongue of an elderly Aunt, I discovered I was adopted. My world turned upside down. It all made sense, yet none of it made sense. That was a Saturday evening. The second swing of the wrecking ball came when I called the state of Wisconsin the following Monday to confirm that I was indeed adopted, and find the answer to the mother of all questions: Who am I? The state quickly confirmed the answer to the first question that yes, I was adopted. However, they spent the better part of an hour educating me on the fact that as an adoptee I had no legal right to the answers to the second question. I had no legal right to my own history. I was told I was fortunate. Many orphans aren’t adopted at birth and spend years in foster care. I was chosen early and placed in a loving home. The fog started to creep in.

Bear in mind, 48 hours prior to my discussion with the state I had full legal access to my factual birth information, or so I thought. I, like everyone else, simply had to look at my birth certificate and read the factual information about who I was and how I entered the world. It was my birth certificate; it was my history. I had a legal right to it. However, that all changed when I became adopted, or at least in my world when I discovered I was adopted. My facts were sealed in a court record and new altered facts took their place on my newly issued amended birth certificate. In essence, I had been issued a salvage title. I lost myself in the fog.

As I became familiar with the language of the adoption culture, I learned about adoptees referencing coming out of the fog. When adoptees become curious about their factual birth information, they also often become aware of the societal messaging about adoption which typically focuses on adoption as an upbeat great solution for all. Unfortunately, many in the adoptee community have different feelings and refer to the initial awareness of those feelings as coming out of the fog. My reality was at forty-one, I was just going into the fog. While it was true the impacts of relinquishment occurred over the previous 41 years, my awareness of everything and anything related to the impact of adoption on me and my immersion into the fog occurred in the early 2000’s. All I could see was the fog.

I didn’t swallow this very well. And, at the time it wasn’t the fact that I was not the biological issue of my parents that I found most disturbing, and it wasn’t even the fact that so many I loved and trusted had misrepresented the facts of who I was. It was the fact that I legally was required to wear the false identity I had been issued at the time of my adoption. It was the fact that legally I had been called out into a marginalized population with different legal rules and laws I had to adhere to. It was that I was being discriminated against based on my birth status. It was that I was being legally treated differently than the rest of the population and how I perceived myself to be treated as a non-adopted person. The fog surrounded me, yet something didn’t seem right.

Adoption in some form has been around since history started being recorded. Motherless infants have been paired with caring adults to form new families since women started giving birth. That problem isn’t new. But it wasn’t until the twentieth century that societies started to take great strides in altering the facts of the child’s birth and providing them with a new script to carry out their lives. Yes, it can be argued that history has not been kind towards bastard children, and perhaps society’s solution to helping bastard children was to hide their identity. It was to make them into something they were not. But like so many well-intended actions, unintended consequences eventually overshadowed the intended benefits. The reality of today is many in society still frown upon unintended children regardless of where they actually came from. So, instead of just simply being identified as a bastard, the child now is a bastard forever forbidden from their factual identity. The only one truly left in the dark is the orphaned child who when grown still lives with forbidden roots.

A friend of mine, Bob, worked at a desk next to me while working in a large Architectural firm in Minneapolis, MN, years before I discovered I was adopted. One day at work I noticed Bob seemed distressed as he hung up the phone. I asked him what was wrong. He disclosed he was adopted in Illinois at birth and was trying to find out about his factual birth information and find his birth mother. He further indicated that he was actually born in Pennsylvania and was working across several state lines and agencies to find what he was looking for. But, like many other calls, this one landed him empty-handed once again. I assumed the problem was he was trying to work across many state lines. Little did I know it was actually similar laws across many state lines that prohibit those relinquished from finding their true identity, discovering the roots from which they came.

Years later as I digested my discussions with the State of Wisconsin which resembled the discussions my friend Bob had with Illinois and Pennsylvania years ago, I suddenly saw Bob’s problem in a whole new light. While I never considered myself to be prejudicial towards adopted people, I began to see I really didn’t understand their plight until I had to wear their clothes and walk down the street in their shoes. I suddenly saw who I was and how society saw me. The fog lifted. I realized it was time for change. It was time to join the fight.

Fred’s full story can be found in his memoir, “Forbidden Roots”, Available on Amazon and his website: www.frednicora.com

Image: © Fred Nicora