Jane's Story
My mother was 15, my father was 19 and only in town preparing to deploy to Vietnam. I'm certain she lied about her age, as she mentioned she did that often in my non ID info. He was from Puerto Rico. He never knew about me. She tried to keep me for 13 weeks. My first month we lived in the barn where she stabled her horse. I was born in November, so by the end of the month it was getting too cold for a baby in a barn.
My aunt took me in for a couple of weeks while my mother continued to live in the barn. My grandmother had told her she needed to go through with the adoption that had been set up during her pregnancy, or she couldn't live with her. But as Christmas approached she relented and let us move in with her. We lived in an apartment in Hampton. When I was 13 weeks old my mother accidentally suffocated me by placing a pillow on my face so she wouldn't have to listen to me cry. The next day my grandmother took us to the attorney's office, my mother signed the papers, and I was left on the desk for my adoptive parents to come and get me.
My adoptive family had one natural child, 7 years old, when they adopted me. Then when I was 7, they had their second natural child. Growing up I didn't want for things. But there were disparities in how I was raised vs my siblings. I was beaten with a belt. They were not. I went to public school. They went to private school. They received help with further education, I didn't. They were able to move back home when they hit hard times. I was told to suck it up when my ex husband hit me and I asked to come home. I never felt like I had a family.
A few years before my dad died, he called and apologized for how I was treated. That meant the world to me. And I got to be there with him as he passed from this world. He died from a stage 4 bedsore that never received medical care, under my younger sibling's care. When I confronted them about their negligence my mom stopped talking to me. She died in March this year and I just found out about it on November 22. Both my natural parents were already dead when I found them. Thank you for reading my story.