My Story…My life…This is How It Started

October 10, 2016October 2, 2016 Guest Submitted Post

Hello,

I am a brand new user of Autisable and I would like to share the story of my adoption and how I became the person I am today. Please be aware that this may take awhile to read. Note: The names have been changed to protect the identites of the people in this story

I was born on April 20th 1989 to my birth mother *Cindy* at a Toledo hospital in the state of Ohio. My birthmother like me has dark brown hair and brown eyes. My birth mother was seventeen at the time and hadn’t taken any parenting classes before she had me.

As I stayed at *Cindy’s* apartment in Toledo I was lacking the ability to learn many things that babies learn when a mother knows how to be and is ready to be a mother. Note: My birthmother’s sister *Martha* had once tried to suffocate me once for some reason with a blanket. Thankfully, someone must’ve seen her in the act b/c I am still alive today.

While I would stay with my birth mother’s mom *Georgia*, my birth mother Cindy would go out and party. Well, one day my birth grandmother *Georgia* decided that she wasn’t going to keep watching me anymore while my birth mother *Cindy* went out partying having a grand old time. Sooo…my birth grandmother *Georgia* called the police and reported her own daughter (my birth mother *Cindy*) to the police for not being mature enough to take care of me.

After the police investigated my case they realized that my birthmother *Cindy* wasn’t ready to care for a child. There were reports that my birthmother *Cindy* had been in and out of juvenille hall in her teenage years. So, the police decided to give my case over to children’s services and the childrens services decided to put me in foster care.

My mother (that I live with right now) had been foster caring for children at the time (this was during the early 1990s) and she recieved a call from Childrens Services describing a just barely 2 year old toddler who needed a home and my mother agreed to come and see what I was like.

Upon my mother seeing me for the first time, she eventually decided that she would try to adopt me. This is when the story gets intense. My birth mother didn’t want my mother (who I currently live with) to adopt me. So she did the following acts:

<LI>Cindy would make up mean songs about my mother (that I currently live with) and would teach them to me so that I’d sing them while I was at my mother’s home<LI>She threatened to burn down my mother’s home

My mother learned more and more about me with each time I’d come for fostering at her home:

<LI>I never really knew how to give a kiss at that age…so if someone would try to kiss me I’d show my teeth at first<LI>I would actually growl at people when I was cranky<LI>I would run to my mother when I heard the sound of a tab opening on a soda can<LI>I wasn’t much of a talker…barely said anything at all<LI>I wasn’t a socialized toddler

My mother had to take me multiple times to the ER (emergency room) b/c I had difficulty breathing. My birth mother didn’t believe that I had any trouble breathing until my mother taped me sitting on her couch in her living room having an asthma attack.

Eventually, I was adopted into the family that had truly wanted me. I learned how to give real kisses and my birth mother was ordered to stay away from me until I was an adult.

The day I was given to the family I am currently with, my family had been planning to go on a vacation to Wisconsin. So I was able to go there and I began to socialize with my family, smile more and actually began to talk.

When I turned 4 years old I went to Gateway Preschool in Toledo, Ohio where I began to develop in a much better way than I had before.

I am now 20 years old and have graduated from Sylvania Northview High School., During high school, I was in the early childhood education program and was on the Student Prints newspaper staff. I now go to Owens Community College in Northwood, Ohio and attend the Toledo Campus. I am majoring in Early Childhood Education and plan to get my two year degree by the year of 2011.

Now why exactly does this post have anything to do with autism you ask? Well, about 3-4 years after I was born my brother/ half-brother *Kevin* was born and at first when he was born the hospital staff knew he had trouble breathing and that he had some kind of learning disability. It turns out he had autism and really bad asthma.

Now *Kevin* is around 17 years old and lives in Rockford, Illinois at an autism care center. The reason he lives there is b/c my half brother’s mother (not our birth mother but his adoptive mother/mother) is shorter than he is and he has been diagnosed with signs of bipolarism. He is a very tall and strong boy and could easily hurt is adoptive mother so she decided the best thing to do for him was to put him in a center where he would be cared for and where he couldn’t hurt her.

The last time I saw my half brother was at Southwyck mall in Toledo, Ohio and my mother and I and his family (as well as Kevin) were there. For the first time in my life, I saw him there at Southwyck mall since he was around 3-5 years old. I had been sending cards to Kevin with my mother for birthdays, holidays and such but hadn’t seen him in what had seem like forever. He actually is taller than me and doesn’t look that much like me.

Kevin isn’t able to wear braces b/c he would hate the feeling and would probably try to rip them off his teeth. But, when I was at Southwyck mall, I was able to have his arm around my shoulder and we took a walk around the mall. It was the most amazing feeling to have him by my side. He kept telling me, “All the store are closed. The stores aren’t open anymore.” I have never dated any guys but to tell you the truth…having him at my side made my heart melt. It was truly magical.

My mother and I ended up getting him a Crayola marker set where he could color coloring pages with some certain type of markers that would only allow him to mark on the coloring pages it was designed for that came in the package. So, if he had tried to color on the walls, on the carpet etc. it wouldn’t leave one mark of color.

So…that’s my story and if anyone that has read my story wants to ask me questions feel free to message me. My username is lucysgirl07 and I’d be happy to see that you’ve read my story.

Thanks for reading:)