One afternoon i happen to turn the TV on and Oprah Winfrey is talking to 3 girls sitting on stools. It so happens that these girls had been adopted at birth and they were trying to find their birth mothers. It seemed that they were wanting answers to some personal questions.
I watched and listened to them with intent and one girl really touched me as she was sobbing her eyes out as her birth mother had a veto on her – Meaning that she could not contact her birth mother. All she wanted was to ask her mother some personal questions relating to health issues etc. She claimed to not want to be a big part in her birthmother’s life but just wanted to know a little about her history.
Well you guessed it, I to had a veto on my child contacting me. MMMM i thought. Doing some maths in my head i thought well Sheree would be turning 18 and should be past the horrible 16-17 year old stage. If that was me i would want to know. You see, i would have never tried to look for Sheree as it was one thing giving her up for adoption and i couldn’t stand another negative if she had a veto on me so it was best for me not to know. So i go down to my local post office in Corinda and fill out the forms to lift the veto. 6 weeks later i get THAT PHONE CALL.
You named me Sheree 
Not once did I not ever think I wouldn’t eventually look for you. I always grew up with mum and Dad saying .. When you meet your birth mum…
So I don’t think I really prepared for a ‘veto’. I guess I was in a fairy land that of course she will want to know me. It was a instinct I guess.
I guess I can relate to wanting to know health issues as I remember being really sick and the nurse was asking about family history andy response was ‘I don’t know’. ‘How can you not know’, she said glaring at me. Me being out spoken and direct… ‘Im Adopted you twit’
We never spoke again after that..
How ever I did prepare myself for you to tell me to never call you again. But If that was the case I was determined to get that photo of you.
Looking back how you said you did have a Veto on my file, why did you put it there in the first place?
Good question Tasha babe.
As i was never given any advice on what happens next….. i grew up thinking that you could just knock on my door anytime. I wasn’t told that you had to be 18 before you could access my information. Well then again if they did tell me i didn’t hear it. God knows i had other things on my mind. One day in conversation i heard that i could protect myself as a birthmother so you couldn’t contact me. Remember you were a big secrete, i never spoke of you, nobody was to know, so how the hell was i going to explain you if you knocked on my door as a young troubled teenager ( i used to think that you would be a rat bag because you were adopted) mmmm how close to the truth was that ey!!!!! How would i cope, what would i do. The best thing for me was to wait until you were older. Now days I know that if your parents have a veto on you there are ways around it….
This affected discussions i made in my life for many years. After Peter and I got married i never wanted to buy a home. I was happy to rent. What would happen if we bought a home and you came along and made claims to my estate. How could i explain that to Peter. No-one ever sat me down and explained the legal rights of a birthmother and the legal rights an adopted child has in relation to estate and inheritance claims. I just wasn’t mature enough to know any different. Its not like i could sit at my computer and google it. Imagine that.
At the age of 45 Peter and I bought our very first home…….
The veto for me was protection until i was ready to be contacted by you. Not that i would never lift it. I just wanted to wait until i thought the time was right for me.