Returning Home

By Kate Travis

I had always wondered what her answers would be. I never fully knew why she had given me up for adoption. My parents told me as much as they knew, “Kate she was poor and couldn’t take care of you. She gave you up for adoption because she felt like it was the right thing to do.” When they first told me I was adopted I couldn’t even talk yet. In simple children’s verse they told me my adoption story, but I didn’t understand the concept of adoption. I honestly didn’t care because I just loved hearing the story. I was young and all I knew was I had a house to live in and parents who loved me so that was good enough for me.

But as I got older I got curious and wanted to know more about my beginnings. The question that stayed with me above all others was probably universal with all adoptees: why had my birth mom given me up for adoption? I tried to answer it myself. Maybe she didn’t love me because I was a mistake, or possibly because my father had mistreated her and I reminded her of him so she needed to get away from me. On one level I knew this was pure speculation, a way of easing my feelings of rejection.

By the time I entered seventh grade finding the answers to my questions became more important, so much more that my parents contacted the adoption attorney to see if we could meet my birth mom.

We soon received a letter from the adoption attorney, telling us he had located my birth mom and relaying that she wanted to meet me too. “She wants to meet me!” I shouted. My parents smiled and re-read the letter. What would I ask her? How should I act? Then I considered a question that sent my thoughts careening in another direction: what if my birth mom backed out at the last minute and decided that she didn’t want to meet me? I had wanted to meet her my entire life and if she didn’t want to meet me it would put more doubt into my mind that she didn’t love me, her own child.

My parents, along with two other families that had adopted kids from Paraguay, started to plan our trip. Months passed before our plans were set. I was in eighth grade when we were ready to travel to Paraguay, when I finally got the chance to meet my birth mom. As I packed for the trip all the questions, doubts and fears filled my mind again.

On the nine-hour plane trip across the United States and then down to Paraguay in South America. I no longer knew what to think. My thoughts were so jumbled and I was so nervous that all I could do to relax was listen to my ipod. When we finally stepped off the plane the reality set in that I was in Paraguay. I had returned to my birth place.

We had been in Paraguay for only one day when our attorney came to visit us. He told us that I was to meet my birth mom in two days. What, really? I didn’t know I would meet her so soon. I didn’t get it. All the joy I had felt before left me and was replaced with fear and uncertainty.

The day I was to meet my birth mom was nerve racking. I was uneasy and the car ride out to where she lived—four hours over narrow roads and dirt tracks—seemed like it would never end. I didn’t know what to expect at all. As we got out of the air-conditioned van, the sun blazed down on us. I can’t do this, what am I supposed to say? Her house was on a little hill and as I walked toward it a short, middle-aged woman came up to me and kissed me on both cheeks. Another young woman greeted me with an enthusiastic smile. I looked back over my shoulder to ask, “Who were those women?” The attorney responded, “That was Marta, your mother, and Nancy, your sister.”

Marta and Nancy offered us seats outside under a large shade tree. As I sat down I felt very uncomfortable. Marta was my mother. Though she hadn’t seen me since I was born, she was very affectionate towards me. She held my hand in hers and wouldn’t let go. I was shy and I didn’t know how to react so I sat there quietly and answered her questions. She asked me how I was doing in school and if I played any sports. “I’m doing fine in school and I’ve been playing soccer since I was five. I have also played football, basketball and volleyball and did gymnastics for a little bit.” Both Marta and Nancy were surprised to hear I played soccer because there’s no soccer team for girls in Paraguay.

They were equally surprised to hear that I was one of the shortest people in my grade. “Serio?” Nancy exclaimed. She was astonished. I found this amusing because I was only 5’3”. I was almost a head taller than they were. Through the attorney, who was also our translator, I told her that she was the first person to ever say that about me.

Nancy told us that she had to work incredibly hard to get the day off to come meet us. She was worried that her boss wouldn’t give her time off to meet her little sister. She had to promise to work overtime for the entire week before he finally agreed to give her the day off.

She told us how excited she was to hear that I was coming. I tried to tell her in Spanish that I was thrilled to have discovered that I had sisters. But that didn’t work out too well so the attorney had to translate. Nancy was as eager and excited as a teenage girl my age even though she was eight years older than I was. She was smiling the entire time and when we talked to each other it was as easy as talking to one of my friends even though we had never met and we didn’t speak the same language.

Marta on the other hand was quiet like me. She sat in her chair picking at her nails and every so often she said something. When the conversation between Nancy and I had stopped Marta leaned over to talk to the attorney. “Marta wants to know if you hate her for giving you up for adoption.” I hadn’t expected this question and was a little taken aback. “No I don’t hate her. I think it was a brave thing of her to do.” He told her my answer and she gave a sigh of relief and the biggest smile.

Without me even asking Marta relayed the story of why she gave me up for adoption. “When I was younger I met a man and fell in love. I got pregnant with your sister, Noelia, and he stayed around. But when he found out I was pregnant again with Nancy, he left. Eight years later another man entered my life but when he found out I was pregnant with you, he left too.” Marta started to cry, she wouldn’t make eye contact with me and actually had to turn away from me. When she finally could look at me again she said, “I would have kept you, but I didn’t have enough money to support you along with having two other daughters. I can see that you’re living a wondrful life and that your parents did a good job at raising you.”

The conversation then drifted to more neutral topics. Nancy told us that she wanted to learn English and also wanted to go to school to become a teacher. Even though her house was no bigger than a one-car garage Marta proudly proclaimed that she owned it. She set chairs up under a mango tree near her well at the front part of her property that served as her outdoor living room. There they began to pass around the terreré, an herbal tea. It’s a traditional social custom to share the tea among friends and family. We, however, weren’t offered any because the attorney must have warned Marta that we weren’t acclimated to the well water.

As the terreré was passed around I had time to think about what Marta had said. Even though she told me that there was nothing wrong with me—I hadn’t been rejected just for being me but given the chance for a better life—part of me felt torn. I wondered what my life would have been like if Marta had decided not to give me up for adoption. I’d probably be working in the fields or cleaning houses and perhaps not have been able to get an education.

When I saw how happy both Marta and Nancy were it made me kind of wish that I hadn’t been adopted. They had practically nothing and were still as happy as someone who had everything they desired. Some people feel inferior if they aren’t wearing the latest fashion or if they don’t have the newest phone or computer. Marta and Nancy didn’t have any of those. They had something more important—their family all around them. Marta’s two brothers, both farmers, had come in to town to be with her on this special day. Some of my cousins and even a little neighbor girl had also been there. This was a big day for Marta and she wanted her family to be there with her for support.

Marta and Nancy were content with what they had, a small house and a well in their front yard. They barely had any money and couldn’t afford luxuries like I could. When I first arrived I felt a bit sad for them because they had so little and I had so much. When they expressed their satisfaction with what they had—Marta fairly burst with pride when she told us she owned her own home—it changed my perspective. It made me look at people more for who they were and less for what they had.

On the way down to Paraguay I was apprehensive, unsure, and anxious. I only knew some of what to expect from what my parents told me but that still left much to the imagination. What would her house look like? What would she look like? What would she think of me? Would I like her? But after the meeting with Marta I was relieved because now I had answers to some of these questions. I found that my birth family was made up of good people with good intentions, and the country I was born in was a place that people took pride in. Family was the center of their lives and they didn’t care if they had a phone or a computer or the latest Steve Madden shoes because those things simply weren’t important to them.

My feelings of being torn between my two cultures caught me completely by surprise. I grew up in Berkeley and that’s what I’ve known as my home for my whole life. But now I felt like I had missed out by living in Berkeley. I knew intellectually that Paraguay was also my home but I had never seen it, had never understood emotionally my connection to it. I felt disappointed that it hadn’t been a more significant part of my life.

People sometimes ask me if the relationship with my parents had changed after I met my birth mom. The answer is no. My parents are the ones who encouraged me to meet her. I never felt like meeting my birth family would change our relationship and neither did my parents.

But this experience did change me. I became more vocal about expressing my feelings and gained a more worldly view. Being let into the circle of my birth family instantly expanded our own extended family. I became more grateful for what I had, for both the material things that make my life more comfortable and the emotional attachment to my adoptive family. My meeting with Marta lasted little more than an hour. While it gave me a glimpse of her and her life, it wasn’t enough.