Horrified

My boyfriend and I were together since September 1985.  I adored him, I thought he hung the moon.  After we started dating he brought me around to meet his family.  His Mom, "Joyce", was wonderful to me, I thought of her as a Mom since mine was too busy with her own life to pay any attention to me.  "Joyce" was good to me, we were close.

In April 1988 I told "Joyce" I was pregnant.  She cried then she started making plans for where the baby and I would live since we both knew my Mom would kick me out if I kept the baby.  She was going on about how I could live in the seedy government housing and how I would have to apply for government assistance and she and her Mother would help me support the baby.  I couldn't believe what I was hearing...I wasn't raised to accept "hand-outs" and she looked down on people who were on welfare.  I couldn't get past living in the apartments she was expecting me to go to...those apartments terrified me!!  Someone was getting shot, raped, and/or murdered over there...I didn't want my baby and I to live in fear.

It was June 1988.  "Joyce" wanted to go with me to the "Agency", she wanted to see for herself what they were saying to me so she could try to undo the damage they were doing.  I knew this was her intention from the beginning, I wanted her to help me figure out a way to keep my baby without having to move into that awful apartment complex.  I saw a side of "Joyce" that day I never knew existed....

This meeting started out as normal.  The Counselor and "Joyce" talked, the Counselor got some basic background info from her and "Joyce" asked questions and got the same answers I got, I sat in a chair next to "Joyce".  The Counselor explained it was a closed adoption because open adoptions were too confusing and just didn't work.  She talked about the parents who were "next in line" for a baby.  "Joyce" asked about the religious upbringing, the Counselor looked a little confused, I was a little confused.  Didn't she notice the huge sign on the building saying Jewish Family Services?  Granted, I was young and naive, but even I knew my baby was going to a Jewish Family.

I was Methodist, my best friend in elementary school who lived across the street from me was Jewish.  There wasn't a thing wrong with them.  My friend's Mother always had warm hugs for me, she treated me like I was one of her kids, every morning when I walked over there before school to get my friend she would always tell me I was too skinny and I needed to get inside and eat.  I use to go to Temple with them until my Adoptive Father put a stop to it.  So I never saw a problem with my baby being raised in a Jewish Family, as long as the family was warm and loving like my friend's family.  (It was years later when I realized that when my First Daughter came around we would always have Christmas)

When the Counselor said the child would be raised Jewish the shit hit the fan!  I saw a side to "Joyce" I never knew existed.  This woman was so full of hatred, the things coming out of her mouth were horrible!!  I was honestly scared for me and my baby.

You can tell in the 20+ years the Counselor has been brainwashing unwed Mothers she had never come across this in her own office.  The look on her face scared me even more.  I wanted to run out that door and keep running.  The Counselor's response wasn't what I expected...she didn't have on her "Counselor Hat".  She very calmly and firmly told "Joyce" off, to sum it up she told her she was nothing but a piece of ignorant, racist trash (she doesn't use those words exactly).  The Counselor was scared for me, she wasn't afraid that I wouldn't relinquish my baby, she was afraid of what "Joyce" would do to me.

"Joyce" was escorted off of the property, the Agency's driver brought me home.  I was in shock. I had never run across anyone with so much hatred in their heart.  My boyfriend and I decided it was best that we kept his Mother as far away from me as possible.  

At the end of August 1988 I told her I had the baby in July.  She went into a panic and started calling attorney's to see what she could do.  They all said the same thing...she had no legal right.  

Things were definately different between us after that.  The way she acted you would have thought I handed my baby over to a Satanic Cult.  So as the years pass on and my First Daughter gets older I get anxious, almost fearful...she has no clue that her paternal grandmother would turn her back on her because she is Jewish.  My First Daughter also doesn't know what I had to endure to protect her from the most hateful bigot I have ever met in my entire life.