FEAR - Too Afraid to Know the Truth?

OK.  Try to follow me here.

In my search for truth surrounding the loss of my son, I have spent a couple of months constructing a list of questions surrounding the loss of my son I want to ask family members.I am all about the truth in adoption - secrets and lies have destroyed so many lives.  I wake up in the morning firm in my resolve - I WILL ask my questions and I WILL get answers!  I deserve the truth.  I often feel that I have gone as far as I can in my attempt to heal until I have these answers, and I am trying to fill in blanks.  I know the answers will be hard for me to hear, but I really need to know.  Then, my resolve crumbles as I pick up the phone to call and set a time to talk, I make an excuse to myself of something that I have to do, and the day progresses without the call being completed. 

Because of barbituates used during my labor and postnatal care, I have many voids in my memory.  What I do remember doesn't add up to the stories and outright gaslighting I have received from family members.  For years, I DID think I was crazy.  I thought I got it all wrong.  I thought I was only remembering what I wanted to remember.  I thought maybe these thoughts, flashbacks and remembered conversations were being taken out of context.  How could I think those things?  Once I entered reunion with my son, I decided that I had emotional amnesia.  I had blocked it out.  But, when a trusted source told me that she knew I had been drugged and restrained for 3 days after delivery, it made so much sense.  In the days following delivery, I remembered little.  And, I remember nothing of going into labor and very little about an 18 hour labor.  Eighteen hours?  And I remember next to nothing?

And yet, knowing I had been drugged instead of just suspecting it brought up more questions.  Who authorized that?  When was that decision made?  What else happened to me in the days I remember nothing?  Who of my family knew about this and did nothing?  What shot was I given to "dry up my breast milk"?  DES?  How come my son's APGAR score on the non-identifying information was a 9, but on the hospital medical records it was a 3?  Why is Tuinal and Darvocette listed on my medical records with an asterisk indicating "unable to reconcile to medication chart"?  Where is the medical chart showing what I was given in the 10 days following birth that I was required to stay at the unwed mother's home?  Do you mean to tell me that I had an 18 hour labor and was given no pain medication - not even a Tylenol - after the first day? Where are the medical consent forms - the ones that would have had to be signed by my parents for treatment other than the actual labor, delivery and care of my son?  Or did they just have me declared legally incompetent like so many others have been?  Who contacted the father?  Why did he retain an attorney - because he was twice my age and I was only 16 at the time?  Did someone threaten him with statutory rape?  Why did his attorney lie and say he had no siblings when I have been able to find evidence of a sister?  And, given that he was a person of some fame (and potentially in danger of being labeled a sex offender), did somebody pay off my parents or the agency for their "trouble" if they could make sure this adoption happened? 

I asked the agency some of these question about 2 months ago.  The only thing I got was chirping crickets.  In fairness to them, they had been cooperative about a good many things.  But, when I started asking some of the above questions, I got silence.  And no more paperwork or cooperation whatsoever.  Now, they won't even accept my calls.  Guilty. 

Information I have gathered from the hospital, people who were around at that time, and the agency have so many lies - and I have a limited amount of information.

I want answers.  I want to confront the hospital and tell them what I think about their shoddy records.  I want to walk into that agency and announce to them that I know what they did, and if I can ever prove half of what I know I will own and subsequently shut them down. I want to hear from the mouths of my own family members that these things happened.  I want truth.  I want to find out who that attorney was my son's father hired and play a little verbal poker about what I know.  I want to be able to fill in the holes in the story and try to come to some semblance of closure so I can move forward in reunion.  I deserve answers!  I deserve the truth!  I deserve to know what happened to me (and my son) behind the scenes that I was not privy to in 1976.  I expect, no DEMAND this.

But first, I have to make that phone call..........Can't..........Scared.............

How I feel when confronting others - like the little dog.....