LilMtnCbn
01-27-2005, 07:43 AM
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=13825101&BRD=1714&PAG=461&dept_i
d=73829&rfi=6
'Little sister' unites with birth family
By JESSICA HURST 01/26/2005
Email to a friend Voice your opinion Printer-friendly
WAKEFIELD - Almost three weeks ago, a miracle whirled into Pancho O'Malley's in
Narragansett. Four sisters, with matching T-shirts and matching spirits, were
celebrating their baby sister's 40th birthday - for the first time.
Annie Jennings, a Wakefield resident, always knew she had been adopted at
birth. And growing up in Connecticut with a loving family, she never longed to
know her biological family, never felt the void that some adopted children
describe.
"I think I've always been curious, but I've never needed to go there," she
said.
A father's blessing
Then, in May of 2003, doctors told her she was dying of leukodystrophy, an
inherited nerve disorder.
"All that was going through my head was, 'What am I going to do with my kids,'"
said the single mother of two in an interview last week.
In October of that year, she learned she had been misdiagnosed. She wasn't
dying. But doctors urged her to look into her medical history.
"I didn't have leukodystrophy, but I needed to find out what happened to me
when I was born, because I was premature," she said.
When the medical report came in, it didn't provide any red flags. But it did
provide the names of four biological siblings: Laura, the oldest, Michael,
Karen and Kathy.
Annie was already a kid sister to her adoptive siblings, Susan and Vincent, Jr.
But then it hit her - she was a kid sister to four other people.
It's easy to imagine Annie as a kid sister. She's petite and slender, with a
youthful face, light-up eyes and a comfy, jeans-and-a-T-shirt style. Her
enthusiasm bubbles over at times, and she has a mischievous, endearing wit.
Across the country, she had four siblings with that same spirit, three of whom
didn't even know she existed.
But she hesitated to pursue her search. She was happy, she already had the
family she wanted, and couldn't ask for anything more.
And what if she didn't like what she discovered about her biological relatives?
When she contacted Catholic Family Services in Connecticut, which had handled
her adoption, that was exactly what they warned her about - that these searches
often turn out badly.
But the mother of her good friend Brian had been reunited with a daughter she
had put up for adoption, and the reunion was a good one. He encouraged Annie to
learn more.
It wasn't until Christmas of 2003, when Annie's father ("my best friend," she
said), who was dying of cancer, expressed his blessing to pursue her search,
that Annie felt like she was ready.
"We totally support your effort to learn more about who you are and where you
came from," he wrote in a Christmas card. "We hope and pray it will be a happy
and successful quest."
Vincent Largay died the next month.
Vincent and his wife Ann had not only been open with Annie about her adoption,
but had treated it as a fated blessing.
"My mother always told me that she always knew that I was coming," said Annie.
And her father acknowledged that Annie's biological mother had given them a
gift.
"On Mother's Day, he would always say, 'You have two mothers to be thankful for
- the one that had you, and the one that raised you'," she said.
In March of 2004, Annie would call her birth mother and say, simply, "I think
we're related."
A mother's choice
Five years ago, Theresa Flannigan told her oldest child, Laura, about the
daughter she had given up for adoption in 1965. She was living in Washington
State, already divorced with four other children, and traveled to Connecticut
to have the baby, giving her up with loving intentions.
A year before Annie contacted her biological mother, Terry and Laura had
already begun searching for her. The three other siblings had no knowledge of
another sister. Their mother shared the news after she got Annie's phone call.
The siblings were stunned.
"It's kind of a feeling of... a piece of your life has been missed," said Karen
Krausher, the third oldest biological sibling, in a telephone interview Monday
from her home in Sacramento, California.
"I think that my first words to my mom were that she was so lucky and so
blessed that this has come to her in her life," said Kathy Remick, the youngest
of the four.
First came the calls and e-mails among Annie and her West Coast siblings, and
then a trip out to Tacoma in April of 2004.
"I already felt connected even before she got here," said Kathy.
From those first conversations, Annie and her biological siblings knew it was a
perfect fit.
"It was like talking to somebody that I've known for years," said Kathy.
Karen felt the same way. "It was like talking to one of my younger sisters,"
she said.
And Annie felt like the younger sister.
"I just felt a connection, like, right away," she said, her eyes lighting up.
When she flew out to Tacoma, she was also greeted by scores of aunts, uncles,
cousins, nieces and nephews.
"They welcomed me with open arms a million times over," she said. "It was like
I belonged."
And they welcomed her children, Courtney, 12, and Andrew, 10, just the same
when they joined her on her second trip.
"Her kids are wonderful," said Kathy. "They're just a lot of fun."
For Annie, an adopted child who thrived in a loving family, meeting her
biological family didn't replace the family she grew up with. Rather, she now
has a deeper understanding of where she comes from, and why where she has ended
up is exactly where she is supposed to be.
"When I went into this, I didn't have any expectations," she said. "I knew,
'I'm not going to get hurt because I already have a terrific family.'"
And meeting her biological mother has reinforced her gratitude for the
difficult decision she made 40 years ago.
"She did the right thing in giving me up," she said. "I had a terrific family
growing up. I couldn't have asked for anything better."
And for Terry, who for 40 years wondered if her child had had the life she
wanted for her, Annie's appearance in her life has been an immense relief.
"She was so happy to realize that I had a good life," said Annie. "She had seen
so many horror stories about kids who were adopted and it didn't go well."
Terry's brother Dennis wrote to Annie's adoptive mother Ann last April, and
described his sister's joy.
"For years, my sister wondered and worried whether she did the right thing. Did
her last daughter have the life she prayed for?" he wrote. "In an hour's
conversation my sister... heard Annie say she couldn't have had 'better
parents.' You don't know the relief, the joy, the verification those words gave
my sister. She'd made the right decision."
A daughter's blessing
Annie flipped through albums of her trips to Tacoma last week, a proud sister
still marveling over her good fortune. She also had pictures of her birthday
celebration three weeks ago, when her three biological sisters flew in for the
weekend.
The three wore T-shirts that read, "It's our sister's birthday." Annie wore one
that read, "I'm the sister."
Terry had sent along four matching red glove and hat sets for the four of them.
Annie had everyone put them on, and lined the sisters up for pictures.
She rented a limousine for the evening, called some dear friends, and toured
some of the area's nightspots.
At Pancho's in Narragansett, the four sisters sang a chorus of "We Are Family,"
and danced like teenagers. They were catching up on lost time, but didn't feel
a shred of regret.
That initial feeling of missing out on something has all but vanished, said
Karen.
"I'm not looking backward, I'm looking forward," she said. "And I guess I don't
really look at what I've missed."
And when the sisters were visiting, they got to meet the family Annie was
brought up with - and they, too, understood that the Largays were the family
their sister was intended to have.
"Annie has had such a great life," said Kathy. "I'm just lucky that we have her
now."
Annie also feels lucky that her story has been a happy one, because she knew it
was a gamble.
She's enjoying the obvious threads of commonality she's found with her
biological siblings, like over-sensitivity (both laughter and tears), a
preference for jeans and T-shirts, a witty sense of humor and even traces of
bossiness.
Kathy said big sister Laura has been nicknamed "BB" for "Big Boss," and when
they met Annie, she became "LB" for "Little Boss."
"No one skipped a beat," she said. "If you met us, you'd just say, 'Wow.'"
Annie is in awe herself, it seems, over a year that has handed her some
overwhelming experiences - first, with the misdiagnosis, then the devastating
death of her father, and now, a miracle connection with her past.
"I'm so blessed," she said. And the blessing has been in both discovering a
family she never knew, and rediscovering the blessing of family she's always
had.
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
d=73829&rfi=6
'Little sister' unites with birth family
By JESSICA HURST 01/26/2005
Email to a friend Voice your opinion Printer-friendly
WAKEFIELD - Almost three weeks ago, a miracle whirled into Pancho O'Malley's in
Narragansett. Four sisters, with matching T-shirts and matching spirits, were
celebrating their baby sister's 40th birthday - for the first time.
Annie Jennings, a Wakefield resident, always knew she had been adopted at
birth. And growing up in Connecticut with a loving family, she never longed to
know her biological family, never felt the void that some adopted children
describe.
"I think I've always been curious, but I've never needed to go there," she
said.
A father's blessing
Then, in May of 2003, doctors told her she was dying of leukodystrophy, an
inherited nerve disorder.
"All that was going through my head was, 'What am I going to do with my kids,'"
said the single mother of two in an interview last week.
In October of that year, she learned she had been misdiagnosed. She wasn't
dying. But doctors urged her to look into her medical history.
"I didn't have leukodystrophy, but I needed to find out what happened to me
when I was born, because I was premature," she said.
When the medical report came in, it didn't provide any red flags. But it did
provide the names of four biological siblings: Laura, the oldest, Michael,
Karen and Kathy.
Annie was already a kid sister to her adoptive siblings, Susan and Vincent, Jr.
But then it hit her - she was a kid sister to four other people.
It's easy to imagine Annie as a kid sister. She's petite and slender, with a
youthful face, light-up eyes and a comfy, jeans-and-a-T-shirt style. Her
enthusiasm bubbles over at times, and she has a mischievous, endearing wit.
Across the country, she had four siblings with that same spirit, three of whom
didn't even know she existed.
But she hesitated to pursue her search. She was happy, she already had the
family she wanted, and couldn't ask for anything more.
And what if she didn't like what she discovered about her biological relatives?
When she contacted Catholic Family Services in Connecticut, which had handled
her adoption, that was exactly what they warned her about - that these searches
often turn out badly.
But the mother of her good friend Brian had been reunited with a daughter she
had put up for adoption, and the reunion was a good one. He encouraged Annie to
learn more.
It wasn't until Christmas of 2003, when Annie's father ("my best friend," she
said), who was dying of cancer, expressed his blessing to pursue her search,
that Annie felt like she was ready.
"We totally support your effort to learn more about who you are and where you
came from," he wrote in a Christmas card. "We hope and pray it will be a happy
and successful quest."
Vincent Largay died the next month.
Vincent and his wife Ann had not only been open with Annie about her adoption,
but had treated it as a fated blessing.
"My mother always told me that she always knew that I was coming," said Annie.
And her father acknowledged that Annie's biological mother had given them a
gift.
"On Mother's Day, he would always say, 'You have two mothers to be thankful for
- the one that had you, and the one that raised you'," she said.
In March of 2004, Annie would call her birth mother and say, simply, "I think
we're related."
A mother's choice
Five years ago, Theresa Flannigan told her oldest child, Laura, about the
daughter she had given up for adoption in 1965. She was living in Washington
State, already divorced with four other children, and traveled to Connecticut
to have the baby, giving her up with loving intentions.
A year before Annie contacted her biological mother, Terry and Laura had
already begun searching for her. The three other siblings had no knowledge of
another sister. Their mother shared the news after she got Annie's phone call.
The siblings were stunned.
"It's kind of a feeling of... a piece of your life has been missed," said Karen
Krausher, the third oldest biological sibling, in a telephone interview Monday
from her home in Sacramento, California.
"I think that my first words to my mom were that she was so lucky and so
blessed that this has come to her in her life," said Kathy Remick, the youngest
of the four.
First came the calls and e-mails among Annie and her West Coast siblings, and
then a trip out to Tacoma in April of 2004.
"I already felt connected even before she got here," said Kathy.
From those first conversations, Annie and her biological siblings knew it was a
perfect fit.
"It was like talking to somebody that I've known for years," said Kathy.
Karen felt the same way. "It was like talking to one of my younger sisters,"
she said.
And Annie felt like the younger sister.
"I just felt a connection, like, right away," she said, her eyes lighting up.
When she flew out to Tacoma, she was also greeted by scores of aunts, uncles,
cousins, nieces and nephews.
"They welcomed me with open arms a million times over," she said. "It was like
I belonged."
And they welcomed her children, Courtney, 12, and Andrew, 10, just the same
when they joined her on her second trip.
"Her kids are wonderful," said Kathy. "They're just a lot of fun."
For Annie, an adopted child who thrived in a loving family, meeting her
biological family didn't replace the family she grew up with. Rather, she now
has a deeper understanding of where she comes from, and why where she has ended
up is exactly where she is supposed to be.
"When I went into this, I didn't have any expectations," she said. "I knew,
'I'm not going to get hurt because I already have a terrific family.'"
And meeting her biological mother has reinforced her gratitude for the
difficult decision she made 40 years ago.
"She did the right thing in giving me up," she said. "I had a terrific family
growing up. I couldn't have asked for anything better."
And for Terry, who for 40 years wondered if her child had had the life she
wanted for her, Annie's appearance in her life has been an immense relief.
"She was so happy to realize that I had a good life," said Annie. "She had seen
so many horror stories about kids who were adopted and it didn't go well."
Terry's brother Dennis wrote to Annie's adoptive mother Ann last April, and
described his sister's joy.
"For years, my sister wondered and worried whether she did the right thing. Did
her last daughter have the life she prayed for?" he wrote. "In an hour's
conversation my sister... heard Annie say she couldn't have had 'better
parents.' You don't know the relief, the joy, the verification those words gave
my sister. She'd made the right decision."
A daughter's blessing
Annie flipped through albums of her trips to Tacoma last week, a proud sister
still marveling over her good fortune. She also had pictures of her birthday
celebration three weeks ago, when her three biological sisters flew in for the
weekend.
The three wore T-shirts that read, "It's our sister's birthday." Annie wore one
that read, "I'm the sister."
Terry had sent along four matching red glove and hat sets for the four of them.
Annie had everyone put them on, and lined the sisters up for pictures.
She rented a limousine for the evening, called some dear friends, and toured
some of the area's nightspots.
At Pancho's in Narragansett, the four sisters sang a chorus of "We Are Family,"
and danced like teenagers. They were catching up on lost time, but didn't feel
a shred of regret.
That initial feeling of missing out on something has all but vanished, said
Karen.
"I'm not looking backward, I'm looking forward," she said. "And I guess I don't
really look at what I've missed."
And when the sisters were visiting, they got to meet the family Annie was
brought up with - and they, too, understood that the Largays were the family
their sister was intended to have.
"Annie has had such a great life," said Kathy. "I'm just lucky that we have her
now."
Annie also feels lucky that her story has been a happy one, because she knew it
was a gamble.
She's enjoying the obvious threads of commonality she's found with her
biological siblings, like over-sensitivity (both laughter and tears), a
preference for jeans and T-shirts, a witty sense of humor and even traces of
bossiness.
Kathy said big sister Laura has been nicknamed "BB" for "Big Boss," and when
they met Annie, she became "LB" for "Little Boss."
"No one skipped a beat," she said. "If you met us, you'd just say, 'Wow.'"
Annie is in awe herself, it seems, over a year that has handed her some
overwhelming experiences - first, with the misdiagnosis, then the devastating
death of her father, and now, a miracle connection with her past.
"I'm so blessed," she said. And the blessing has been in both discovering a
family she never knew, and rediscovering the blessing of family she's always
had.
-------------------------
A good friend will come and bail you out of jail . . . but, a true friend will
be sitting next to you saying, "Damn . . . that was fun!"
-----Unknown
