WHO AM I ? ?

I can't stop thinking about this issue.

How do I possibly get this down on paper, it's something that in reality doesn't make any sense at all. It is something I have thought of on-and-off, for many, many years .... so many years that it seems to be coming to a head and I am finding that I think of this issue daily.

What is it, you ask, that makes my mind wander back and forth. It is something that many children ask themselves at some point in their growing up years, hoping that their parents aren't really their parents. But, I never was one to do this to myself. It all started about 25 years ago - mostly as a joke, but today has become more of an irritation of sorts.

The 'issue' that is torturing me is this...........am I adopted (?) was I a baby who was switched at birth (?) or was some kind of baby switch done around 18 months old (?).

Now for the facts. I'm in my 50's. I have four sisters and one brother. None of them do I look like. Nor do I look like my mother or father or grandparents or aunts or uncles.

It has been a sort of family joke that I'm the milkman's daughter. Everyone gets a chuckle at that, especially when we are at a family gathering and someone new to the family will say to me with complete surprise "You're (so and so's) sister, daughter ! ! You don't look anything like the rest of the family."

But back even further, to the beginning of the questions that have been raised, not by me, but by my mother. Many, many years ago she relayed an unusual story to me and the family. From time to time, she brings this up and it has made me wonder what, if anything, this story rings of some sort of truth - something maybe even my own mother doesn't seem to be conscious of.

The story goes like this.....when I was about 18 months old, I was quite something. I was talking quite a bit (apparently quite unusual for the time) and my aunt, my mother's sister (who was pregnant at this time) thought I was just the most wonderful child. I, like my parents, had dark black hair and bright blue eyes. I was just beautiful ! ! !

The story gets quite sad at this point. My aunt, who was pregnant, gave birth to twin boys. But she, and her two sons, died in childbirth. It was a very traumatic time for my mom and her family. Something I cannot even imagine the grief they were experiencing. But, here is where the story takes the strange twist ..... my mother relates that the day my aunt and her boys died, she put me to bed. When she picked me up in the morning, from my crib, I had this incredible change of hair color and eye color - going from black hair to blonde and eyes from bright blue to green. Go figure.

Now I never, ever gave that story any credence of truth, although I thought it was a wildly impossible event, but my mom insists it was absolutely true. I went from black hair/blue eyes to blonde hair/green eyes overnight. Is this medically possible? I know that babies eyes do change color. But haircolor too - overnight?

Could it be from the trauma the family was experiencing?? Could my mom have been so filled with grief that she didn't recognize/experience that her child was (maybe) not her child?? None of this story logically makes any sense to me.

But my mom, who is now 82, still sticks by this story - the hair/eye color change that happened overnight. What am I to make of this??

To continue on with the story I should tell you that I love to go yard-sailing, as we call it around here. Usually I go with one or two or three of my sisters, since we all love to find a good "bargain" now and then.

Every weekend, as we stop to check out the 'sales', it never fails that someone will talk to one of my sisters (we are all very friendly) and say to that person "Oh, and this is your sister too." ..... and be referring to the other one or two sisters who are with us. But never, NEVER, do they include me in the referring. For the last couple of years it's just been something we've all laughed at. But, it's just getting weirder and weirder.

A week ago, I took my mom to the hospital to get some blood drawn. We sat down next to another elderly lady. As it turned out, she and my mom were friends in their younger days and they talked for sometime until we had to leave. My mom introduced me to this woman as her 'oldest daughter'. The woman said "You're kidding, I would never have guessed she was one of your children. She doesn't look like any of the others I know." Well, you know my mom and I brought up the old joke of me being the milkman's daugher. Everyone laughed.

But, this is just getting rediculous.

Yesterday, at two separate yardsales, people talked to my other sister and said things like "Oh, and so-and-so is your sister, you look just like her." I was just so irritated by it all I walked away. Determined not to stand there and say (as I usually do) "I'm so-and-so's sister too." It's just getting to be too much for me.

And, I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT. It's on my mind alot. Can't shake the feeling that there's something more to this whole story than I may ever find out. It's a mystery (or maybe it's not) that I want to solve, to settle in my own mind.

Anyone have any suggestions??? I am actually asking myself this question. But as yet I have not come up with an answer - except to try to do a dna test. But how would I bring that up to my mom without offending her or scaring her?

My personal feeling is that someone switched me in my crib when I was 18 months old. But that's probably too conspiritorial for it to have any truth. And I'm not a crazy person. Just trying to figure out an answer to this crazy issue in my life.

~ The Mediator