The Original Six.

Noelle, McKenzie, Foster care

My perspective

Growing up wasn't the...easiest thing to do in my family, but it was definitely never as hard as some people may have it. I would never want to compare my hardships to others, because I know in their perspective what has happened or not happened to them is a big deal, and to me the same, it's a big deal. I guess you expect a great normal autobiography, right? Wrong. I'm sixteen. No, I don't think it will suck, I am a good writer, but I would never expect this to get further than me venting.

              When I was born, I was expected, but never planned or intended. My egg donor was told she couldn't have kids. When my sister came along she never thought she'd have more, so she named her with three names, Jacqueline Taylor Paige. My family says to this day, she picked the most beautiful names she could think of. Being second, that meant I got the back burner choices. My sister and I are 10 months and nine days apart. Yes, if you think about it, that means my egg donor and father had sex nearly right after they had my sister. My aunt Kay, who I now consider my grandmother has always said she named me Rebecca. My other names were sort of just added. I ended up being a Rebecca Morgan Rose. Imagine writing that out on school forms, and I haven't even included my last two names which consist of 12 more letters. The thing that I think bothers me most now is when my sister was born, from day one people called her Paige. Her name was Jacqueline and from the time of her birth people called her by her second middle name. When I was born however, I was named Rebecca and called by my first middle name, Morgan. I grew up loving the name Morgan. As I ventured into my teen years, however, I preferred the name Rebecca. School was easy, they went by Rebecca anyways because of my records. At home however, I was still known as, "Morgan". I hate it so much. They all say, "Well, I don't care if you ask me to call you - - -, I will always call you Morgan." Disrespect. There are however a few who call me by how I wish. My grandmother, her husband, and my Uncle Tony. Uncle Tony, he was never an uncle to me until I realized he was, you know? I realized he had wished me to call him Uncle Tony. For the longest time I refused, until he began calling me as I wished and I knew I wanted to do the same out of respect. In a different perspective, he really is my uncle. He's a good man, just really sucks at cards.

            My egg donor was never a good mother. She had an addiction, like most people, and cared more for that than for her children. I don't know much about her. I try not to ask, it only makes me angry when I do. What I do know is, when I was two-ish, my sister and I were taken away from her finally and put into foster care. This is the part where I can't compare my hardships to others. Specifically my sister. While this is a part of my story, I will never be able to tell it as she would, because it happened to her, it really is her part of this story.  I was younger, and still in a more baby mode. So, I was treated as the baby. Loved, played with, adored. In any typical foster care or adoption center, the youngest are usually paid more attention and overall treated better. This left my sister the opposite treatment. We cant remember the details, but her psychiatrist now says she was most likely abused in our first home. I knew she was. I remember seeing her huddled in a corner. They called me princess at that first house. I had a special crib and the two older sisters absolutely loved me. The older brothers loved to torment Paige. They would poke at her and swing her around. She was miserable and I unknowingly was loving it all. Our second house, well that one was paradise. My sister was with me alone with a girl my age name Noelle, and a girl Paige's age named McKenzie. We all got along well, very well.  Our foster parents were amazing. We spent nights in our two pink and purple painted bunk beds, days filled with hide and seek and grape picking. There was a huge vineyard next door to us and they let us play around in it. Things were different in this house. They liked Paige more and I was now the one being treated differently. Not in a physical abused way. They would isolate me from games, the sleepovers in the living room, little stuff. It really hurt, but that's how I feel now. Back then, I had the idea in my head my sister was just better than me. granted I will probably always feel that way. The end of this house resulted in the biggest change in my life. Permanent placement. It was always a fear, even to this day that back then my sister and I would have been separated and adopted. My then cousin, who I called my aunt and now call my mom decided to take both of us in with her having full custody. My sister never wanted to leave our second house. She had so deeply grown to love Henry, the father and McKenzie was her best friend. The girls gave Paige a stuffed frog as a goodbye present. "We aren't giving you anything because you will just break it", is what they told me. Our foster parents promised to keep our bunk beds forever in case we decided to come there for a visit. We never went back. It's been 12 years since I lived in that house. I still continue to think of Noelle's ice eating habit, and riding around in our little barbie cars. They gave us everything and more. Sometimes, it isn't everything you want exactly that is what you need. What my sister and I needed, was our family, and that's what we got.