ALREADY HOME

Ibach questions how much his adoption shaped his inner life in this debut memoir.

On a November afternoon in 1955, a drunk truck driver killed a motorist in an accident on a rural road outside Nichols, South Carolina. The dead motorist’s wife found solace in the arms of another man, and when their child was born—a little over a year after the accident—he was given up for adoption. Raised by a physician father and a scientist mother in a suburb of Milwaukee, Ibach never felt particularly out of place in his adoptive family, which included a mix of adopted children and the biological children of his parents. “I never felt abandoned, I never felt rejected, I never felt that I had to prove my worthiness to be in and among the Ibach clan,” writes the author. “These emotions never surfaced, and I am content and secure enough to say I am also convinced these emotions are not percolating beneath the surface.” It was not until the author was 58 years old and having relationship trouble with a girlfriend that he first encountered, via couples therapy, the idea that his adoption might have left deep scars on his psyche. The suggestion led Ibach to look back on his childhood for evidence of emotional distress—the occasions when, as a kid, he’d acted out, refusing to eat his mother’s cooking or riding off on his bike to be alone. The relationship with his girlfriend ended, and the author was left questioning his sense of identity. Not long after this period of uncertainty began, the state of Wisconsin opened up its adoption records, allowing adopted children to track down their birth parents for the first time. Ibach soon learned his birth mother’s name, and that she had died many years before. More emotionally confused than ever, he dove into the search for whatever information he could find about his birth parents, revealing the dramatic backstory that he never knew he had. But would he come away from the process feeling any differently about the family who had raised him?

Ibach writes with candor and curiosity, making readers feel as though they’re witnessing the author’s self-exploration in real time. “What is the correct terminology?” he wonders. “Bloodline? Ancestry? Parentage? I’m not sure. My late dad Harold and my late mother Martha were my parents. They raised me. Mom died almost ten years before I submitted my application to Wisconsin for my adoption report…” The author is sure that he isn’t missing anything fundamental—phrases from adoption therapy culture like “Primal Wound” and “Ghost Kingdom” strike him as overly dramatic—and yet his search for answers proves that there’s something to be gained from seeking to understand one’s origins. Adopted readers who, like Ibach, don’t see themselves as victims and yet still carry a sense of uncertainty inside them will benefit from accompanying him on this journey, regardless of its revelations.

An earnest and thoughtful adoption memoir.