Tag Archives: adoptees

Adoption: Anti vs Pro

3 Replies

Are you anti-adoption or pro-adoption? There’s no line in the sand in this photo.

A story about taking sides

Adoption. Anti vs. Pro. I don’t want a line in the sand. I’m not pro-adoption, and I don’t want to be anti-adoption either. But. Please read on.

My boyfriend died of lung cancer in June. We’d only been together for five years, so there was a lot I didn’t know about him. Dan had been at Berkeley during the Free Speech Movement, while I was a boy-crazy 8th grader at a Catholic school in Iowa. Even before that, if I have the timeline correct, he’d joined the Freedom Riders and had gone down to Mississippi. An old friend of his told me that while he was down there he was arrested and taken to jail. “Are you black or white?” Dan was asked over and over again as they were preparing lock him up. Dan, a Korean-American, wouldn’t answer the question, but as the questioning got more aggressive, Dan finally went with white. He was jailed anyway. 

I’m telling this story as an introduction.

Why I’m not pro-adoption

I do not imagine ever aligning myself with the folks who call themselves pro-adoption. But, I might be in favor of some adoptions. But the label pro-adoption would need to be dissected and arranged in such a way that it didn’t mean unnecessary adoption. I might be in favor of some adoptions if it didn’t mean secrets and shame and sealed records. If it didn’t mean child trafficking or endangerment or taking children from poor single mothers and giving them to couples with a bigger bank account. I might if family preservation came first and foremost.

I don’t want to be anti-adoption

But I don’t really want to be anti-adoption either. Not straight across the board. I acknowledge that there are children who need to be removed from their biological parents–at least temporarily. Still, adoption is no guarantee there will not be abuse. I acknowledge that there are children in orphanages and in foster care that need families. Claudia Corrigan D’Arcy elaborates on the anti-adoption label in her ESSAY from Portrait of an Adoption and pretty much covers everything. So, yes, if I have to choose, I’ll have what she’s having. But only if it’s served up like that.

Reform adoption!

Reform of the adoption industry is absolutely necessary. But I don’t like the line in the sand. I’m guessing that a lot of the people who label themselves as pro-adoption don’t really want to associate themselves with the corrupt practices present in adoption today. Or at least I hope not. So I wish they wouldn’t say they were pro-adoption without writing an essay defining it.

Strength is something we seek. Taking a stand is admired. Fervent seems like a nice adjective. But maybe we all have to stand together in the middle of the hurt and confusion explaining every little thing to one another, listening as hard as we can.

Access to Birth Records

3 Replies

Unrestricted access

Adoptees need access to their birth records. Only 9 U.S. states currently provide adult adoptees unrestricted access to their original birth certificates. Although partial access or restricted access might sound like it’s better than nothing, it’s not. It’s actually heartbreak waiting to happen. Just when you think your state has passed a law that will provide you with your original birth certificate, you might discover there are date restrictions. Or that your birthmother has veto power over the release of your original birth certificate.

Restricted access hurts adoptees

Adoptees need unrestricted access to their birth records. And original birth certificate can pave the way to medical history, ethnic and cultural origins. All of the things that an un-adopted person has access to.

Connecticut is one of the most recent partial access states, and here’s how it works:

On June 6, 2014 Governor Dannel Malloy signed into law Public Act 14-133 (House Bill 5144), which restores the right of adoptees adopted after October 1, 1983 to access their original birth certificates upon reaching the age of 18. This law restores the right of access to approximately 24,000 of the 65,000 adoptees who were born in Connecticut since 1919. —FROM THE AMERICAN ADOPTION CONGRESS WEBSITE

If you were adopted after 1983 as a youngster or an infant, chances are your birthparents are still relatively young. Or at least still on the planet. Older adoptee’s parents are probably, well, older. Or deceased. But you might never be able to find out if they’re dead or alive.

In Delaware, it goes like this:

Birth parents wishing to block release of identifying information must file a written notarized statement to that effect with the Office of Vital Statistics. Such statements must be renewed every three years.

Vital Statistics will make a reasonable effort to notify a birth parent when an adoptee applies for birth records. If no disclosure veto statement is filed, the original birth certificate will be released to the adoptee approximately 65 days after the initial request. — ALSO FROM THE AAC WEBSITE

This birthmother’s perspective

I confess that I do suffer the tiniest bit of ambivalence. I’m a birthmother. I understand the shame and secrecy element. I realize the upheaval this might cause in the life of a woman who kept her pregnancy a secret. Or did not tell her spouse that she had a child from a previous relationship. I understand that if she has other children they might be shocked. It could be quite a surprise that their mother is a mother to someone else.

Access to birth records

BUT I think the right of adoptees trumps all of it. Adoptees must have unrestricted access to their birth records. To know who they are, where they come from. To know what their medical history is must have priority over the birthparents’ concerns.

There are 7 states with partial access or restricted access. It’s depressing to read the details and do the math regarding how many adoptees can get their OBCs and how many cannot. The adoptee rights organization, Bastard Nation follows the progress of state legislation regarding birth records very closely. If you are an adoptee and want the latest on the status of OBCs in your state, check there.

Concerned United Birthparents

1 Reply
Business-Meeting-Clip-Art_0
clip-art image
A Concerned United Birthparents meeting is not just for birthparents

Attending a CUB meeting

I attended a Concerned United Birthparents (CUB) meeting on Saturday. I went to share the good news of getting my memoir published. And I went to do what one does at support group meetings–get and give support. I was pleased to see that a CUB meeting is much like it was some years ago. A CUB meeting is not just for birthparents, but for adoptees, and for adoptive parents too.

My experience with CUB in the 90s

In 1990 when I was attending regularly,  the group was huge. Thirty folding chairs in a circle with a couple of boxes of Kleenex making the rounds. Even back then birthmothers were joined by a few birth fathers, adoptees, and a couple of adoptive parents. Many attendees were involved in searching for their lost family members, but some were there to celebrate reunion. Others were there for support because it didn’t seem that a reunion would ever be possible. Still others were looking for guidance on their new relationships with mothers, fathers, or adult children. Every story was unique.

Amazing stories

In our information age where it’s possible to find your birth family in 36 hours, (oh–if only it were always so easy!) the ranks of CUB seem to have thinned a bit. But the meeting I went to on Saturday was every bit as diverse as the ones I remember from more than two decades ago.

There was an adoptee about to introduce her siblings to each other (one from her adoptive family, the other from her birth family). There was a birthmother who’d attended CUB for years, searched found nothing, then years later came back and thereafter was reunited with her son who is now getting to know her other adult children. An adoptee read the letter she hopes to send to her recently located birthmother. A birthmother, back from the wedding of her son– the first milestone in his life she hadn’t missed. An adoptive mother sharing her story of her children’s inabilities to heal after their lives of abuse prior to their adoption. An adoptee with her toddler daughter describing what it was like to give birth and realize she’d just met her first blood relative. A birthmother announcing that the first meeting between her and her daughter is now on the calendar.

Each story told of an opened a door. Between birthmother and adoptee. Or adoptee and adoptive parent. Or between adoptive parent and birthmother.

Why go to a CUB meeting?

The meetings well-moderated meetings are a safe place where people listen. The Internet has made searching easier. But there are still plenty of reasons to go to a CUB meeting. If you’re a birthparent, an adoptee, or an adoptive parent, and you are looking for support or information, or a group where you can share your story and hear others, a CUB meeting is a fantastic idea. Check the website for the meeting schedule in your area.

Sealed Adoption Records

4 Replies
IMG_1212
photo by author

Most adoption records are sealed. Under lock and key.
Not available.

A sealed original birth certificate

Want to know how to obtain an original birth certificate?

Let’s start HERE. It’s a WikiHow. And it’ll take less than a minute of your time.

Did you follow that? If you’re an adoptee with a sealed original birth certificate, you might be rolling on the floor. And maybe you’re laughing. Or maybe you’re crying. If you’re a birthmother trying to obtain the original birth certificate for the child you surrendered, forget it. The instructions are ridiculous.

Adoptees, it is not possible to obtain your OBC. Unless you live in one of the handful of states that have unsealed adoption records. Let me reiterate. Even if you are an adult. An American. A law abiding citizen. With medical cause, or any other pressing reason. You cannot, as an adoptee in most U.S. States, get your hands on your OBC. Period. Original birth certificates are sealed. The only birth certificate available to you is the amended one. It contains your new name and the name of the adoptive parents. A fiction.

Birthmother confidentiality

The issue of birthmother confidentiality is debated regularly in state legislatures. Legislators like to cite birthmothers in discussions over unsealing birth certificates. We’re held up as the reason it can’t be done. We were promised confidentiality, they say. And they can’t betray us.

Birthmother confidentiality is a myth. I have absolutely nothing promising me confidentiality. Not a contract. And not a certificate. And not a letter. Not a piece of paper of any kind promising me anything. I have no paperwork even recording the fact that the adoption of my son took place. Furthermore, I don’t even have paperwork recording his birth. There’s no proof that either event–the birth or the adoption–ever happened.

At my intake appointment with the adoption agency in June of 1970, the social worker explained that I would be hidden away for the duration of my pregnancy. My secret would be safe, she said. And she also explained that my name would appear on the baby’s birth certificate. However, I did not have to name the baby’s father. His name did not have to be recorded. But my full name would appear in black and white on the original birth certificate. Not a promise of confidentiality at all.

Flawed practices in adoption

I am far from the first birthparent to bring this up. But it bears repeating. It bears repeating because legislators bring it up. They bring up the same confidentiality argument against unsealing records over and over again. In 2006 The DONALDSON ADOPTION INSTITUTE issued a report on the flawed practices in the adoption industry regarding birthparents. The confidentiality excuse was addressed. Yet state legislatures continue to cite the distress of of some mythical band of birthmothers over the breaching of their confidentiality. If I were still searching for my son, confidentiality is the last thing I’d want. Dozens of sources, in addition to the Donaldson Report, support this point of view. Yet, the myth persists. So, dear confidentiality cronies, please listen. And stop telling us birthmothers what we want.

The Death of Edward Hirsch’s Son

6 Replies
unnamed
photo by author

The adoption of a baby boy

The death of Edward Hirsch’s son has inspired a book length elegy. The article, “Finding the Words,” in the August 4th issue of The New Yorker, begins:

            In October, 1988, my friends Janet Landy and Edward Hirsch flew to New Orleans to adopt a boy who was six days old. He was collected from the hospital  by their lawyer, who brought him to the house where they were staying. Waiting for her, they stood in the street in front of the house. For several days, they worried that the mother, overcome by love or by guilt might want the child back, but she didn’t.

             Later in the piece we learn, “Hirsch had a cousin who was a lawyer in New Orleans, who put him in touch with the woman at his firm who sometimes handled adoptions. In August, 1988….the lawyer called and said that a young woman had approached a colleague.” This is all we are given regarding Gabriel’s birth and his birthmother. Perhaps this is fitting since the story is about Hirsch’s grief and the book-length elegy that grew out of his suffering over the death of his son. But from my perspective as a birthmother, even as I followed the trajectory of Gabriel’s life and of Hirsch’s profound sorrow over the loss of him, a piece of my heart lay lodged in that first paragraph with the woman who had given up her son.

An excerpt from the elegy

Hirsch describes a section of the elegy he wrote as being extremely important to him:

            I did not know the work of mourning

            Is like carrying a bag of cement

           Up a mountain at night            

           The mountaintop is not in sight

            Because there is no mountaintop

            Poor Sisyphus grief

            I did not know I would struggle

            Through a ragged underbrush

            without an upward path

            And continues:

            Look closely and you will see

            Almost everyone carrying bags

            Of cement on their shoulders

          Hirsch’s recognition that never ending grief over the loss of a loved one as a common experience connects the reader with an abiding truth. But I couldn’t help but wonder if he ever thought of the woman who might still imagine her son walking the earth, whole and healthy. She (and the rest of Gabriel’s birth family) has suffered a loss more terrible than his relinquishment, only she doesn’t know it.

I do not mean to say that Hirsch’s grief is any less because his son was adopted. I don’t mean that at all. I just can’t help imagining a mother thinking daily of the boy she gave away. And how, now that he has rounded the corner of official adulthood, it might be a good time to search for him. Perhaps, even though she did not merit a mention in the New Yorker story, Hirsch does give her a nod somewhere in the elegy. I hope so. She has been carrying her bag of cement since Gabriel was six days old.

A Birthmother in a Novel

1 Reply
One of my granddaughters–the one my mother called “that little girl.”
When you give away a child, you also give away your grandchildren.

Izzie in Kate Atkinson’s “Life After Life”

The baby would be adopted as swiftly as possible. “A respectable German couple, unable to have their own child,” Adelaide said. Sylvie tried to imagine giving away a child. (“And will we never hear of it again?” she puzzled. “I certainly hope not,” Adelaide said.) Izzie was now packed off to a finishing school in Switzerland, even though it seemed she was already finished, in more ways than one.

from “Life After Life” by Kate Atkinson

Reading from the birthmother’s perspective

Izzie, the shamed pregnant girl, in Atkinson’s book seemed to be a minor character in the beginning. She’s the sister-in-law of Sylvie, one of the main characters.  Now I’m a quarter of the  way through the book, and Izzie has reappeared, years later after giving up her child. I can’t wait to see how she is. Will people speak of the baby and her past? Will she? And is Adelaide, Izzie’s mother still alive? Has her attitude about Izzie and her baby changed? Will we meet the lost baby?

I always read from the birth mother’s perspective. It’s impossible not to.

My real-life story

In my own story, with my own parents, the baby was never mentioned again. After the birth of two subsequent children I couldn’t stand the silence. I couldn’t stand living my big lie–that I had two children, not three. I couldn’t stand my unacknowledged grief.

When I called my mother and told her I was going to search for my son, who was by then 20 years old. “You’re going to get hurt,” she said.

“I’m already hurt,” I said.

So I searched. And I found him. Many things have happened since then. My mom lives with me now. She’s gotten to know my son and his family. She’s still talking about how much she enjoyed “that little girl” who came to stay for a week this summer. My son’s daughter. To think we might never have known her. But that’s how adoption works. Grandmothers lose grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Babies are handed off to new parents and are never heard of again.

Adoptive Parents

Leave a reply
cb14-73_adopted_children_graph-sm
Image from the U.S. Census Bureau showing that adoptive parents are educated.

Adoptive parents are educated!

“Adopted children are more likely to live in educated homes,” the headline says. The news has been making the rounds in publications large and small. Adoptive parents are educated!

For me, it was a *smacks self in forehead* moment. When I was trying to finish high school in the spring of 1970 while keeping my secret pregnancy, uh…welll…secret, the last thing I could imagine was somehow keeping my baby and going off to college. Adoptive parents have also been found to have higher incomes. That usually has something to do with education, right? Another forehead smack.

Of course the intent of this report is not to surprise us. Nor is it to overwhelm us with the obvious. It’s to gather data. If you’d like to read more adoption stats, you can see the full report here.

Mostly, I think of the personal angle rather than the statistics  when I see headlines like the one above. I think of a woman reading the paper over her morning coffee. A woman who gave away a child, believing that someone else could provide a better life. I think of the ache she might have in the pit of her stomach or the pull in her heart.

My First Contact with My Son

1 Reply
Collage by author.
How would I manage my first contact with my son? I’d said good-bye to him in Iowa 20 years earlier.

Post Adoption Contact

I was not entirely sure how to initiate my first contact with my son.

As a regular attendee of the monthly Concerned United Birthparents meetings, I picked up some tips there. How to have modest expectations. How to approach the situation with an open mind. How to put myself in the shoes of my son. I didn’t want to shock him or frighten him. Most importantly, I didn’t want to lay my grief on him.

And there’s also this more recent guidance from American Adoption Congress.

After a lot of thinking, I found my path.

The letter

Not long before Christmas I decided I was ready to make my first post-adoption contact with my son. I wrote a letter to him, detailing who I was and how I’d come to place him  for adoption. And I enclosed a faded color snapshot of his biological father and me dressed in our pastel evening finery at our senior prom. What would my son think when he saw those two innocent smiles? Would he realize that he was in the photo too?

Christmas was just a couple of weeks away, so I put the letter in a red envelope, hoping to pass it off as a Christmas card. If he doesn’t write me back in a couple of weeks, I thought, I’ll call him.

The mail fell in heaps through the slot in our front door during the week before Christmas. I’d hear our dog bark, and I’d race to the entry hall to contemplate the holiday envelopes strewn on the rug. Examining each one, I hoped for a return address from my son, but there was nothing. At the meetings I’d heard adoptees say that reuniting with a birthparent could make the adoptive parents feel abandoned or threatened. I told myself my son was just taking it slow out of consideration for his family. But even ten days later there was no response.

A phone call

When I first received information about my son, I learned some basic details. That he lived at home with his parents. That he had a sister. That he worked as an information operator for the phone company.

The searcher had given me my son’s phone number and pointed out that the line was separate from his parents’ line. Consequently, I began working up the nerve to call him. But first, I wanted to find out if my son shared his phone line with his sister. This would be important if I called and left a message.

One afternoon shortly after New Year’s, while my daughters were napping, I sat on my bedroom floor with the telephone in my lap. Because I knew his sister’s name, I could call information to get her number and see if it was the same as his. I dialed information for Mesa, Arizona with my pencil at the ready. “Hello, this is C***. May I help you?” said the operator. I gasped at hearing my son’s name and slammed down the phone. I lay flat on my back on the cool oak floor of my bedroom. Was it possible that I had just spoken to my son?

I would find out later that I had.

Free Book: Saying Goodbye

2 Replies

This weekend, in a special promotion, you can get a free book, “Saying Goodbye” ( Kindle edition) on Amazon. It’s a collection of true stories about how we say goodbye to the people, places & things in our lives with grace, dignity & good humor. http://amzn.to/tcU8PP

My essay about saying goodbye to my newborn son, “Holding Him Softly,” is in it.

Here are a few snippets of reviews about the collection: (and if you like the book, you might consider reviewing it on Amazon.)


Tender perspectives helping readers with their own goodbyes. If you have ever had to deal with loss, read this book. It will make you feel better. — Christina Johns, Midwest Book Review, Oct. 18, 2010 

The stories are about love, really, not sadness. Despite all the sadness and grief that come with saying goodbye, there is love and joy and comedy on the Other Side. — Gretchen Little, Squidoo.com Lens, Oct. 29, 2010 

This book gets to the heart of what I teach in my class on death and dying – that life is filled with loss of all kinds and we can learn from each one and ultimately experience life more fully. The stories in this book do a wonderful job of showing that out of loss there are new beginnings. I recommend it for any teacher of death and dying classes. I also recommend it for anyone who is struggling with a loss – no matter what kind. — Professor Jann Adams, Department of Psychology, College of Idaho, Aug. 25, 2011 

Life is full of goodbyes. Some are painful, but some are downright humorous. Saying Goodbye is an anthology of short (true) stories about people saying goodbye to a variety of people, places and things. The authors vary as much as their subjects, and this collection does a nice job of showcasing how different people have so many different experiences with saying farewell. — Book Nook Club, Nov. 5, 2010 

This is a great book. There are many anthologies out there, lots with great short stories, but Saying Goodbye is about much more. It’s about memories. There are heartfelt memories, humourous memories, some extremely personal memories. Some really made me smile. Others brought tears to my eyes. — UK author Melanie Sherratt, High Heels and Book Deals, Nov. 22, 2010

Rhode Island Adoptees

1 Reply
 

Rhode Island Adoptees Win!

Rhode Island Adoptees have won the right to access their original birth certificates! And isn’t it cool that the Rhode Island flag says, “Hope?”

It’s enough to make me want to move to New England. Along with Maine and New Hampshire, Rhode Island has restored the rights of adoptees. Rights advocates battled for twenty years in Rhode Island, and it could be that Connecticut will be the next state to win its battle for adoptee rights.


So now there are seven states where adoptees have access to their original birth certificates. Maybe soon there will be eight. So…while we’re all excited about that, let’s pause for a moment. Really, what that means is eight out of 50. Eight out of 50 states allow adoptees unrestricted access to their original birth certificates. That is dismal.

Just in case you have questions regarding the importance of this legislation, I will refer you to another post here. And also to the adoptee rights group Bastard Nation.

Iowa Adoptees lose!

My son’s original birth certificate resides in the state of Iowa.
Dear Iowa, please look east and pay attention. Your mutual consent registry excludes some people and it’s kind of a money-grubbing operation. $25 bucks for each application?