So, I got a call Thursday. The adoption agency is going to give me one more hour of search time and the new searcher was calling to make sure I had a support system, just in case my birthmom doesn’t want contact, or they are unable to find her.
I tried to assure her that I had several support groups, both online and local, as well as family and friends. but she wasn’t convinced. It’s funny how worried they seem to be for me, when the best thing they could really do is give me the my info.
I don’t have a lot of faith that they will be able to do anything for me. They just don’t seem to really want to try. Maybe I’m not giving them enough credit, but after my last sttempt with them I don’t really. I mean, after a year of waiting they tell me they found an uncle, but not my birthmom. Since they don’t have my birthmom’s permission I’m not allowed to contact, nor even know who my uncle is, nor is he allowed to know anything about me.
One funny part, the searcher asked me what I would do if they couldn’t find my birthmom. My reply was that I would find another route. That threw her.

It’s getting so frustrating searching. I see other adoptees going thru reunions, or just starting and I want to scream why not me? I’ve started support groups in my area, and even started one with members across the nation. Still, I can’t get lucky and reunite. This weekend I even met an adoptee with a crazy story of reunion and all I could think of that I wish I had her story.

I have prayed repeatedly for God’s help and I know it will happen when it happens. I don’t quite believe that everything actually happens in some pre-ordained plan since this sort of contradicts the freedom of choice thing. I do believe God has a plan for us, but allows us to choose the path we will wollow, even if it goes against his. I think of him as a master chess player on a universal level. He can see the choices before each of us at each moment and rather than knowing what we may choose, he see the consequences of each choice and the choices that will arise from that, and so on and so on…… he provides signs and guidance to halp make good choices, but we don’t always hear him, or even listen to him.

I also see him as a parent. The kind that will help you get on the bike and then run beside you yelling pointers to keep you going, but who knows sometimes a fall is the best teacher.

So I go to bed now, with another prayer on my lips. Please keep my family safe, (both of them,) and help me find the side I haven’t met, yet have known since I was born.

“Adoption Loss is the only trauma in the world where the victims are expected by the whole of society to be grateful” - The Reverend Keith C. Griffith, MBE

It’s funny how many people ask me about my adoptive parents, when I tell them about my search. Usually, it’s asking what do they think about my search. Well world, it’s not about them. It’s about finding my roots. Too many adoptive parents look at an adoptee searching as an attack against them, or as a sign the adoptee is trying to “replace” them. Well, unless they were terrible aoptive parents, probably not true.

I’ve been told I should feel grateful for being born and adopted by some. When I compare my adoptive life to some others I’ve met, I have to agree I was lucky in many ways, but why is having your past hidden a reason to feel grateful? I had a good life, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know. Nature abhors a vacuum, and my genetic history is vacuum.

I’ve been told I was chosen. Okay, this one just makes me feel like a pet.

I’ve been told how grateful I should feel because I have parents who truly wanted me. Where do I begin on this one?

I’ve been told that it was such a wonderful thing my biological mother did in giving me up. Huh? How do you know? How do you know what my life might have been? How do you know what life she might have had? I tell these people to go watch a Disney movie. You know, where the Mom gives her life to save her child because she loves them, or those that the parent will go where angels fear to tread to save their child. Yeah, doesn’t make me feel so “lucky” in that sense. Why doesn’t she find me? Also, what does it say that my first lesson in love is to give the thing you love away? (A little Primal Wound Theory for you there.)

I want to join all three of my familys. My family by birth, my family by adoption and my family by marriage. When I do this, then I will feel lucky.

As for my parents? They are fine with me searching, they even help. Like my mom says, “We are curious too.”

“The oppressed should rebel, and they will continue to rebel and raise disturbance until their civil rights are fully restored to them and all partial distinctions, exclusions, and incapacitations are removed.” — Thomas Jefferson

Okay, we aren’t slaves, but we are oppressed in the basic sense of the word. We are denied our birth certificates and genetic history. Yep, I’m talking about adoptees.

Some states have opened records and allow adoptees to have their original birth certificates, not just a modified version, sometimes with false birthdates and birthplaces.

And now, New Jersey is looking to open records and a bill was submitted to give adoptees unconditional access to their records. Unfortunately, like a few states before them, the senate decided to impose a set of conditions on adoptees. Basically, biological parents have one year to file a veto to prevent their identity from beings shared basically denying the adoptee again. Again, a few people prevent others from the right of knowing their truth, because of a few falsehoods about protecting others rights to privacy. Image if today, the government suddenly told everyone in America that they could only get an amended birthcertificate (that some clerk had modified) and all originals were now sealed to protect the privacy of everyone else in the world. Image what you would do, what you would say, what you would feel?

Amazing that we are one of the few countries who still do this. We treat the buying and selling of children as big business. We sell children to families to fix them, or to replace a lost child, like to new pet.

Tonight I went to my son’s school Christmas presentation. To see these precious children singing about the birth of Jesus, was soulful in a word. Out of the mouth of babes. I guess in the end, I am glad that I have been lucky enough to meet at least one blood member of my family and to see at least one person in this world who looks like me.

To read the NJ bill:
http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/2004/Bills/S1500/1093_R2.HTM

To read Bastard Nations take on this:
http://www.bastards.org/documents/conditional.html

“Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.” Mark Twain

A friend of mine, who is a birthmother, signed up with the same search group that I am using not long after I did. About two days ago, she got an email that they had found her son and yesterday she got all the information. She is so happy, and I’m happy for her. However, in same ways I’m pissed at her too. Yeah, I know it’s irrational, but there you go.

I also got a reply from them last week, when I asked for an update. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the same thing. They have “nothing conclusive yet.” Very annoying. Granted, I know my birth state is one of the worst out there as far as records go, and since I was adopted thru a private adoption agency, that adds another layer. (Just to give you an idea of the extra layer, I just read a couple of posts from adoptees who have both gotten the courts to grant them permission to have their records due to the Native America ancestry, however, this particular private company is still refusing to give them access.)

I guess in some ways I do feel the state and company “owe” me the info. It’s about me after all. It’s not about another person, although it references one of the other people involved but it’s about me. Some states are opening up records but setting up a VETO right for the birthparents., basically giving this person who gave up all rights to the child, to then decide whether the adult adoptee can access the their own information and birth certificate. Okay, I really don’t understand this. Why do these grown adoptees need their mommy’s and/or daddy’s permission to access their blasted records? You know, the ones they call vital statistics?

Do you understand what it is like going to the doctor and not being able to tell them whether your family has a history of this or that? Now think about going with your child and telling their doctor you don’t know. Think about the pain there for a bit. Don’t tell me you are protecting the birth parent’s “right to privacy” because that is a fallacy. They gave up their rights, whether they did it willingly or not, it was done, and why does their “rights” override my “rights” even when I’m grown? What is society trying to protect? The lies?

So I have a bit of anger at the whole system. I’m tired of feeling like a second class citizen when it comes to this. It’s something I need to work on. Anger isn’t going to solve it, and is just going to make me come off as another “angry adoptee” to ignore. I need to approach this logically and reasonably to give those who oppose full open records, no reason to discount me personally.