I have been listening to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone on unabridged audio while driving back and forth to work and today was the chapter about the Mirror of Erised. If you haven’t read the Harry Potter series nor seen the movie, it’s a mirror that shows a person’s deepest wants or wishes. When Harry looks into the mirror, he sees his mother, father, and other relatives he never knew. (In the movie, I think he only sees his mom and dad.) Prof. Dumbledore tells him that the happiest man in the world would only see himself.

For me, I think I would see my blood-family and my adoptive family standing together with me, along with my sister’s blood-family as well. Oh and with me holding my original birth certificate.

It pains me to feel so beholden to the agency. To feel that I must walk on eggshells with them so that I may glean some small tidbit of information. Or wait long weeks to ask for an update, so it doesn’t bother them too much and they just tell me to take a hike.

Meanwhile, I read posts from people who say to just get over it, or comment on how in the minority we are to want to search. It’s so depressing in a lot of ways. Just give me my @#%$@#$% records.

For example, there was an article from Maine about open records that my mom shared with me. The article has quotes from an adoptee asking for his records and then goes on with several from “the church” (yeah, that one) and adoption agencies. It then closes with another adoptee who, lo and behold, has already been able to find her medical records so she doesn’t feel the records should be opened either. Well thank you. Glad you got what you wanted and to heck with the rest of us, right? Also, stop with the whole “right to privacy” thing. There are laws already out there preventing me from contact, which I have discussed before, but are people hiding behind it to prevent access? Or the whole abortion/abandoned thing. Show me numbers. I haven’t been able to find numbers. Well that’s not true, I found one Safe Haven site who claimed that the abandoned babies had dropped last year in one state, (although they only had one child placed in the safe haven, in this case I think it was a fire station. My question though is how many children were left at a fire station in the previous years before Safe Haven?)

I changed my mind, in the mirror I would see all adoptees having free access to their adoption file and original birth certificate at age 18, and earlier with adoptive parent consent. If they want it, it’s there, if not, that’s fine too. I would see expecting mother’s offered real choices and if they choose adoption to have the option of law enforced open adoption.

What would you see if you looked into the mirror?

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