Soul of Adoption

From Mia’s Blog -

This post is important to me because I think EVERYONE should be aware of the results of the laws as they stand for adoptees from closed record states. Is your son or daughter one of them? Is your niece or nephew? Your husband or wife? Chances are you know someone affected. If nothing else please read it to become socially aware.

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Contact Denial. It seems to be a recurring theme for me these days. Have you ever noticed that the issues you need to work on (issues you may be ignoring) seem to visit you over and over in different ways until you have no choice but to pay attention? Tap tap tap….like being pecked to death by a duck.

OK, OK, I give. Contact denial. Here goes. But I have to do this a little differently. This has to be about searching to truly grasp how contact denial grips an adoptee.

When you decide to search you think of little else. Often times it becomes a full blown obsession. I am talking about active searching, not passive searching. There are plenty of people (myself included) who started out as passive searchers just wanting to “get some medical info.”, to say “thank you for giving me life”. ….blah blah blah…..these are key phrases to spot a passive searcher a mile away. It’s when you come to peace with the decision to search, and decide to actively pursue it that you dare to allow the possibility of more to enter your thoughts. This takes the ability to let go of the guilt for searching which is really hard to do. Only other adoptees can truly grasp how deeply this guilt for searching thing can affect you. The reasons for the misplaced guilt are too numerous to mention here but I will say it is mostly a condition which has been embedded deeply into the fiber of our society by the false beliefs about what adoption is and what it is not.

So you work through all of that (which can take years) and you begin to actively pursue your identity. The prospect of finally being able to recognize the face in the mirror becomes exciting! You are a flower watered, fed and nurtured by your adoptive parents (if you’re lucky) but you can only grow so much because you have no roots tethering you to the Earth. You’re just sort of stuck in the ground feeling like the slightest breeze could knock you clean over. You need your roots to grow properly. Period.

You eat, breathe, sleep searching. You try every avenue you can find and if they fail you try them again. I searched passively for several years, actively for several more and finally used the Colorado Confidential Intermediary Service because I got nowhere on my own.

Everyone not in our position should know what we are up against instead of being one of those “what problem, being adopted makes you special” kind of people. Oh, we’re special alright. This is how it goes down if you are an adoptee from a closed record state. A closed state, like most are, will “allow” you to pay them hundreds of dollars for the honor of having a complete stranger open YOUR file with YOUR name on it and view YOUR identity. If that isn’t humiliating enough you THEN get the distinct honor of asking PERMISSION from the judge (like a criminal….or a child) if this STRANGER can contact your MOTHER. You have no idea how degrading and humiliating and entirely frustrating this is. NO idea.

Regardless of whether you have to go through the state or through an agency the fate of your identity remains in the hands of someone who’s life will not be affected one way or the other by the outcome. Someone who can walk right down to that courthouse and get a copy of THEIR identity for a mere 15.00. You may luck out and get appointed a case worker who is good at what they do, sympathetic to your cause. OR you may get someone who is wet behind the ears or power tripping, rude or diplomatically challenged (meaning an assh#%*). Either way….you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit. Right? Right. Because we are CHILDREN and children are to be seen and not heard.

You are still obsessing and completely excited by the way but unlike searching on your own now you are without ANY control. There is no word invented to describe this cluster—- of emotions so I am not even going to try.

If you are lucky enough to have a competent person holding your file they may actually find your mother. (Please note: I say mother because most people search for mother first and then if they still have any sanity left they search for their father. Not always, but it has been my experience that this is most often the case.) Once your mother has been located they either call her or send her a letter. When they do this, the method they use and what they say is entirely left to their discretion. You have absolutely no say in the matter. So, if you have a “diplomatically challenged” case worker you are out of luck if they decide to make a brash call out of the blue to an unsuspecting first mother. If your mother is completely FREAKED OUT by this call and hangs up…..guess what? Too bad for you. Case closed. Sorry about your luck, mom doesn’t want to meet you. They may or may not leave your file on their desk for a time. They may or may not try again. They are fully under the guidelines of the law if they decide to stick your file back in what I like to call the Vault of Shame and call it a day. Leaving you scratching your head saying “what just happened here?!”. That’s IT? That can’t be it I still don’t know who the hell I am!

Guess what? My intermediary was outstanding. I mention the above because for countless adoptees this is exactly how it goes down. MY intermediary was the best, the cream of the crop, they broke the mold good. She was compassionate, completely knowledgeable and as fair and just as she could be without breaking the rules. The day she retired adoptees everywhere lost a true friend. Still, the method in which contact had to be made remains the same. The emotions involved remain the same. The lack of control over one’s own identity remain the same whether you have a good case worker or a bad one.

And this is just the formal search process. This doesn’t even touch upon the countless hours of futile searching one may do on their own. It’s exhausting and it is beyond frustrating to know that it is only necessary because of the completely UNNECESSARY restrictions placed upon our person as adoptees. Every single adoptive parent, every single birthparent out there should be banned together in a unified front to fight the injustice served upon your children. A lot of time is spent disagreeing and in the meantime adoptees are DYING because they don’t have the right to know who they are. Medically speaking it is a no brainer but don’t kid yourself, we are emotionally dying inside too by being outcasts in a world which vastly believes we are unworthy of knowing our own identity, of knowing ourselves. Instead we are forced to use strangers to handle something we would probably handle FAR better on our own.

Now please, really try to put yourself in our shoes for a moment while I sum this up. We fight with ourselves to even get to a place emotionally where we CAN search. We face frustration after frustration in the process of searching. We are humiliated, discriminated against and chastised. We are often left to our own defenses by those we love most simply because they can’t deal with their own issues of self-worth. We face ignorant opinions like “why would you want to do that to your parents?” forced upon us by complete strangers or worse…..by friends. We forge ahead because we must. For many of us it is at the expense of the love of our own parents whom we thought would love us unconditionally. We realize that at a time when we can use comfort the most we have been emotionally abandoned by the people we count on for that kind of support. It seems at times that everyone is against us, leaving us to question our decision. Perhaps our real identity should remain a dirty secret. Perhaps it is (I am) ugly and should remain locked away in the bell tower, because nobody really wants to look at it’s ugly face…..because it scares them. No, no. It is WORTH FIGHTING FOR! I am worth fighting for. All of that sadness and frustration of searching for this CRUCIAL missing piece of our identity. Multiply it by months or in my case years of futile searching. Combine all of that with the belief, hope and promise that one MUST hold on to while searching. Grasp the perfect comparison in the widely used term; rollercoaster ride.

Feel my excitement. Feel my joy. Feel my frustration. Feel my pain. Feel my desire. Feel my longing. Feel my emptiness. Feel my hope.

Then, slam the door in my face and LOCK IT and you might begin to understand what contact denial feels like.

The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, founded in 1996, is a national not-for-profit organization devoted to improving adoption policy and practice.  What follows is a partial list of links to important and ground breaking reports published by the institute.  We encourage our visitors to spend some time exploring the valuable information put out by the Donaldson Adoption Instititue.

Safeguarding the Rights and Well-being of Birthparents in the Adoption Process

Adoption in the Schools: A Lot to Learn

Expanding Resources for Children:Is Adoption By Gays and Lesbians Part of the Answer for Boys and Girls Who Need Homes?

My name is Amy. I am an adoptee from Indiana. I began searching lightly about ten years ago. This past year has been a rough one. I contacted the adoption agency. I paid $325 to have my first mother contacted. She refused contact. As a result, I have spent the last year educating myself on adoption. It has been an eye opening experience.

There are many myths about adoption.The National Council for Adoption and Catholic Charities and many others feed these myths. As time moves forward, our voices will no longer be silenced. We are slowly but surely disspelling the lies.

First parent confidentiality is the biggest lie. The confidentiality issue was initially established to protect the adoptee from illegitimacy. Birth certificates were stamped with bastard or illegitimate. It became about protecting the adoptive parents from firt parents. Many adoptive parents were and still are afraid that first parents will come and take their kids back. If an adoption is done in the best interests of the child, then neither set of parents have anything to fear. With the last ten years or so, the confidentiality became about first parents. With first parents speaking out, this lie is hopefully going to be ended soon.

With the Evan B. Donaldson Institute putting out that 90% of first parents wanting contact, with Oregon stats showing that 99% of first parents wanting contact, and first mother bloggers, these groups are showing themselves to be the liars. In two major court cases in Tennessee and Oregon, it was decided that first parents did not have the fundamental right to have their child adopted; thereby also could not have those adoptions guaranteed privacy. In contraception, abortion, and parenting, women are exercising their right to privacy. In adoption, first parents are relinquishing their rights.

As an adoptee, I believe that all in the adoption plane deserve access to the records. Adoptees in fourty five states do not have unrestricted access to their original birth certificates. It records our birth. The non adopted have access to their birth certificates. They do not have to ask their parents for access. Adoptees in this country have to do just that.

Allowing access to our records does not mean that we have the right to a relationship to another person. Allowing access to our records does not mean that we have the right to our parents medical records. To assume that is what we want is wrong. I am not saying that it will not happen. If we as adults take it too far, it is considered stalking. There are laws in place to protect people from stalkers. As adults, we want to be treated as adults. We want the same rights as others. We want to make the same decisions that others are allowed to make.

It is time to change the laws in this country. We have several cases that indicate very serious rights violations on the part of both adoption agencies and adoptive parents. With cases like Rashad Head and Shawn McDonald, first father rights are being ignored. Adoption agencies use putative registries against fathers. In Rashad’s case, he was registered on both the Florida and Georgia registries. He even filed his paternity claim within five days of his son’s birth. He worked two jobs to help provide for his son but the first mother’s parents refused it. Shawn McDonald found out two days before the birth of his child that he was going to be father. In Stephanie Bennett’s case, she was having problems within the family. She was a young mother. She went to her high school counselor for guidance. What she got was an adoption agency pamphlet. She was counseled into running away from home. Only in adoption are minors allowed to sign a contract that relinquishes their rights. A minor cannot enter a contract in any other area. They can’t sign a contract without parental knowledge and consent. In another story, three young women knock the maternity home’s director on the head, take off with her purse, and a minivan. These young girls had no history of violence, behavior problems, or drugs. They were sent there to give up their babies.

With the research that I have read, I do know that first parents suffer a great deal. They have to deal with negative views from society as a whole. In one sector of society, they are glorified as doing the loving thing. In another part of society they are demonized for giving their children up. Many of these women and men did not have a choice especially back in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. In a majority of cases, these women have suffered from post traumatic stress disorder, depression, low self esteem, and many other disorders. All these women did was have a baby. Having a baby is part of nature. Having sex is natural. Our society has condemned them repetitively.

I have come to the conclusion that the laws should be decided by adoptees and their families. They should not be influenced by the adoption agencies, their attorneys, nor their lobbists. This is what is occurring now. We are the ones that are affected by these laws. They should reflect our feelings, our thoughts, and our relatiohships.

Registries don’t work. Most registries have a success rate of 4% to 6%. Indiana has the best in the country with 14%. They are too restrictive. In the state of Indiana, the first mother is the one that has the final say. Every registry varies from state to state.

Confidential Intermediaries don’t work either. Most first parents have had horrible experiences with social workers. Most do not want to be revisited by them. Many are not trained well enough to handle the complicated intracies of adoption. They can without fault of their own affect the way a reunion is handled. In Oregon alone, only .25% of first parents wanted contact in that matter. That alone should should speak massive volumes to state legislators.

An adoptee should not have to ask permission to see something that records their birth. Adoptees should be allowed to handle their relationships with their parents without governmental interference. The right to privacy is about the right to be free from governmental interference, yet adoptees’ rights are continually violated. We have to suffer through rude state employees, harsh comments, and condescending words just to get our information.

When an adoptee searches, it is about us. It is not about our adoptive parents. It is not a matter of being grateful. It is not about being property because our parents have bought and paid big money for us. If that is the way you think, then you consider us slaves to our parents. The adoption contract was made about us for our best interests. When we become adults, we should be allowed access to something that is ours. A non-adopted person’s parents does not own their birth certificate. Why are ours owned by our first parents and adoptive parents? We are adults. Give us our birth certificates.

This story hits close to home for me because twenty years ago I was one of those young women sent away by my parents. At 12 weeks pregnant my mother put me on an airplane bound for Fort Mill, SC and these were her parting words to me “Don’t come home with that baby, if you do we can’t help you”. I stepped off that airplane a scared and very alone teenager. My parents wanted to make sure that my boyfriend who wanted us to marry wouldn’t interfere in their plans. Sending me far away was a guarantee that he couldn’t do anything to help me.

I spent six months of my life in that place. The days were spent homeschooled in the morning and working at an office on site during the afternoon(for no pay of coarse). We all had chores that were assigned each week and we were graded on our behavior, work performance, spiritual growth, etc. If a girl was wavering in her decision to place for adoption she was sat in front of three people who berated her for her selfish thinking. She was told things like “God wants you to do the right thing”, “How can you be so selfish to think you could parent a baby’, “Your parents don’t want to be shamed this way”. This did not stop until the young women saw the error of her ways and agreed with them.

Over time you find yourself believing the bull shit. Adoptive mothers are brought in to tearfully tell you how joyous adoption has been for them and that your unselfish gift will earn you a great reward in heaven. For a young woman who comes from a strict religious background it was to much. I wanted my baby very much but every person around me said that God didn’t want me to parent. Who was I to go against God?

I got into trouble a lot while I was there for not having the right attitude. I fought being away for a while and then I just gave up and resigned myself to my fate. No one was coming for me, no one cared, I was utterly and completely alone across the country from my friends and family. We were allowed to use a pay phone in the common room if we had money, I never had any so I couldn’t call anyone.

Freedom was a simple matter of walking out the front door, but after that then what? When you don’t know anyone, don’t have any money, have never been away from home before, where do you go? What do you do? The pyschological lock was stronger than any physical one.

My hope is that these three teens are helped by someone. That someone somewhere will say “they were driven to extreme action due to extreme circumstances”. If one of the boys in the MO case had taken a frying pan to Devlin’s head to escape would we be in arms over it? No we would say they did what they had to do to survive. These girls did what they had to do to survive, but the chances of the general public seeing that are slim.