Silencing Adoption Reformers - What the Industry of Adoption doesn't want you to hear

Today on my Facebook news feed I saw an adoption agency FB page posted by an adoption reformer friend (Not naming site names there are too numerous to count).  They had postings for babies available for adoption listing PRICING in dollars along with their "ads" and the usual promotion of how wonderful adoption is.  Wonderful maybe to those who have not been involved with it firsthand.

The Adoption Industry does not want anyone knowing how much money they are making, that they are selling adoptees back their own information in post adoption services, and how much fraud and corruption is involved in adoption.  A system of adoption that was initially supposed to provide children with homes and has turned into blatant human trafficking.  Human Trafficking strong wording you think?  YEP and very necessary to truly describe adoption these days.

Not only were our comments about our experiences and knowledge of adoption deleted but we were banned from posting further.  None of my comments contained cuss words (only in my head lol) or were attacking anyone on the page.  Numerous other adoption reformers were silenced in the same way.

The Adoption industry is silencing us all the way to the bank.  They don't want the truth about adoption to be known, only the propaganda they spew that keeps them in business.  They are "banking" on the fact they can keep the public in the dark to the realities of adoption so they can continue to profit.  

If this were the first time, or if it were a few times, I've witnessed this activity I could chalk it up to a handful of unscrupulous adoption agencies.  Unfortunately advertising in adoption is way out of control and babies are now being marketed with dollar signs next to their profiles.  It's running rampant in adoption because the availability of newborns being placed for adoption is at an all time low and the amount of parents wanting to adopt continues to rise.  It's supply and demand and adoption agencies are having to go to extreme measures to coerce pregnant woman in delicate and difficult and often TEMPORARY situations to get their hands on their children.  The Billboards, crisis pregnancy bumper stickers, and now online and social media advertising are drawing in more and more innocent victims into the web of adoption industry lies.

Are there children in need of good homes, absolutely.  Is adoption the cure all solution these agencies want you to think it is, NO.  They want you to believe that adoption is the fairy tale ending to a bad situation for a child and its parents.  It is far from that.  I read it in my Adolescent child psych book in college "Orphaned, neglected, and adopted children often have the same issues of abandonment and rejection".  The system of adoption does adoptees no favor too in adding to these issues by putting a price tag on our head, placing us into the lottery system of adoption, selling us back our own family information later in life in post adoption services, and sealing our original birth certificates from us.

Many adoptees are further rejected by their adoptive families.  Babies and children are cute but they grow up and into their own genetics, often very very different from that of adoptive families physically, mentally, and emotionally.  Adoptees are not chess pieces to be played by others and then expected to be grateful for it.  We are human beings with voices that won't be silenced about what has happened to us because of adoption.

By trying to silence us the Adoption Industry is only really revealing the depths of their fear that their control over the profits from adoption will disappear.  I wonder how many of these non-profits and pro-life/pro-adoption agencies will continue on "for the sake of the children" once their large incomes and salaries are diminished and cut back.  Rhetorical there.

We won't back down.  We won't stop speaking out.  We won't be silent.

"Never be bullied into silence.  Never allow yourself to be made a victim.  Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself.  ~Harvey Feirstein

Adoptee Roots

 

People really have little idea how much of their lives, thoughts, and communications revolve around family.  Family that is living and those who have passed away or previous generations.  The recent genealogy fervor is proof of that.   Many adoptees are all too aware because of the lack of having it.

Adoptees recognize and understand this behavior in others, as they long for it themselves.  Habits, hobbies, careers, physical characteristics are passed along from generation to generation, and parent to child.  Over the years of watching reunions between adoptees and their families I have heard countless remarks such as "We both bite our nails the same way", "We both gesture with our hands exactly the same way", "Now I know where I get my love of such and such" comes from and the evidence is overwhelming that genetics DO make us who we are.  Just as nurture impacts who and what we are, so does nature not just in physical characteristics like hair and eye color.

I found out at age 39 that my dream of becoming a Prima ballerina or a concert pianist was inherited.  My mother's favorite past time is dancing and my biological great grandmother was a concert pianist and music teacher.  I was teaching children and music privately while pursuing a degree in dance and music therapy before I found this out.  I've always been a high strung person (NOOOOO say it isn't so lol) and found out in my information taken about my biological family before I was born my grandmother was described as a very anxious and nervous person.  It's not a character flaw it's in my GENES!

My biological mother sent a letter to me through the adoption courts describing in detail everything she could about her without giving away her identity.  My friends cried upon reading it stating "Karen if I didn't know better I'd say you wrote this yourself".  My exhusband noticed even our handwriting was the same. 

Adoptees should not have to waste time, energy, and money to find out where they came from.  We should not have to grow up or spend our lives guessing, imagining, and navigating life without pertinent and life affirming information.  Rights and reunions are two separate issues.  I have a right to my family history just as others do, even those who search via genealogy records.  People who say being adopted doesn't matter don't know how much it DOES matter.

Only in adoption are genetics whitewashed as unimportant.

Adoptees Denied

DENIED - By The Government

I plead though they ignore my cries.
The record's sealed is their reply.
Time and time again I ask.
I'm told to put it in the past.
I can't get them to try and see.
They have what belongs to me.
I beg for truth but no one hears.
It only falls upon deaf ears.
I get no matter how I try.
The same stone cold response DENIED.

Before the days of internet and social media there were not any other adoptees I knew and no one that understood anything about adoption.  It was back in the days of hush hush, keep it behind closed doors, and don't air your dirty laundry in public, including the shame and stigma of where adoptees "came from".  I understand those times just as I remember the days of pregnant girls being sent away.

In those days the subject of out of wedlock pregnancy was never broached except some whispers in the hallways and quiet conversations between friends beginning with the usual "Did you are about (so and so)".  Girls would come back from school as if nothing ever happened as if there was not this child out there somewhere.  We just assumed it was gone, along with the "problem".  No one discussed it and everyone pretended it wasn't happening.

This is a different time, world, and age now.  With public records, media, camera phones, anonymity has almost become a thing of the past.  Celebrities and public figures do their best to hide, some do not, but it has become big business for TV, movies, print, and literature.  Hollywood figures are adopting even as single parents and it's become a fad to want to adopt.  My point is that adoption is out in the open and public information blazed across magazine covers, TMZ, and the subject matter of current talk shows.

So why are adoptees still not allowed by law to information that is THEIRS?  Why are our records sealed by the government and hidden like some secret confidential matter that if released would bring families and the world to their proverbial knees?  There is big money in post adoption services for the government and nonprofit adoption agencies, and plenty of job security based on this system too.  The system of adoption has commodified children by putting a put a price tag on their head, and sold their rights for great profit.

There are stalking laws already in place for people who don't want contact with one another.  In states like Tennessee where adoptees can access their OBCs upon adulthood, a biological parent can file a contact veto which is punishable by law to the tune of large fines and jail time IF you contact that biological parent and OR any other family member.  No other adult citizen in the country can be legally forced and kept away from adult biological family members by ANOTHER adult family member.  No other citizen in the country has the legal right to keep family members apart.  ONLY in adoption is this law of inequality present.

I have petitioned the adoption court four times and shown "just cause" to receive identifying information about my biological parents.  They have denied my request over and over.  My biological parents relinquished any rights to me decades ago, why do they hold my rights in their hands now?  It is unconstitutional.

No other person in this country is legislated against in these ways this way but adoptees.  It is discrimination.  It is an adoptees civil right to have access to their original birth certificates.

Adoptee Masks

Masked

They perceive this shell but can not see, deep inside the real me.

The one who's lost, afraid and weak, things I dare not reveal or speak.

They think I'm really someone else, this front, facade, false prided self.

Little is the world aware what slivers of my soul I share.

I keep it hidden very well behind the safety of this shell.

Protecting weaknesses unknown the sealed off part of me called “home”.

For like chameleons who hide beneath the camouflage unspied.

I cover up what I can't show with secret masks concealed below.

The naked eye can not detect these fortress walls built to protect.

Within my dwelling unrecognized a stronghold they can't criticize,

nor ridicule, or realize, or know how much that I despise.

This vulnerable person that I am, so alone in alone in silent pain I stand.

I picked the photo above out of a long list of available choices because it really symbolized to me the blank feeling you can have about yourself as an adoptee, and the different masks we often hide behind.  This is not a self protective characteristic only adoptees utilize to cope in life but we can often feel further displaced because we have been separated from our origins.  Too often too when we speak up, ask questions, or express our inner angst about being adopted we are told "it doesn't matter", or "to get over it", or a myriad of other judgments and criticisms regarding how we "should" feel.

Growing up detached from biology and genetic roots leaves us much of the time to create and outer personna to hide behind.  We rely on a plethora of personalities we've gleaned from our family, siblings, and or peers, sometimes good and sometimes bad but the reality is they are usually not "ours".  Because, if we don't "act" our parts as good and grateful adopted children, do we risk being rejected and given away again?

It magnifies our separation anxieties and intensifies our need to fit in, and can severely compromise our development into a solid sense of self because we have little or no knowledge what that really is.  We are genes, habits, hobbies, and physical components of other people who are unknown to us.  We are navigating life from birth without important information other people have.  We fill all that in with masks we create to cover up our fear and we quickly learn to shut down and become introverted about our adoptive experiences, internalizing how we really feel rather than to risk further condemnation and or misunderstanding.

It took me until the age of 39 to be able to obtain information about my biological family that I was able to identify with, relate to, and understand who and what was really "me".  It changed my whole life and who I have become now.  Adopted children have a different set of circumstances upon birth than other children and when recognized and dealt with in an open and honest way it can make all the difference in their lives.  Including; the right to ask about being adopted, the right to speak out about being adopted, and the right to know where they came from. 

“We understand how dangerous a mask can be.  We all become what we pretend to be.” ~Patrick Rothfuss "The Name of the Wind"

Adoptee Facepalms

,

There are times I seriously do this when hearing people talk about adoption and adoptees.  So, I want to address some remarks about being adopted that often make adoptees not only cringe, but writhe in sheer frustration.  Most of these comments are innocently stated but also mimic the propaganda that has been spewed by the adoption industry, agencies, and social workers for decades, brainwashing the general public into the belief system about adoption that is so staunchly held in place in this country.  Adoptees, now grown up, are speaking out to dispel these myths and false beliefs and replace them with the truth.

If any of my friends recognize themselves in any of the below statements please know I truly appreciate the years you have listened to my adoption soapbox and I know you have done your very best to understand my plight in life being adopted.  In fact recently my adoptee “lite” husband remarked “I wish I was an anonymous person” after a particularly hurtful family “feud”.  I sat in shock while my head nearly rotated off my shoulders trying to grasp his statement.   I've been with him for 10 years and he has been by my side through years of searching, publishing my adoption poetry book, having his coworkers listen in when I did radio and public speaking on adoption, he has even participated in an adoption rights rally with me.  And yet  still, people often forget the importance of the knowledge of who you are and where you come from.  Only when it has been lost can you truly understand the depths of it.

You should be grateful you were adopted and not aborted, left in a dumpster, neglected/abused instead.  Why should this apply only to adoptees?  Shouldn't nonadopted people be grateful for the same thing?  I'm certain a good amount of adoptees are thankful for their adoptive families but not grateful for the issues that adoption brings to the family table, or the lack of rights they have to access information about their family roots. 

I wish I had been adopted.  As if this is some instant cure for being born into a dysfunctional family.  ALL families are dysfunctional in some capacity including adoptive families.  Adoption does not allow you to escape abuse, neglect and take you to a special land of love, teddy bears, and unicorns.  There are no magic carpet rides to a better world.  Every adoption is different just as every family is different and adoption does not solve all family problems

Your are better off being raised by two parents than by a single parent.  This stems from the fallacy that all relinquishing parents are impoverished and unable to care for their children.  My biological parents were not poor.  My biological mother stated in her non-id letter to the adoption court her parents were business leaders in the community and still are.   It was the shame and stigma of pregnancy out of wedlock that separates families, along with the belief that "stuff" gives children a better life.  The rates of divorce apply to adoptive parents too and quickly a two parent family can change into single parenthood and struggles financially.   Children need love first and foremost.   Adoption does not always guarantee a child that either. 

I feel adopted too because I didn't fit into my family.  I hear this OFTEN and it is frustrating.  I always come back with "Were you taken from your biological family?" "Do you know who your parents are?" "Was your identity taken by the state and sealed and your birth certificate is now government property?” Yeah...not even close.

You won't ever have to feel the loss of your parents dying.  WRONG I feel that loss every day because they were taken from me at birth.  Children who lose a parent young before they have memory of them mourn that loss and are allowed to do so.  Why shouldn't adoptees?  I'm not saying one is harder or easier than the other just saying that loss is loss no matter what form it comes in.

You are being disrespectful to your adoptive parents by searching.  Why? Children of divorce are allowed to have two families and aren't forced to chose between the two by good parents why should adoptees have to?  Why is the genealogy fervor today widely practiced and recognized not only denied but also frowned upon for adoptees?  Lastly, why should adoptees continually be held to different standards in life that other nonadopted persons?  Rhetorical there.

Be careful what you wish for if you search it could turn out really badly.  Sure it could but that is life and that should be my right to chose it.  The truth I believe is always better than the unknown or the myths and mysteries adoptees are often required to live with, along with the falsification of records.  Truth and closure are healthy avenues to pursue as was encouraged by a marriage counselor I had years ago,who was also an adoptive mother well versed professionally and personally with her own adopted daughter.

Your parents gave you away why would you want to find them?  Once again, to hold MY truths in my own two hands.  Many families are separated for reasons that can change over time.  Divorce, illness, poverty, and addictions, are often temporary situations.  Adoption is a permanent solution to what can change in family situations and often quickly.  Many relinquishing parents still believe giving up their children will give them a better life, not because they are not wanted.  My adoptive brother has never desired to search.  That is his right just as searching should be mine.  Neither are wrong they are just different emotions.

You need to get over adoption.  You never get over being adopted.  It is something you live with for your life. How you react to it yes, you are responsible for.  That is why so many of us have joined ranks with adoption activism, reform, and education, to bring awareness to the issues and change the lives of other adoptees and the system of adoption itself.  It often is a healthy tool for coping and healing.   Facilitating change for others is empowering and helps take one from victim to survivor.

You are obsessed with adoption.  YES! Yes I am!  As I stated above people are unaware for the most part of the realities of adoption. The blatant illegalities, fraud, and corruption that adoption is wrought with have long been covered up and swept under the rug, along with adoptee's rights.  Adoption is a booming multi-billion dollar per year industry that has for far too long been allowed to function without any strict regulation.  The time has come to bring adoption into the 20th century and radically change the system to do away with the archaic and discriminatory laws that govern only adoptees.

If you have read this far again, I thank you.

Adoptee Images - Sketches, Portraits, and Photos

 Sketches of an Adoptee 

Sketches of the person here can't illustrate my inner fear.
I pose afraid the artist sees just how this picture is incomplete.
But what is missing what is gone, can't be seen it can't be drawn.
No shades can show the gaping holes, left in my heart, deep in my soul.
The pallet holds no color near, nor tint, or shade of hidden tears.
For what was lost taken away, the pain a brush stroke can't portray.
No pencil either lends a clue.
No crayon, chalk, will show the hue.
Of this facade on which I depend because I know not who I am.
Perhaps someday I will reveal these emotions that I feel.
The fragments of myself not shown.
Searching for family never known.

My cousin on my adoptive father's side found me on Facebook this past year has been kind enough to share some photographs of us as kids visiting our grandparents house.  It was so wonderful to look into our young innocent (most of the time lol) smiling faces in simpler times.  I saw my aunt in my cousin's face, and my uncle in my other cousin's face.  And there I was again, wondering where the mischievous grin, my eyes, and dishwater blonde hair came from.

You really never escape the wondering.  You can pack it up and put it away for awhile like old clothes in a trunk or a passing season's shoes.  But it is usually always stored closely to your heart and soul.  Never far from reminding you of all the "I don't knows".

The charcoal an artist did of me in New Orleans when I was 24 hung on my bedroom wall and haunted me for years.  Photos and portraits I have of myself are just gateways back into history and other dimensions of time for me.   Perhaps someday I'll hold in my hands some keys to unlock the never ending mysteries of who I really am.  Maybe someday all adoptees will have that right.

Common Misconceptions about Adoption

I have found over the years the majority of people are very misinformed about adoption.  I have to admit when I was petitioning courts fourteen years ago I was surprised by what I did not know about adoption, and by the vast amount of inaccurate information regarding adoption and adoptees that was circulating.  So, I'd like to take five of the most common I've encountered and how it impacts adoptees.

To clarify, OBC stands for "Original Birth Certificate" which many people are unaware adoptees even have.  Adoptees are issued an ammended birth certificate upon adoption with the false information of the adoptive parents on it, replacing their original identity.  OBCs are then sealed and in most states adoptees are not allowed access to it even after numerous court petitions.  OBCs are only sealed upon adoption NOT relinquishment.  If a child is never adopted then their OBC remains in place.  That being said, let me address some adoption myths.

Adoption records have always been sealed.  Sealed adoption records are in fact a recent phenomena in the long history of adoption.  Initially birth certificates were sealed to protect adoptees from the stigma of having “illegitimate” stamped onto them.  Kansas and Alaska have never sealed their adoption records they have always been available to adoptees once they become of age.  Adoption records were first accessible to all three parties, adoptee, adoptive Parents, and biological parents, but closed to the public.  Beginning in the forties social workers and adoptive parents promoted the closing of records to protect the privacy of adoptive families and adoptees.  Many states did not seal their records until the 70's and '80's. Alabama did not close theirs until 1991 and reopened them in 2003.  Adult Adoptees are asking that the rights to access their OBCs be RESTORED.

Birth parents were promised confidentiality upon relinquishing their children for adoption.  Actually many biological parents were told to go on and forget the children they gave up, and many were told it was illegal to search for them and were threatened into obscurity out of fear.  Although this “claim” of confidentiality given by adoption agencies in regards to adoptee rights legislation, no evidence or documentation has ever been brought forward by a relinquishing parent or agency member to prove it, even when requested by legislators.  Statistics and data gathered by states that have opened OBCs to adoptees over the last 15 years show the vast majority of birth parents believe and agree the children they relinquished, adult adoptees, should be given access.

Open adoption records will cause more abortions and less adoptions.  As I mentioned previously Kansas and Alaska have never closed adoption records and statistically have always had lower rates of abortion and higher rates of adoption.  In states again that have reopened their adoption records and allowed adult adoptees access to their OBCs show these same rates.  Adoption and abortion are two separate issues that often become entwined with one another by those who are not familiar with adoption facts.  The shame and stigma of out of wedlock pregnancy is long gone.  The era of secrecy in adoption should be gone as well.

There are registries and intermediary systems already in place if people want to find one another.  Adoptees ammended birth certificates are altered and changed including many times date of birth, place of birth, and lacking hospital or county of birth.  This misinformation can deter people from finding one another, or finding one another too late.  Also, misplaced and lost files and information by intermediaries, social workers, and government offices influence important and vital connections attempting to be made between biological family members.  Personal agendas and opinions regarding adoption by those working within post adoption positions bear influence as well in adoptees attempts to obtain their own information.  People many times do not know where to look for these registries or have knowledge of them, or where to go to find them.  People die and never have the chance to sign up to say they want to be found and yet again adoptees lose the chance to know and be known by their biological family members.  State adoption registries have a very low success rate.  Adoptees should not have their own personal and private information placed into the hands of anyone but themselves.

Open adoption is prevalent today so there is no need for adoptee OBC access.  Most adoptions today have some degree of openness.  However, once biological parents relinquish their children they also give up any legal right regarding their children.  Open adoptions close without biological parents having any recourse in a court of law.  Original birth certificates are still sealed and not accessible even to adoptive parents.  If contact between parties is lot these connections can be permanently severed along with the adoptees right to have information.

There is more but I will cover that later.  If you read this far THANK YOU!  If you have any questions please feel free to ask me, another adoptee, or I would encourage you if you are still interested to look it up on your own.  Knowledge is power!

 Erased

An empty soul stands alone.
They erased who I was and gave me a new home.
Now lies not truth where my life used to be.
How could they take that away from me?
Did they really believe I'd never question,
what they gave me as a definition?
Of this person I was supposed to become,
and never look back on where I came from?
Where does one really draw the line
on how much past you can leave behind?
They expect out of us what they themselves could never do.
Despite what they say I am searching.
Wouldn't you?

After my fourth court petition was denied this year for identifying information by my biological parents and the adoption courts, I sunk into a depression which is pretty natural. At age 53 I still have no names, no cities, no states where my biological family resides all traces and tracks were covered long ago. No photos, no history, no tangible evidence of the people and family I come from. While I can understand anyone's right to not have contact with another person, no one has the right to keep other adults from relationships with one another. My biological parents signed away their rights upon relinquishing me, and should have NO say in my biological siblings having knowledge I exist. It's devastating for adoptees to be shoved into a dark closet and forgotten.

In learning to deal with stages of grief, and the judgment that comes from the world that adoptees should have no grief and just be thankful they were adopted, I can now recognize the signs and symptoms and deal with them now in healthier ways than I did before. The knowledge and experiences adoptees have is important!  When expressed to the world can change the lives of other adoptees, the institution of adoption, and the hearts and minds of anyone who is willing first to put aside their preconceived notions and truly listen.

But, that is usually the first and foremost problem in adoption. Getting people to actually listen to adoptees.  Most people believe that there are a handful of adoptees, or just myself, that have had a “bad experience” with adoption.  This is simply not the case.  There are plenty of adoptees with wonderful adoptive families who have and are struggling with identity, belonging, and the impact adoption has had on their lives.  We are here to change adoption and the way it functions, right the wrongs, and speak our truths.

I will always search faces and crowds and check the internet for responses to my adoption search posts. I will always do double takes of any woman I see that's about 4' 10” tall with brown hair and green eyes. It's an inherent yearning that my soul can't deny.  Ever.

Unvisited

No message from the telephone.
No telegrams while I was home.
No mail came though I checked the box.
No cryptic secrets were unlocked.
No headline in the daily news.
No printed words to lend me clues.
No response to questions asked,
as weeks, and months, and years drift past.
Still waiting for a sign or word,
the time my voiceless pleas are heard.
But only silence resounds instead.
Another day, unvisited.

I survived the adoptee birthday this year fairly well after dealing with the fourth adoption court petition denial for identifying information from my biological parents.  Instead of a lot of angst and turmoil there was only mild depression.  A depression that is always there and pokes it head out at the usual Holiday periods and observations and life triggers.

I just heard it put that depression is like the fear that the sun won't rise.  Well stated but I'll go a little further.  For me the depression from being adopted and being rejected twice is like knowing the sun will rise and shine on everyone but me.  It might sound a little extreme but that's how I feel.

It's not about not being alone I can do that just fine.  I've been a wife a great portion of my life and a mother for nearly 30 years.  Alone time I crave and yes probably because of being left out of two families it became my norm.  And what wife and mother doesn't enjoy the simple sound of silence for a period of time.  The type of silence I am talking about is deafeningly loud.

Cosmically alone in the universe detached from family is a different type of alone animal.  It's also the belief that someone you caused and were responsible for it.  What person wouldn't question why they were given away by their own family?  I've finally arrived at the knowledge that it is not my fault but I spent far too many years believing that it was so and not just of my own creation either.  Knowing it's not my fault doesn't really make me feel much better.  I am still the odd person out in two families.  I hate admitting this weakness and vulnerability but I am still looking for that kind of love and connection in my life.

I now know how to cope and deal with most of it, writing being one of them, but I shouldn't HAVE to grieve the loss of my biological name and knowledge of my original family forever.  Not knowing where you came from and the search for self is an unending journey for many adoptees..  Being a wife and mother is fulfilling, but it does not complete or fill the gaps left in the fabric of my soul.

“If you don't receive love from the ones who are meant to love you, you will never stop looking for it.”
― Robert Goolrick, The End of the World as We Know It: Scenes from a Life

"Related"

The term "related" takes on a whole different meaning for adoptees.  It's a strange concept misunderstood by most and continually being redefined by adoption agencies, groups, and the people involved in it.  But good or bad adoption law or term depending on the viewpoint, it doesn't change the emotional course being adopted sets you on from birth as an adoptee.

Being adopted you have two families.  Whether you accept one, the other, or both, even if you don't know anything about the one you were born from, they are still out there existing and always a part of who you are.  Even if you deny any acceptance and live only within and from your adoptive family there is no way you can not look in a mirror and see the evidence every day staring back at you.

One family you share years, stories, and a history with.  Another, you share biology, genetics, and genealogy with and then pass them along to your own children.  Sometimes you can piece the two together to form lasting bonds, but many times you can end up feeling disconnected from both due to a wide variety of reasons.  I am nothing like my adoptive family and not accepted by my biological family in fact, not even recognized at all.  More like swept under the rug and forgotten without any recourse to get closure about who I really am.

I also feel left out of a large part of the world of adoptees as well.  I am stuck in limbo without the ability to find my biological family.  Four court petitions have been denied to receive identifying information and there just not enough I have to go on to find.  Obviously a good amount of secrecy was requested by my biological grandparents which my biological mother feels allegiance to still.  A great amount of apathy from my biological father who walked away from my mother and me 53 years ago, and then denied any information upon my urgent request for updated medical information via the adoption courts.  Neither of my "parents" will tell their children I exist.

I've sat back in the corner for over thirteen years now watching reunions, the good, the bad, and the ugly.  I'm fully aware of the difference between rights and reunions.  And now, all I am asking for is MY information.  Plain and simple I want MY truth.  Adopted or not, it is what all people deserve to have.

My 100th Adoptee Blog Post

I've not been writing recently at all I'm starting to feel as if there is nothing I haven't already said a thousand different times in a hundred different ways.  Yet, there is still so much there I feel the need to express.  And, at the same time so few who really get it or can who are not adopted and cut off from their biological roots.

One of the most common pieces of advice I get from nonadopted persons is "I know my biological family and I wish I didn't, I don't want them you can have them."  That's like adoption I don't WANT a second hand me down family I want my original one!  You can't replace families with another one and people and names in exchange for new ones.  It doesn't work!  Well, for many of us.  At this point I'd take the knowledge of where I came from and forgo relationships.  I just want the truth, MY TRUTHS.

It's a fine line walking between an unknown past and navigating your future.  I feel caught between two worlds.  One where I don't belong or fit in and one where I am continually searching faces, names, and the bits and pieces of information I have gathered over the last decades.  I have sisters or brothers out there, two I am aware of, that have no idea I exist.  They are being lied to if even only by omission.  I was cleaning out my filing cabinet last week and came across the copy of the letter my biological mother wrote me thirteen years ago, non-id of course, via the adoption court.  I read it while tears streamed and hid it back where it was.  Out of site out of mind maybe, but never out of heart.

When life is going well it's easy sometimes to "not think about it" as we as adoptees are continually advised, and focus on the good.  But sometimes the pain of all of that loss bubbles up and overwhelms us when we are at our weakest.  That's where I have been at struggling every day to cope through the loss of belonging in two families, multiple health issues causing financial issues, coping with too much chronic pain and fatigue, relationship issues, managing a household, trying to search for work I can do, and raising my son.  Wondering all the while when "This too shall pass".

I hope all of this makes sense because lately life has not made much sense at all.  I don't expect it to be fair. I'm not that naive, but at some point I'd like to be drowning in sorrow and hiding it all behind the face and demeanor of a clown.  I don't want to sound pathetic, or whiny, or weak but my mask is getting unbearably heavy.

Mother Unknown

Time moves so slow and minutes last,
like hours passing never fast.
The days roll on, months seem like years.
I lose the count of falling tears.
An endless cycle of seasons flow.
Questions continually unanswered grow.
It never ceases nor does it stop.
I'm bound by calendar and clock.
While prayers and dreams have only grown.
For a mother never known.
Futile attempts to change this fate.
Though hope burns dim,
I still will wait.

Fourth adoption court petition and another month or so of waiting.  I guess the timing is either good or bad, either way it's tough.  And tough is a huge understatement.

People tell me I'm strong.  I guess they are right.  Yeah, I'm sure they are but it doesn't mean strong people don't break every now and then too.  Today is one of those breaking days.

But that's o.k. too 'cause that just means I'm in touch with what I am feeling rather than wandering around taking it out on everyone around me.  It's not that I need a mother anymore I just need to KNOW who my mother is!  How can you put things in the past when you are oblivious to what that past is.

I am really just looking for closure and a shot at some sibling communication.  I feel "blank" on days like this compared to others.  The lack of awareness about where you come from, and being blocked from that knowledge, it's more than overwhelming.

Do I hate the part of me that is weak enough to care?  Sure, absolutely so.  Do I know that denial can be protective and yet self destructive.  YEP.  So, I'm caught in limbo until the time the unknown becomes the known.

Color me incomplete.

Being adopted, for me, is like being the white crayon in a box of crayolas.

I actually read it as a joke somewhere about feeling as useless as a white crayon, and it struck me that was EXACTLY how I felt about being adopted.  Living void of natural family names, connections, and genetics trying all the while to blend in and all the while feeling so very different.  Blank, without color or use as others were.  Sure white crayons are good for accents, highlights, or as my dear friend Sarah said do well in mixing with other colors to make different shades of other tones.  Alone however, they lose their own individual significance and importance.  For me, that sums up exactly how I feel about being adopted and denied access to MY natural family information.


If you look at the photo and really "see" the difference between the white crayon and others perhaps you will get some insight into how adoptees feel.  Those of us without knowledge of our biological and genetic backgrounds.  Empty of any and all answers as we stare every day into the mirror wondering our features, our habits, and where it is we come from.  I'm almost 53 years old and I still feel incomplete.  Until I have the answers I am seeking I always will.

Adoptees often, and some of us always, feel so very different from others.  The fact is that we are.  In what capacity that difference exists varies from adoptee to adoptee.  I can't tell you in what capacity if any, but what I can tell is that knowledge is power for adoptees.  Whether is it physical, medical, or historical information, be it good, or bad, or ugly, it is ours to have.  No one has the right to deny us the right to our own information.  I'm still working on obtaining mine after 13 years.  Until then, I'm just like the second crayon from the right.


Incomplete


A missing sock whose mate is gone,
a former pair apart so long.
A rundown bridge never rebuilt.
Like patches missing from a quilt.
A letter thrown away and lost,
undotted I's and T's not crossed.
A phone line with connections broken.
Important words that can't be spoken.
We search the people on the street,
and in each face we hope we'll meet.
Someone resembling who we are.
These absent ties that seems so far.

Reflections of an Adoptee

Reflections

I see this person staring back at me and wonder who it is I see?
Are these her eyes?
Is the face the same?
Do I look like him?
What are their names?
Mirrors like pictures tell thousands of tales.
But the stories told me have always failed.
In lending me the slightest clues to endless questions and intangible truths.
For I feel just like a soul alone, in the dark no place called home.
Trying hard to light my way into the hope for another day.
Illuminating where I should go, and guide my steps through this unknown.
To discover trails back to where, I'll find this face that's in the mirror.

The confusing ambiguity in being adopted can take on in life is more than tough to explain to non-adopted persons.  Comprehension of the impact of that is something we long for others to realize in our quest for answers to the truth about our biological, genetics, and family histories.  Something we find ourselves continually explaining and defending over and over and over again.  Or worse hiding and concealing steeped in fear of further judgment, criticism, and ridicule.

Large chunks of who I am are still missing.  I've caught glimpses of them in my children, in my non-id, in the letter my mother sent via the adoption courts.  It's not enough, nor will it ever be.  I keep getting told that "family" is what you make it.  Stated for the most part by those who have never lost or been taken away from all of it.

I am more than frustrated by a life time of searching for my biological connections and thirteen years of petitioning adoption courts.  Few facts, or leads, and not enough detailed information added to secrets, lies, and cover ups in my adoptive situation make it impossible to find.  I'm not looking for fairy tale endings, or to be welcomed anywhere with open loving arms, I simply want to know who I am and to have some closure.  And, I refuse to listen to the naysayers who tell me "it doesn't matter.

"If a man happens to find himself, he has a mansion which he can inhabit with dignity all the days of his life." ~James A. Michener~

Why So Many Adoptees Don't Love Adoption!

Why do we not love adoption?  Ohhhhh let me count the ways.  No really please LET ME. 

Well beside the uneducated advice and opinions of those "well meaning" people who dictate to us how thankful and grateful we should be someone wanted us, and how lucky we are we weren't tossed in a dumpster or aborted, there are so many other points to cover on why adoptees do not love adoption.  So many of us do not fit into complete opposite biology from our own in our adoptive familes.  So many of us are then further rejected after the cute baby adoptee grows into the genetic person they are.  Then, so many of us encounter much to our dismay the fact that we are treated like commodities subject to government rule and regulation.  Shocking, untrue, and unfounded you say, how could this be adoption is wonderful?!  Just wait it gets even more unbelievable.

Let's begin with the religious entities that govern and facilitate adoption and the fraud and corruption within them, that also involves a great deal of immorality and lack of ethics.  I'm not a full blown search angel but I do help others and try and guide adoptees as to where to go, who to talk to, and where to start searching.  In the last year, and especially in the last month, I have been in touch with several adoptees I tried to provide help for that aren't "found" in the system of adoption.  They hold ammended birth certificates and have adoptive parents who have given them identifying information including birth names, and some even have adoption paperwork in hand.  STILL no one can find them and they are told they don't "exist" in the system.  There is no recourse for information, family history or background, let alone the chance to obtain current family medical history for themselves or their children.  Many search with that little they have for years without ever finding biological family.  Try "finding" with last names that are 20-30 or more years old like Smith, Jones, or Miller and first names of Jane, John, or Bill and mothers who have married and remarried and changed their original last names.

Other adoptees, too numerous to count, have registered with state and local adoption agencies looking for information and or connections to their biological families.  Many biological families have contacted the previous mentioned looking for the same.  Both sets of people are turned away told that no one has contacted them, or they are not entitled to that information, or no matches have been found for them.  Later, sometimes years later they find one another outside of these systems only to realize they were given incorrect information or NO information pertaining to the fact that these people were desperately attempting to reconnect.  And sadly, more than sadly, many find they are too late and one or MORE of the parties is deceased and the chance at reunion and relationships have been lost.  The damage and fall out from this can be devastating I know, I lived without much of that information that could have changed and saved parts of my life for decades.

The majority of these religious entities, and there are hundreds registered as non-profits and are tax exempt take in large amounts of money beyond the non-adopted persons true comprehension, who continue to profit off adoptees in post adoption situations such as Confidential Intermediary programs, the request for non-identifying information, or for reunion services.  Private adoptions in Texas via lawyers can operate under the table and without scrutiny and transparency making them much more fraught with illegalities and at risk for young woman and children being taken advantage of.   More recently International Adoption fraud has been in the news in countries such as Australia, Spain, and China just to name a few.   The much loved Gladney Center for Adoption has been sued several times over including a class action suit brought by adoptive parents for lack of disclosure to pertinent and accurate information about the children they adopted and their biological family background.  Settled out of court....of course.

What we as adoptees here in the United States know all too well is how rampant it runs within our own country's system of adoption.  Most adoptees don't have the time, energy, or are monetarily equipped to go up against these adoption agencies, parties, and entities legally because these large wealthy non-profits and government institutions DO have plenty of time and money to keep anyone accusatory tied up lengthy legal battles.  However, some adoptees have sued and won, or even had their adoption reversed and declared illegal.  I could state case after case but there is google for that if you don't take my word for it.  Or, contact me privately and I'll give you an ear full.

What is so very disconcerting and disgusting is the propaganda by which these agencies are allowed to advertise children complete with price lists and legal costs to adopt babies still yet unborn still in the womb!  Crisis pregnancy billboards, bumper stickers, and even posters on the walls of planned parenthood expounding on the virtues of adoption are prevalent here locally.  Pregnant girls and woman are continually being primed for sainthood for unselfishly giving up their children into better circumstances and then kicked to the curb and their open adoption promise closes when the ink on the relinquishment papers dry, and the door to contact with their child is shut tight on them.   All of this done in the name of creating families but in reality it is child trafficking. 

I've only touched the tip of the proverbial ice berg here in regards to the lack of ethics and morality and fraud in adoption.  And most of the time it's not going to be broadcast in head line news, in workplace conversation at the water cooler, or in friendly conversations.  It is best known and lived in the hearts and souls of adoptees.

The Powers That Be

You took away my family.
You took away my home.
You erased away my history and most of it is gone.
What gives to you the right to do this injustice unto me?
How can you be so blinded?
How is it you can't see?
You're stealing from the innocent are you so unaware?
You're playing God with all our lives, did you think we wouldn't care?
Who gave to you authority to decide how we should live?
Who granted you this power?
It was not theirs to give.
You treat us as possessions.
We are not yours to own.
How did you get the notion you can tell me where is home?
Do not dictate to me about how I should live my life.
Or who I can call mother.
Then take away my rights.
The answers to life's questions you say I need not know.
You're asking the impossible the questions only grow.
What it is I'm asking for is for you to understand.
Until I have those answers I can not know who it is I am! 

Being adopted - Emotional Homelessness

I remember watching this as a child and relating to Marilyn on the show well.  She seemed to handle being so different in a very scary family with ease.  I always wondered if she was pretending as I was in my adoptive family, or if she really did blend in well.  And if it was the latter just HOW did she do it???  Inquiring adopted person wants to know!

I am pretty much nothing like my adopted family I even go so far as call it 99% the exact opposite.  Since our genetics in every way were and are so different, and people didn't talk about adoption and the issues it brought into family situations, I was always the one at fault for not fitting in.  Throughout my childhood and teens years it was evident everything about me was wrong according to what expectations were of who I was supposed to be.  I wish I could say that I was one of the few adoptees who experiences this but I am far from it.  There are so many of us out there who are rejected by not one but two families for simply doing nothing else than losing at the adoption "lottery".

Lately, it has gotten to where I can't talk about the recent developments in my adopted situation with anyone but other adoptees.  No one gets it, and I know they can't, but the fact that comparisons are made frustrate me.  I realize people feel they don't belong in their families, or they are not accepted as they are, or they are rejected by blood relatives.  But they know where they came from, they were not cut off from their biological roots and birth, and they at least had some kind of bonding in some capacity with people they share genes, family history, and genealogy with.  I'm really growing weary of trying to put the two into the same category.  I'd say it's like comparing apples with oranges but it's not.  It's more like comparing apples to a huge steaming pile of crap.  The big steaming pile of crap to many adoptees is adoption.

Ever since I can remember I've tried to figure out how to be someone else that was acceptable.  I've had to lie and cheat and steal.  Lie about who I am, cheat myself out of trusting who I really was, and steal identities and the traits of others to create myself throughout the years.  I had to wait until 39 years of age to get a glimpse at my biological family information and at 52 and three court petitions, one in progress, I STILL do not have names, cities, or states where my natural parents are, nor do I have the ability to tell my blood siblings I exist.

It's not just me who has suffered but my children as well.  They lost out on a whole other side of a family too.  "Family" is what you make it but it never replaces what was lost.  There are people who have lost the use of their legs and are glad they still have arms but that doesn't mean they take the place of the legs that they no longer have use of.  Even the great spiritual guru and leader Wayne Dyer talks of growing up in orphanages and the long search for his biological father and in finding a grave he at last found peace and closure.

Losing ties to your own, biological and or adoptive, parents can bring even the strongest and greatest person to their knees.  I harp on this a great deal but it's true.  There are two things that are important in life family and health.  When you lose both as I have, you can lose nearly everything.  Not only income, or careers, or educational opportunities, homes, and relationships but when you are adopted and have lost not just one but two family connections you not only can become physically homeless, but emotionally too.  For me, the latter has been worse.

The value of identity of course is that so often with it comes purpose.  ~Richard Grant




 

Adoptee Tales from the Darkest Side

Over Cast

A gloomy gray surrounds my soul and covers hope from which life grows.
With murky tints in hues of black and darkened tones where colors lack.
I know no sun or sky of blue eternal night my only view.
In shades of doubt my heart beats on where I exist but don't belong.
Lost chances and unrealized dreams paint the landscape that I see.
Defeating endeavors to escape the desolate hours that are my fate.
Upon the surface all is well most never see my private hell.
I struggle daily to survive and squelch the anger deep inside.
I try before it is too late to douse these fires of raging hate.
That burn eternal flames that kill my hope, my prayers, my very will.
Can't seem to win or too succeed exiled from life that others lead.
I wrestle with the endless doubt that I will find my way back out.
Where one day I will hope to find a peaceful and unburdened mind.

I wrote this a little over ten years ago when I was rejected by my biological parents, found out my adoptive parents had been withholding pertinent information to help me obtain crucial current family medical history for doctors (and had been for years), battling multiple health issues, single mother struggling to take care of her children alone, lost, and depressed.  I am not suicidal, although I have been at points in time in my life.  I look back now and how far I have come a long way from the lost, hurt, angry person I was.  However, adoption "stuff" can hit you when you least expect it, out of the blue, and slam you down to the ground so hard you think you'll never get back up.  The above poem cries out with the depths of despair adoption issues can bring you to.

I've spent a lot more time than I'd like to reflect on living in very dark places.  Feeling like a huge cosmic mistake born to one set of parents who gave me away and now want no contact with me let alone to release their names or to tell my siblings I even exist.  Adopted by two parents who obviously couldn't bond with who I was our genetics so extremely opposite, abused, and rejected.  Existing for my children but going through the motions in life and numbing out when and where I could.  Languishing ill in and out of doctors and hospitals battling for my very life and still, no one there to really care.  A good majority of my life has been a nightmare a black hole sucking the very energy and will to live right out of me.

Fortunately in part due to a counselor well versed in adoption issues and largely to so many adoptees who are supportive and understand I am a different person today.  I bounce back a lot more quickly when struck by the pain and loss adoption brings to my life table.  I write, I support other adoptees in the search and healing, I work in adoption reform and education when and where I can and implement coping tools shown to me by other adoptees.  I've become more stubborn and hell bent not to allow my adoption situation to destroy me, or any other adoptee, and continue on as a survivor.  I strive to be everything my adoptive and biological parents are not.  I refuse to be a person that continues to bury their head in the sand and ignore the truth.

People are quick to judge and label adoptees when they have no comprehension of the depth of what has happened to them, nor do they seem to want to, because of adoption.  They believe adoption is a wonderful solution to a "bad" situation.  You just take a baby whose parents are in a difficult situation i.e. young, uneducated, impoverished, and you transplant them into a family who wants a child right?  WRONG!!!

It is complicated for all parties involved, but mostly for the children who are separated from their biological families.  And when these difficult issues for adoptees are ignored and shoved under the rug all kinds of problems can occur.  It is well known and has been widely published that adoptees are over represented in psychological settings and rehabilitation centers.  This is unacceptable.  It must be changed and more importantly PREVENTED.  You don't "get over" being adopted.  Adoption is not a one time transaction it is a lifetime event.

I truly believe that it's not what happens to you it's how you deal with it.  But, for far too long adoptees have not been able to voice their pain and angst over the issues adoption brings them.  Or worse, their voices are stifled and quieted by a society and industry that dismisses them or worse, shames and blames them for simply feeling what they feel.  Adoptees are now speaking out, writing, and joining the effort for reform and education in adoption to end the silencing of these voices of reason.  The days of hiding in the dark, in fear, afraid to speak out well that time, is now over.

"When I stand before thee at the day's end, thou shalt see my scars and know that I had my wounds and also my healing." - Rabindranath Tagore

Adoptees and the Facts of Life

'You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have The Facts of Life, the Facts of Life'.

And that was what came to mind when I was thinking of recent events that have taken place in the adoption community.  After 13 years being involved in it, watching, learning, and advocating I feel somewhat educated enough to throw my opinion into the arena.  And all the time remembering too what they say about opinions.  So, here goes.

The adoption community is multifacted melting pot of differing religious, political, ethnicities, egos, ages, and genders.  Adoptee's stories while having amazing similarities are as unique to the individual who experiences them.  There is one binding factor I find in most all adoptees that we are instantaneously understood by most immediately without hesitation, accepted for the adopted persons we are.  It IS a pack mentality and maybe the first and only one adoptees ever feel they really belong to.

We fight to expose the dirty, corrupt, and fraudulent underbelly in adoption that exists in ways only we bear witness to every day.  We work to educate the world on the plight of adoptees, NOT what the system of adoption tells the world it is, and bring our voices to change the system that has functioned without listening to us.  The process of adoption and how it functions as human trafficking great disturbs me, hell it out right PISSES ME OFF.  If you knew babies and children were being treated as commodities for profit in the name of adoption it would piss you off too.

Pack mentality is what has changed the world for hundreds of years, even longer.  Pack mentality is what has created numerous grassroots organizations all over the world, and in adoption as well.  Pack mentality is what started adoption reform and created the first progress towards adoptee access to OBCs.  That said there are also varying versions of pack mentality within adoption and all groups have their varying reasons for functioning and operating and how they see and view the issues.  As much as we can agree with any adoptee on how to proceed in adoption education and reform, we can also find ourselves as polar opposites. 

Do I support hate speech, or personal or private attacks, and revenge NO I do not.  What I do support is an adoptee's right for once in their lives to stand up and speak out against the horrors of adoption and the very people who are promoting the industry.  When we try to get people to conform to our idea of how this should be done we once again control them and or label them.  That has been done enough as it is already.

I watch and witness constantly the battle between pro-adoption and anti-adoption.  We as adoptees find our place in the battle to educate and reform.  I have found it therapeutic and empowering to change the world and the lives for others.  While I may or may not agree on how one group proceeds if I don't like it I can certainly state my opinion and walk away and simply not take part or get engaged in certain ideas or behaviors.  Just as there are far left, middle, and right winged politicians so there are adoptees working within legislative and educational activism.  No movement as large as this is ever going to be on the same page at the same time.

The depths of emotion that we carry as adoptees goes beyond explanation even for us much of the time.  We are navigating VERY uncharted territory.  There is going to be controversy, and disagreements, and blatant dislike between individuals and unfortunately groups.  Just as there is in any other "family" type situation.  It's how these differences are met and dealt with that make the difference.  Have I spoken out and gone too far YOU BET.  And, when I have been wrong I have taken responsibility for it.  We ALL have done it and it goes with the territory.  More importantly the old adage "It's not what you say it's how you say it" comes into play here.

I don't agree with everyone or every action I never will.  You can aim and shoot the messenger but really the messengers are numerous and on going and always will be.  What I take issue with is public shaming and blaming and singling people out and making them scape goats and turning on one another.  And this is no passive agressive type statement directed towards anyone.  I feel we are all parts of a whole and when any one of those parts is damaged or breaks it hurts.   It is what the industry counts on is our weak wills and inability to come together to facilitate change.  And those are the facts of life in adoption and what adoption reform and education is about.  Adoptees deserve to regain the very facts of life AND rights that have been stripped from us by the system of adoption.

"Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno".  All for one and one for all!

The Ghosts of Adoption aka Living Haunted

Silhouettes

A silhouette without a face these ghosts I chase from place to place.
Shadows playing hide and seek elude my call evade my reach.
They come and go within my dreams, looming near but never seen.
Just when I think they've gone away I realize they are back to stay.
Haunted by similarities, in the mirror this face I see.
It is mine but comes from where?
I find no peace, only blank stares.
Few clues to riddles lost in time.
Can't capture what I can not find.
Pursuing what I can't deny.
The truths from days that have long gone by.

I hear so much well intentioned, and some not so much so, "advice" doled out to adoptees about their adoptive situations.  Mostly in search and reunion, or more importantly the lack thereof.  I think as adoptees we are always searching even if we have found our biological family and roots.  We search for our place in a family we are not connected to by genes and heredity.  We search for our place in the world as we watch other families operate out of this commonly shared heredity.  And we search for your place within our biological family if we are lucky enough to find them, and be accepted by them.

Most know both of my biological parents have refused to release their identities to the courts.  And, although my biological mother sent a non-identifying letter and a 40th birthday card both of my biological parents want to carry on and keep the secret that is my existence.  Just how does one ever forget about the roots and genes they come from?  Rhetorical there.

You don't, you can't, and you never will.  You can live in denial, you can push it as far to the back of your mind as you can, but at some point in time it will come up and confront you and most of the time without notice.  I believe it's better to address it when it comes up or burying the emotions and denying them, at least for me, have worse consequences at a later time. 

I turned off the computer and the TV the other day and decided to take my mind off of adoption and do something else.  Not an hour it seemed that went by as I changed channels that there was not some adoption themed show on or topic that came up in conversation on news and talk shows.  I switched to a Science channel show to watch Penguins (they are so very cute).  Ten minutes into the show what do you think?  YEP the narrator began talking about orphaned penguins whose parents never returned from fishing and the penguins whose babies died and how they tried to adopt the orphaned ones!

I just laughed and shook my head.  I know I will never be able to look into a mirror for any length of time and not wonder where I got my eyes, my nose, and my hair.  I will always jump whenever someone says to me "You remind of someone I used to know" and begin with innocent questions about who and where they are.  I will always wonder who my mother and father are who are responsible for my being in this world.  I will always wonder if I will ever be able to know my siblings, or for them to have the chance to know me.

I now know from my non-id information and the letter from my biological mother where so much of "me" comes from.  I have assimilated it into who I am and it has given me a foundation of confidence I never had before.  I am such a more integrated person how could anyone not be?  But, I will always want the rest of "my" story.

Although I don't have names, or cities, or even a state to search in and all tracks of my existence and birth have been covered up, I will always continue to search in some capacity and wonder almost every day who I really am.  I will always be a part of another family whether I am a secret or not.  And, if anyone comes across a 60 something woman, 4' 10" tall, just under 100 lbs., with green eyes and brown hair, feel free to let me know. ;)

When in Adoption?

When?

When will it be alright to mourn someone that is unknown?
When will it be o.k. to yearn for places most call home?
When will it be enough to fill this void and empty space?
How do they think that parents are commodities replaced?
How can it be the world believes that all of this is fair?
How can we make them understand or make them more aware?
How is that each day it seems we witness endless change,
as our names are taken from us and our lives are rearranged?
If only we could make them see, if only they could know.
That these questions never answered will not stop.
They only grow.

Adoption is so misunderstood even by the people who are involved with it firsthand.  The misconceptions are numerous and the magnitude of their impact is over looked and dismissed by those NOT adopted.   I've come to realize that people really need to see the separation of children from their biological families as some kind of divine intervention to create another family as some sort of "blessed event".  All the time they are ignoring the ways and means this is done, and then justifying it some way, shape, and or form, as "building" families. 


Children unfortunately lose parents or other relatives before or soon after they are born.  They will never know these parents or people and they will never be in their lives, but they are allowed to ask questions and have information about them.  They will be provided with photographs and explanations about what happened and allowed their emotions and feelings about it.   Adoptees who lose both of their parents, along with all other family members, at birth are expected to forget and for it not to be important to them who they came from.

If a child loses its family to divorce and parents remarry, children are not asked if they are glad their family was torn apart to create new ones.  They are not expected to be "grateful" or "thankful" for the tragedy that is the demise of a family unit when they obtain a newer one.  When will it be widely accepted AND believed that adoptees under go a huge monumental loss at birth that will affect them for a lifetime?

When will the laws and rules of  that govern regular families apply to adoptees as well?  When will adoptees, who are told and expected to be like "everyone else" actually have the same rights as "everyone else"?  When will the struggle to have access to the truth of our origins be granted us, and not continually denied?

When the government and religious organizations who profit from adoption are exposed for who and what they are.  When the public is educated to the harsh and hard to hear truth and facts about what adoption really is.  When I can hold my original birth certificate in my hand.

Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.
Eleanor Roosevelt