Resources For Late Discovery Adoptees

As a followup to my previous post, here are some resources for late discovery adoptees (those who discover their adopted status as adults).

• Late Discovery Adoptees
  
  
• they also have an FAQ
  
  
• Are You Adopted? Are You Sure? by Ron Morgan
  
  
• Discovering You Are Adopted (PDF)
  Post Adoption Resource Centre, Australia
  
  
• Am I Really Adopted? (PDF)
  Post Adoption Resource Centre, Australia
  
  
• For Late Discovery Adoptees, Pain And Betrayal (PDF)
  Philadelphia Enquirer

Adoptee Rights Day In Philadelphia

This week the Adoptee Rights Day demonstration is taking place in Philadelphia at the State Legislators Conference. If you're attending the conference, please stop by booth #935 on July 21-23, 2009 and lend your support. Here's an article about the event.

There has been some discussion in the adoption reform community concerning ARD. Some people are for it, while others are concerned over the way it was handled last year. I am not directly involved in ARD or any adoption reform organizations other than the Green Ribbon Campaign (which is not a sponsor of ARD), but I know people on both sides so I have had to make my own decision about whether to support it. I have decided to do so philosophically if not financially, because I think they are delivering an important message that needs to be heard. (The financial part is moot for me, since I don't have the funds anyway.) However I would like to see the concerns addressed. Personally I have take it as an opportunity to contact my Illinois legislators again, in the hopes this demonstration will illustrate that the question of adoptee rights is an issue that spans far beyond one single person. I hope you will do the same.

Good luck in Philly, everyone! And thank you for being the voices of those of us unable to attend.

Update On Adoptee Denied Passport

We've got an update on that adoptee who was denied her passport because of irregularities with her amended Illinois birth certificate. As many of us figured, she had to go through international channels to get a German passport as that is where she was born. I am disappointed that the Chicago Tribune is treating this like an isolated case instead of addressing the fact that all adoptees with sealed records have the potential for problems like this.

Vander Woude, 55, immigrated to America from Germany as a toddler in 1955 and was adopted by U.S. parents a year later. For her entire life, she believed the adoption made her a U.S. citizen. She said she has voted since age 18, served on a jury and was issued an Illinois birth certificate.

After the Problem Solver called the DHS to inquire about the delay, a passport official called Vander Woude with the shocking news: Her 1956 adoption did not confer citizenship, as she had believed.

Monday, the German Consulate issued Vander Woude a German passport. Two days later, she applied for an updated green card through DHS. On Thursday, she returned to the DHS office to have her passport stamped, allowing her to return to the United States when her trip is over.

When she returns, she will continue to research her citizenship status. Vander Woude said that, despite what the passport office told her, she thinks that legally she might be a U.S. citizen.

"When I come back, I will try to find out a little more detail into some of this," she said. "Right now, I don't want to make any waves or anything. Everybody's been so nice and so helpful."

Well, I wish her a lot of luck with that. I'm no attorney, but I know her amended Illinois birth certificate is a legalized sham. She may have a lot of paperwork ahead of her, and may never be considered a "natural born" U.S. citizen.

I wrote the Problem Solver and reporter Jon Yates when this article first came out (links provided so you can too), but didn't receive a response. As I said, this is not an isolated case. But it's easier, I suppose, for the Trib to pat itself on the back for having helped this one woman than opening a can of worms on behalf of all Illinois adoptees with sealed birth certificates. Too bad they can't apply the same prowess they've shown over the University of Illinois clout scandal. Why not, I wonder? Perhaps because doing so would put them up against the almighty adoption agencies and professionals, who themselves wield considerable clout.

Amended birth certificates are time bombs waiting to go off but, like Ms. Vander Woude, no one wants "to make any waves".

Media Bias And Late Discovery Adoptees

Another Chicago Tribune article that, on the face of it, does not appear related to adoption until you take a closer look. It's about a doctor who is helping a homeless man get back on his feet. Scroll down a bit and you'll see how this is related to adoption:

A talkative man, Atkinson [the homeless man] traces his downward slide to a defining event of his youth: finding out at 18 that his parents had adopted him as an infant. His father had died eight years before; as an only child, he was extremely attached to his mother, who passed away in 1973.

"[She] used to tell me: Whatever you do, Everett, tell the truth. And then I found out, she never told me the truth [while I was growing up] about who I was," he said, sighing. Atkinson said his drinking and drug use started after he found his biological family -- a father who was abusive, a mother who got hurt, and a dozen frightened brothers and sisters.

While I can't claim to speak for Mr. Atkinson, I understand how he feels. Although I was always told I was adopted, I didn't find out til my mid-20s that my adoptive father knew the complete details of my adoption including my birth name. I know how much that rocked my world. Imagine what you'd do if you found out as an adult that the people you called parents lied to you your whole life. Your life might take a turn for the worse too.

What annoys me about this article is the skewed way in which it is presented. Little mention is made of his adoptive family, yet many negative details are included about his birth family. To me that second paragraph implies that Mr. Atkinson's problems stem from the "bad stock" of his birth family rather than from being lied to by his adoptive family. This, despite Mr. Atkinson himself tracing the "defining moment" back to the lie. In fact the reporter makes a point of mentioning that Mr. Atkinson was "extremely attached" to his adoptive mother, as if issuing an apology to any adoptive parents who might be reading, as if excusing the fact that he was lied to. This kind of biased reporting perpetuates the myth that all birth families are teetering on the brink of destruction and to find them is tantamount to destroying your life. Is there any family out there that is perfectly unblemished? Instead the article could have explained that lying to your adoptive child sets them up for emotional difficulties later.

Now, if original birth certificates were available to adoptees in Illinois instead of being sealed, it would not be possible for adoptive parents to lie about their childrens' origins. People justify sealed records by saying the child should be "protected" from the truth of their biological families. But if this man had grown up knowing he was adopted and knowing about whatever problems his birth family might have had, he would have been able to deal with it slowly and with support rather than having to deal with it on his own when it was dumped on him at the age of 18.

Let this be a lesson for all adoptive families: TELL THE TRUTH! I wish Mr. Atkinson much success in his fresh start on life.

Adoptee Denied Passport Because Of Amended Birth Certificate

This article from the Chicago Tribune illustrates something I've written about before: the increasing problems adoptees are increasingly having trying to get legal documents like passports due to their amended birth certificates.

Gabriele VanderWoude was still in diapers when she arrived in the United States, 53 years ago. In 1956, she was issued an Illinois birth certificate after she was adopted by American parents. She later obtained a Social Security number and a voter registration card. She said she has been voting since she turned 18.

Shortly after she applied for the passport, the State Department asked her for more information. She sent copies of her adoption papers, but months later the government asked for more documents. In April, VanderWoude sent a copy of the card showing her entry into the United States.

Thursday afternoon, an official with the passport office in Charleston called VanderWoude with unbelievable news: It could not issue her a passport because she is not a U.S. citizen.

VanderWoude, 55, said she and her mother have always believed she became naturalized when she was adopted 53 years ago.

Sounds to me like this woman was issued an amended (read: legally falsified) Illinois birth certificate upon her adoption. Like many adoptees I, too, have one of these legal fakeries, with no way to obtain the real one. When adoptees are adopted (NOT when we are relinquished) our original birth certificates are sealed and the fake issued in its place. When we request our birth certificates, the fake is the only one we can get. Clearly this document, which we have been assured is "just as good as" the original, is far from it.

We've already seen how some adoptees have been unable to use their amended birth certificates to obtain driver's licenses. This shows how adoptees can also be barred from obtaining passports. Yet the adoption industry continues to claim that it is necessary to seal adoption records, and to put ineffective and expensive mechanisms in place of unfettered access to original birth certificates. Will this woman be forced through the ignominy of the Illinois Adoption Registry or Confidential Intermediary program, in a vain attempt to obtain her original birth certificate? I went that route, and not only did not obtain my original BC but in fact was barred from it forever, or at least until the law changes. Quite frankly I am afraid to try to get a passport or travel outside the country even though I was born here. Ms. VanderWoude and I are both nonpeople solely because we are adopted.

The article continues:

VanderWoude said she still does not understand how she has been able to vote, why she was issued an Illinois birth certificate, or how her residency status was never discovered before.

I know why she received that fake BC: because nobody cares what goes on amended birth certificates. They don't care how adoptees may be affected by this legal fakery as their lives unfold. It is a means to render the adoption process as opaque as possible, to the sole benefit of adoption agencies and practitioners. Adult adoptees are caught unawares, just trying to go about our lives like everyone else. In short, we are rendered a subclass of society because our original birth certificates are unavailable to us.

Unfortunately I don't think this woman will have much success. Because she was born overseas, she may have to undergo the process of becoming a U.S. citizen. This is not an isolated problem. Whether born in the U.S. or abroad, adoptees whose records are sealed are at risk. Only when ALL adult adoptees have unrestricted access to our original birth certificates, the only document that counts for anything, will we be equal to our non-adopted peers.

Tennessee Adoptee Threatened For Asserting Her Rights

An adoptee I'll call "Donna" has been threatened with legal action, simply for trying to exercise her right to access her information and speak with another consenting adult. Donna's story in her own words tells it all. This is shared with her permission. Some details have been edited to protect her identity. Donna says:

Thirty years ago I requested information from the Tennessee DCS. Of course I was denied, but they asked my bmom to write me a letter. She did and explained her situation.

Fast forward to earlier this year I requested info again hoping she would change her mind. I paid $150.00 for the information and received about 100 pages of information including the names of her brothers, sister, parents and the address and phone number of her brother. There was a lot of information that I did not know about, including the fact that I was born in City X, Tn., where I currently live. She lived here too at the time of my birth. My aparents was told she lived near City Y, Tn and that was where I was born. They were lied to, I know because aparents would never lie about that. DCS asked if I would like them to contact as I was not allowed to initiate contact with bmother due to the document I signed. Only DCS could do this at an additional cost of $135.00. I told them to do it and I had to make a list of who all I wanted them to contact. So I wrote a check and listed bmom, bdad, bsiblings, baunt and buncles. When I was leaving the office the case worker commented that I was about to let the cat out of the bag and their would be some shocked people. I though about that for 2 days and decided to not contact anyone except bmom and then let her tell others. DCS could not search for bfather because even though he was listed a bdad he was not on bcertificate. The same day I decided I would like to contact buncle as I had his number and he lives here in City X. I called DCS, Person #1, and she said there was nothing saying I could not contact him just do no harm. I even asked her if this would violate the documents I had signed and she said no. I just could not contact bmom or attempt to contact her through a third party.

So, I called buncle and talked to him about 30 minutes. I told him about my great life and family and he said he would tell his sister. I told him about the signed documents and that I was not attempting to contact bmother through him. I just wanted to talk to someone I was related to. My bmom lived w buncle before and after birth so he was aware of my existence. He was very kind and insisted my bmom would want to know these things, but she probably would not want contact with me. I told him if he did talk to her to tell her I always loved her and never blamed her for what she did.

Well, a few weeks later I received a letter from DCS, Person #2, telling me I had violated my sworn statement not to contact bmother through a third party. I called her and tried to tell her I was not doing that and said if I did it again I would be charged with violating the statement and could go to jail. So I wrote them a letter explaining everything so there would be documentation of my side. I then received another letter basically saying that no one at DCS would give me permission (basically saying I lied) and again stated that I violated the statement.

Still with me? I'll understand if you've had to take a moment to go slam your head against a wall. Personally I had to sit here with a wine cooler and a bowl of chocolate chips* to email Donna some questions. (*Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet chips. For this, it should have been Twilight Delight Intense Dark!)

I asked Donna the following:

What information did they deny you? Did they provide any non-identifying information or was it all contingent on your birth mom? And was this when they made you sign that document promising no contact, or was that when they provided the names? Did you have an amended BC, and did it say City X or City Y? Did they ever say in writing that this would not violate the documents you signed, or was it just verbal?

Donna responds:

I sent the request to DCS. They sent a letter requesting specific information about me and a drivers license. I sent that. They sent another letter and a form that had to be filled out, signed and notarized. This is the document that I listed who I wanted to contact and had the statements about violating the confidentiality agreement that I had with DCS. Only DCS was allowed to search for an extra $135.00. I did that and returned it with a check for $150.00 as requested. And $135.00 for the search. A few weeks later I received a letter saying that they had the information and I could have it mailed or come and get it. I went the next day to get the info. I was take into a private room where they showed me about 100 pages of information. I looked at it all and they said they could copy it for me for 25 cents per page. I paid them for that and got all the information to take home. It included my parents names, grandparents names and her brothers and sisters names. It also included the city and state they lived in. It had all the visits documented with her, the doctors information, the foster care names and information and all my doctors visits. It also included the home visits with my aparents before and after adoption. My buncle's address and phone number were included. He also lives in City X as do I. My amended bc said City X as birth place, that is where my aparents lived. They said after the contact with buncle, that Person #1 had given me permission to contact, that I had violated the agreement both in writing, 2 letters and over the phone.

Donna shared with me some of the paperwork she received. This is one of the threatening letters sent to her by Tennessee DCS.

This is to acknowledge the receipt of your letter regarding contact violation. First I must state that you were advised wrong on contacting aunts, uncles, cousins and spouses. You need to speak to the person that advised you that you can contact these persons or person.

As stated in my letter of January 22, 2009, your birth mother has the right to veto contact with these individuals on her Contact Veto Registry form. She had received her Contact Veto Registry form and in accordance with the adoption law allowed 90days to respond. You made contact with her brother before she sent her form back to our office for us to determine her decision on contact. So this is a violation.

You also stated, "I then told him if he did talk to her about me to tell her thank you and that I have never had any bad feelings about her giving me up for adoption". This is an attempt (aim, try, seek) at contact via another person.

I know you were advised wrongly, but your Sworn Statement (paragraph four) is clearly defined. Your birth mother disclosed this information to me. She received it from her brother, who you contacted as well as other information you disclosed to her brother.

I might add that a recent audit resulted in an investigation of Tennessee DCS for misuse of taxpayer funds and workers looting foster kids' savings accounts. Check out the article's comments for more insight into other peoples' experiences with this particular agency. I'm no lawyer and I don't play one on the Internet, but I think they're trying to cover their asses by using Donna as bait so they aren't targeted for legal action. I also think this business of not letting her contact birth family members without paying them to do it is purely a way for them to make more money off adoptees and birth families. Remember Chynna and her experience with the Florida DMV? Poor Donna has no resources to fight this, no money for an attorney, no powerful politician friends or other means of asserting her rights. I am concealing her identity because I don't want her to suffer any further than she already has. What's really sick is I'm pretty sure all of this is legal according to Tennessee's "open" records laws. Maybe someone more familiar with Tennessee can speak to that.

This is exactly what the people in control of our adoption records want. They want us to be powerless. They want us to have no option except to pay their ridiculous fees and subject ourselves to humiliation. If they make mistakes, they foist responsibility off on the adoptee, pitting a daughter against her mother when all Donna was trying to do was gain access to information and contact a member of her birth family that was willing to share in that contact. If Donna is able to reunite with birth family members at this point, this experience may sour any chance of ever speaking with her birth mother. I ask you, is this fair? Is it right? Are you going to let Donna and others like her suffer alone?

Or are you going to click here, find your legislators and let them know your opinion on adoption records access? Are you going to sign petitions and send postcards to lawmakers and contact news media when they write horribly skewed and fearmongering articles like this one? Because if we all slink away with our tails between our legs, nothing will ever change. If you are outraged by this, take your anger and put it to good use. People like Donna need your support. And if anyone has suggestions for her, please sing out.

Rhode Island: Support Adoption Records Access

Rhode Island needs your help. There is a bill in progress that has passed the House but may not pass the Senate. Please write in support of this bill. For more information and links to legislative email addresses contact T.R.A.C.E. at www.trace2009.org. T.R.A.C.E. is attempting to fight compromise legislation that would deny equal rights to ALL adult adoptees in Rhode Island.

As usual, the sticking point is the fallacy of birth mother "privacy". You may want to point these legislators to the Evan B. Donaldson study "For The Records: Restoring A Right To Adult Adoptees".

http://www.projo.com/news/content/ADOPTEE_BIRTH_CERTIFICATES_06-30-09_K8ESS5V_v17.398b4a3.html

After years of trying, advocates pushing to make Rhode Island one of the few states that allow adoptees access to their original birth certificates won a major victory in the state House of Representatives.

But it appears unlikely that the Senate, which reconvenes Tuesday for a one-day session, will go along with the change.

Stalking Irish Madness, Through Adoption's Lens

I mentioned a while back that I wanted to read Patrick Tracey's book Stalking Irish Madness: Searching For the Roots Of My Family's Schizophrenia. I had the opportunity recently to do so and it's an intense journey through one family's experience.

Being an adoptee, I can't help but read it through the lens of adoption. Knowing that my birth mother is Irish by descent, and knowing that there is some hitherto unidentified mental illness that runs on that side, naturally my curiosity about this book was piqued. I'd like to highlight some of the things that spoke to me and how it relates to my experience as an adoptee.

The notion that madness had favored the Irish had been kicking around since the 1850s... Genetically speaking, the Irish are no more at risk than any other people. But in their darkest hour their rates of insanity were pushed to extremes... [T]he Irish population in America had been largely Protestant and comparatively well screwed on. These newer arrivals, these Irish Catholics, were another thing altogether... Anyone could point the finger of blame--at the long history of famines and the malnutrition they spread, at drink, at religion, at emigration, at British inhumanity.

As a class, we adoptees are similarly tainted. Not too long ago it was thought that unwed mothers were of unsound minds, and that this supposed deficiency was transferred to us, their bastard offspring. Remnants of this mindset remain today in the knowing looks and snide comments we receive when folks find out we are adopted. People don't say "bad blood" anymore, but they still think it, and our super-secret-sealed adoption records only confirm it. Reading this book makes me wonder more about my blood relatives, not just the immediate relations but those stretching back into antiquity.

I know that for most people, the idea of going insane is unthinkable. For most families sanity is a given, as easy as breathing, as sure as seeing the sun rise in the eastern sky. For too many of us, however, there is a creaky gate that swings open at the cusp of adulthood, and on the other side is madness. On us sanity rests no more securely than a hat blown off in the wind.

For most families, biological ties are a given. Origins are a given. The fact that you have Aunt Mary's nose and Uncle Jed's propensity for stupid jokes are a given. Most people learn this with ease, over time, through all the little remarks families make in their daily lives. Not so for adoptees, however. Conversations of this nature cease when we walk in the room or, worse, continue while deliberately excluding us.

That mental illness that runs through my birth mother's family affected many of her relatives and siblings, one of my birth uncles "severely". I don't know what that illness is, its impact, how it might be treated. Reading this book makes me wonder anew: is it schizophrenia? Depression? Manic disorder? Something I haven't heard of but ought to know about for the sake of my children? It's an anvil hanging over my head, waiting to fall. I have been led to believe my birth mother is Catholic. Did the Irish Catholics Tracey mentions lend some irregularities that even now are floating around in my bloodstream like nanites, waiting to take control? Until my records are unsealed, uneasy thoughts are my only heritage.

Tracey continues:

[T]he diocese itself was no place to go for comfort. From the Victorian era until recent times, it ran a Dickensian regime. If there were not enough landed men to marry, a girl was sent to live behind the walls of a nunnery. If she first found herself pregnant, she was a slattern, her child a bastard. If the child survived the pregnancy, the Church wouldn't baptize him, damning him, effectively, in a false God's name. If he died, the Church wouldn't bury him. As a rule, a child born out of wedlock could not be registered with the parish. Illegitimate stillborn babies were laid to rest in fairy mounds across the county line. Today, recuperation ceremonies are held in border villages to reclaim the remains, and a new sense of tolerance prevails.

I would venture to say it's not tolerance that prevails, but the sense that "this could never happen today." Except it does. One Irish woman Tracey meets says:

"[L]oads of people have turned away a Yank because they think they're coming for the money. Back in my mother's day, illegitimate children given up for adoption had to go to England. Now there's a new law they can come back to claim the farm."

Same in this country. When adoptees reach out to birth relatives, one of the first assumptions outsiders make is that we're after some sort of inheritance. The only inheritance most of us want is the one rightfully due us: our heritage. There's no money in the world that could ever replace that. Although, I do like the idea of those poor stillborn bastards being buried in fairy mounds. Perhaps they now live in that other world, dancing and singing at neverending feasts, having become fairies themselves. The thought brings me a measure of comfort.

In the same chapter Tracey writes something that will doubtless hit home to any adoptee or birth relative who has ever tried to search:

This is why I am not enamored of genealogy... What irks is that at some stage... a gap appears in your factual understanding of who your ancestors were. I realized this going in. I knew that even in this computerized world of name searches, the most mundane details of lives lived 160 years ago can be as hard to unravel as the tangle in my grandmother's knitting bag. Sooner or later if your people were peasant Irish, the trail goes cold, the search thwarted at a sudden turn.

Or, if you're adopted, the trail stops cold at the first crossroads: your parents. Funny how people can understand this if someone like Tracey writes about it, someone who is "legitimately" pursuing his genealogy. But if an adoptee or birth mother searches, roust the villagers and grab the pitchforks! Why the dichotomy? Why must we be forced to live in the dark?

I'd highly recommend this book to anyone, but for adoptees it may be of special interest. It illustrates how genetic ties, no matter how far removed, impact those of us living in the here and now. Disturbing, yet provocative. I wish I could travel to Ireland and see the places my ancestors once lived. What could possibly be the harm to my birth family in that? Why am I not permitted such a journey simply because I am adopted?