Blog

Records Are Not Open

People have this idea that those of United States who were adopted can easily reunite with our birth families. Not true. You see, when someone is adopted, their original birth certificate is sealed or put under legal lock and key, and they issued this falsified birth certificate, where the birth mother is listed as the adoptive mother and the birth father is listed as the adopted father so a person who looks at this birth certificate, will think that the adopted parents are the birth parents of the child. The document is straight up falsified. The birthdate stays the same, but the parents are switched around. Seems to me there could be an adopted birth certificate, but then it wouldn’t be well. Kept secret. Adoption was always something of a secret. People are ashamed of having a child for lots and lots of reasons and not ashamed of not keeping a child so that’s two separate sources of shame Plus, those who couldn’t have children were ashamed of not being able to have children and of having to seek outside help, so nobody ever talked about it.

Now that people are talking about adoption there are misconceptions. The incorrect notion has risen that the records are open. They’re not sure, these people who think it’s so easy. Yes, there are some states where there’s some sort of registry and if you want, you as an adoptee, can get on the list, and the birth mother can get on the list. Somehow you can get united. I have to look into it, so I can speak intelligently and knowledgeably about the facts, which obviously I cannot do at this time.

But the point is, it’s not easy and it’s nothing definite. The luxury of knowing your mother’s name or the name that you were given at birth, is still unimaginable for a lot of us I got lucky when I found out who my mother was and I will get around telling you guys that story of how my story happened,

Now that I’m considerably older than I was when I found my birth mother, I wish I could’ve left it alone. I wish I could’ve just accepted that there were things I would never know about ,even if everyone else in the world knew those things about themselves. However, I could not accept that question mark In my mind where my personal history is supposed to be, so I pursued finding my birth mother through an extremely unlikely method, that I would not recommend today. I will tell you how difficult it was to find out the things that I found out. I remind myself that it is OK to cut myself some slack by remembering how difficult it was not to know who my mother was. How difficult it was not to know my original name Or, how difficult it was not to know how I came to be placed with the people who were supposed to be my family. It would help me to remember how desperate it felt. And empty.

I criticize myself for not leaving well enough alone. Yet I certainly had not been well enough. I know finding out the information was not thepath to wellness. I know even better that ignorance was really not the path wellness.

For an adoptee like me, life was nothing but a big void.