~ Native American Proverb .
Posts Tagged ‘adoptee’
Adopted Children Learn What They Live
Friday, November 21st, 2014Years ago my adoptive mother proudly hung a famous poem in our home titled “Children Learn What They Live,” by Dorothy Law Nolte, Ph.D., a person who was keenly aware of the benefits of positive youth development. It remained there for years. Now that I’m post 50 and discovered at age 48 that I’d been adopted, I’ve wondered about that poem, wondered “positive youth development for who?” We need to remember that it means positive for the adoptee and from their perspective since they are the ones who are going to be living their lives.
This is my twist on that poem, my hope and dream for what a truly positive message for adoptees might look like –
ADOPTED CHILDREN LEARN WHAT THEY LIVE
If adopted children live with parents who are called their “real” parents, they learn that they came from “unreal” parents and that they’re rooted in something unreal, untrue, and unworthy of acknowledgement.
If adopted children live with labels like “chosen” or “lucky,” they learn that they were first unchosen and unlucky.
If adopted children live love defined by “your first mother loved you so much that they gave you up for adoption,” they learn that real love means being given away and to fear being given away every time they are told how much they are loved.
If adopted children live as “the answer to their parent’s prayers,” they learn that their sole purpose in life is to make others happy or risk a second abandonment if they don’t.
If adopted children live “Forever Family,” they learn that they’re like an adopted puppy or kitten, something to be acquired.
If adopted children live that finding first family is wrong, they learn that their deep need to know about their origins is wrong as well, and despair, sometimes waiting until it’s too late to find their truths.
If adopted children live with secret adoptions and no access to their original birth certificates, health histories, and heritages, they learn that they are not valued for who they were and question if they’re as worthless as the paper their amended birth certificates are printed on.
If adopted children live that adoption is only a blessing, they learn that their feelings of loss are invalid, and there must be something wrong with them for feeling that way.
If adopted children live that their trauma is real and their sadness over it is normal, they learn that their feelings are important and appropriate too.
If adopted children live with the opportunity to grieve, they learn they can survive and even thrive after loss.
If adopted children live with validated feelings, they learn that others genuinely care and value them.
If adopted children live with knowledge of their original identities, they can live authentically as themselves and not have to pretend to be someone else to be loved.
If adopted children live within an honest familial and societal system, they learn that they are more than a baby to be acquired and trust that they are valued just as they are.
By Joanne C. Currao born Tracey Elisabeth McCullough
Thank you for visiting Secret Sons & Daughters. In addition to stories, you can find valuable resources, discover your rights to your original birth certificate, meet other adoptees, and join the discussion by commenting (below) or on our Facebook page. Comments are always welcome. And we’d love to hear your story. Please subscribe and join our growing community.
“For Just a Day”—An Adoptee’s Wish for a Deeper Awareness of Adoption Pain
Sunday, October 19th, 2014Adoptee, Daryn Watson was compelled to pen this poem after learning the news that a fellow adoptee had recently ended her own life. He movingly reveals some of the realities of many adoption reunions after the initial tears of joy have been swept away.
For Just A Day
For just a day
I wish my pain would go away
For just a day
I wish I could say
I knew what it felt like
To fit into a family
Without feeling like I had to earn my approval
For just a day
I wish I didn’t fear second rejections
From the woman who gave me away
And who gives me her rationalizations
For just a day
I wish I could say
The words “birth” or “bio” mother
Without them being such a bother
For just a day
My hopes of my siblings to say
“How are you doing?”
Let’s plan a visit in May
For just a day
I want to convey
The angst I feel in my life
That causes me much strife
Without being judged or condemned
Day after day, all over again
For just a day
I hope for the news
That we won’t hear of a blindside
Of another adoptee committing suicide
For just a day
I want to segway
Into our own truth
That was formed in our early youth
For just a day
I wish the adoption industry
Would stop trying to betray
Adoptees from finding their history
For just a day
We hope lawmakers would join the fray
By stop making us feel ignored
And give us our identity records
For just a day
I wish couples wouldn’t pay
Tons of money to fulfill their heart
While ripping other families forever apart
For just a day
I wish I truly fit in
With the people around me
Without losing connections again
For just a day
I desire inner peace to stay
Without the rumblings of emotional famine
Or feeling overwhelming grief at random
For just a day
I wish I wasn’t cast away
To live my life in a twister
Without my natural brother or sister
For just a day
We wouldn’t have to pray
That our feelings aren’t swept under the rug
Or that we don’t abuse alcohol or an antidepressant drug
For just a day
I want my birth mother to acknowledge and say
“I’m sorry I abandoned you” with her voice
“And I didn’t give YOU a choice.”
For just a day
I wish my pain would go away
October 8, 2014
I wrote this poem soon after I heard the troubling news of a fellow adoptee taking her own life. Although I did not know this person, I knew that she had been reunited with her birth family. Upon learning about her tragic decision to end her pain, the phrase— for just a day—kept running through my mind. I finally succumbed to that inner mantra and put my feelings and words to paper.
In the 19 years since I reunited with my own birth family, my emotions have run the entire gamut from feeling elated, to feeling completely rejected and abandoned again. Reunions and the adoption pain that follows them can be hard, complex, and confusing to say the least.
Society usually sees the happy reunion story during its initial honeymoon stage. Those moments are almost always filled with tears of joy, leaving the impression that the reunion and new relationship will lead to a “happily ever after” fairytale scenario. However, throughout the reunion process, the emotional undercurrents of grief, rage, shame, guilt, rejection and abandonment often lurk beneath the surface for both the birth family and the adoptee.
Thankfully today, adoptee rights organizations and social media outlets are creating a deeper awareness of the adoption pain the adult adoptee may face throughout the course of his or her life. Still, in light of the recent string of adoption-related suicides, adoptees are in need of far more resources, guidance and emotional supportive measures as they navigate the search and reunion roller coaster ride.
It is my hope that by sharing this poem, others will see another realistic side of adoption reunion and how that experience may really feel for many grown-up adoptees across the world.
Editor’s Notes: Enjoy another of Daryn Watson’s poems here on Secret Sons & Daughters: Thanksgiving Reunion ’95
Pictured above is author, Daryn Watson and his paternal natural brother.
Thank you for visiting Secret Sons & Daughters. In addition to stories, you can find valuable resources, discover your rights to your original birth certificate, meet other adoptees, and join the discussion by commenting (below) or on our Facebook page. Comments are always welcome. And we’d love to hear your story. Please subscribe and join our growing community.
Native Awakenings
Thursday, October 9th, 2014An Indiana Adoptee Finds Her Alaskan tribe—
I have lived my whole life with skin that doesn’t burn in the sun, dark eyes and jet black hair. I’ve dreamt vivid, lucid, colorful dreams shaded with images of animals and earth’s elements. My night quests were often filled with salmon and streams, and I was carried away in a current. The water above and below me flowed in one direction, but my body was pulled along an opposite middle path.
For as long as I can remember, I felt as if I’d been severed from something. The forbidden questions I dared to ask about my adoption as a child were met with unsympathetic responses and nervous tapping fingers. The answers given: “We were told your birth father was one-quarter Aleutian Indian. You don’t want to open doors you cannot close. Your adoption records are sealed and that is the law.”
I was never introduced to Native American culture. My adoptee journey started in 1965, when I was born and adopted in the state of Indiana, one of more than thirty states that still have sealed adoption records. Non-identifying information is available in Indiana, but identifying information is only available if the first mother registers and signs a waiver of consent.
Those avenues were closed to me. Thankfully, today’s internet offered an alternate path to zip past prehistoric laws and unravel my ethnic mystery.
In the fall of 2013, I searched for DNA tests that determine ethnicity and found three companies: 23andMe, FTDNA and AncestryDNA. I had waited 47 years too long, dreamt too many dreams of being tugged away from something. I wanted real answers—to know if I was just a tan looking white-chick, or if I really had Native American ancestry.
While there were DNA tests that look solely for ancestral heritage, I began my search with 23andMe because at the time they provided genetic health information, such as whether I carried certain DNA mutations that lead to specific cancers or other diseases.
For an adoptee who has never had access to accurate family medical history, this was crucial information. (Unfortunately, the FDA has since stopped the company from offering this service.) I submitted my saliva sample and waited six weeks for the results.
When they arrived, I was shocked to find out I was in fact half Native American, my father full blooded. I mourned all the years I was denied my Native culture and never given the opportunity to know or celebrate my ethnicity with pride. My dreams, the strong spiritual connection I’d always felt to animals and the earth, the disinterest in the material world, all finally made sense to me in a way that made me feel rooted.
Thankfully, my medical history came out clean. Next thing I knew, I was accepting waivers stating that I’d read all they had to say about finding close relatives. I clicked away until I landed on a page that said there was a man with whom I shared 25% DNA. 23andMe suggested he was a nephew, but I knew in my heart he was my half brother.
We share the same birth date, one year apart. I messaged him right away and he responded promptly. He (Kevin) is 99.9% European. Since Kevin is nearly all European and I am half, it was clear we have the same mother. Kevin was born in Illinois, where adoption laws allowed him to access to our mother’s name. He agreed to share it. After that, I searched for her for months on end.
The excitement of finding him prompted me to submit samples to two more DNA testing companies. My ethnicity results returned the same. All three connected me to Native American distant cousins located along Alaska’s Yukon River.
I messaged everyone. Some replied, including Gail, a cousin who took me under her wing and offered to help me search for my Native birthfather.
In the meantime, I searched the internet daily for my mother. I drew family trees working them backward to forward. I searched every woman with the same name until “ruling out” was the only task left. Finally, in February 2014, I found her. She was on a public family tree. Also on that tree was a cousin from my European side, a photo of my mother, and her married last name.
I went on to find her on Facebook too and sent two messages that explained who I was (a nurse and mother) and what I longed to know, simple things like where I was born and the name of my father. I also told her that I was doing well and didn’t need to know the whys.
After those messages were met with silence, I sent a message to one of her siblings and received a note saying my birthmother would be willing to look at a letter again. The letter ended by wishing me peace and God’s love.
In my third letter to her, I confessed that I was petrified of hurting her and being rejected without answers. I promised to honor her private life, shared that Kevin and I were getting to know one another, and explained my DNA test result conundrum. And I asked again for my birth father’s name. I closed the letter by saying “I hope that you know you are loved.”
She responded a day later, asked for my address, and promised a letter. Six weeks later, it arrived. She confirmed that Kevin was my half brother, and gave me my father’s name.
Days earlier, my cousin Gail had posted my photo on her Facebook page, along with a brief note about my search for my father. I added his name in the comments and it flew like wildfire in the wind on a hot day. Within 90 minutes I had a gazillion relatives.
I was accepted without question, honored with phone calls, and welcomed with tears of joy. These new cousins shared stories about my father, how he’d been offered training with Chicago’s Job Corps in 1965 and spent 12 years in the lower 48 picking cotton in Georgia and oranges in Florida before returning home. They say I am much like him: tall, dark, and thin with a gentle and goofy nature. I wish I could have met him.
Artist (and Mary’s cousin) Rose Albert’s “Vision” reflects Alaska’s various cultures
My father, a full-blood Athabascan, walked on in 1992. My family assures me he would have loved me and done anything for me, had he known about my birth. I gaze at his photos and I see me, see white light reflected within dark brown eyes. I know his thoughts through these eyes. A history of memories carried through genetic markers that can never be washed away. My longing for connection to that history is so strong.
As for my mother’s family, Kevin and I are still secrets. However, I appreciate that she honored my request and signed the waiver to release my original birth certificate—the certificate that confirmed my father’s name, my Native American ethnicity, and had a checkbox marking me as “illegitimate.” My half brother and I grow closer as time progresses. We talk on the phone and email photos. I hope to meet him soon.
Mary and her cousin LaVem
I recently met my first cousin LaVem. Our fathers are brothers. She flew to Las Vegas from Fairbanks, Alaska to celebrate her 50th birthday and I met her there. LaVern is the first biological relative I have ever met.
Meeting her was a special love at first sight. We laughed and joked and got along like we’ve known each other forever. We shared photos of ourselves on Facebook for our friends and Alaskan family to see.
Next summer my tribe will hold a memorial potlatch in Alaska. “Potlatch” is a native term for a tribal gathering that is celebrated with gift giving, traditional song and dance, and ceremonial practices for blessing. I hope to attend.
I’m immensely thankful to settle in to my heritage and share it with my children. And I’m thankful for programs now open to us that include healthcare benefits and college scholarship opportunities. If I had never known of my lineage, my children and I would have no access to these opportunities or our familial heritage.
It’s extremely healing for me as an Alaskan Native American to know where I came from. Knowing one’s history not only has the power to root someone in their past, it also opens doorways to the future, and our children’s future, too.
Image credit: “Iditarod” and “Vision” by artist Rose Albert.
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Thank you for visiting Secret Sons & Daughters. In addition to stories, you can find valuable resources, discover your rights to your original birth certificate, meet other adoptees, and join the discussion by commenting (below) or on our Facebook page. Comments are always welcome. And we’d love to hear your story. Please subscribe and join our growing community.
Genetic Testing: Miracles and Science
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2014An adoptee twice rejected by her first mother turns to genetic testing for information and discovers a whole new family.
It has been 25 years since I found my birth mother. She has rejected me two times since. My search began in California in 1986 when I was in my early twenties. I hired a private investigator and made use of the “non-identifying information” a compassionate social worker had provided. The investigator made the initial contact. It was a disaster; my birth mother did not want to be found.
Apparently my birth had been a frightening chapter in her life and one she wanted to keep closed. Imagine a pregnant eighteen-year-old girl in prison during the dawn of the free love movement, giving birth while incarcerated, not to mention in an era that stigmatized out-of-wedlock pregnancy. She had no desire to revisit her troubled youth through meeting me, and, the hardest part, no curiosity or desire to know who I was.
I cried. I felt awful, guilty even.
It took months to work through my emotions over this second rejection, but I finally wrote to her. She responded with a letter that expressed her firm wish to draw a line that separated her from her past. Our only other communication was through two more letters over the years that followed. They met with the same result. Time seemed to have no effect on her wounds. To this day I’ve never met her, nor spoken to her on the phone.
I know I can’t control how she feels. I can only control my own reaction. I admit it hurts, but I’m not the type to kick something around forever. Thankfully, my life is full of other moments. Great moments, especially those surrounding the births of my two sons and the years spent raising them.
As the years have ticked by though, I increasingly wondered about my birth father. My birth mother was the only person who knew his identity and she was unwilling to divulge that information.
I made a rogue attempt to use social media to locate him. My Facebook page plea included the date and place of my birth, along with several photos of me throughout the years. I waited. Several weeks went by and there was no shortage of shares. Like a cheesy 80’s shampoo commercial, I told two friends and they told two friends, and so on, and so on.
The result: nothing. In the end, I surmised that my birth mother never told him that she was pregnant. How do you find someone who has no idea that you exist?
After that failed social media experiment, I took a break from finding him, until gnawing questions about my health history prompted me to try genetic testing.
Thank you, science and technology. I spit in a test tube, waited a few weeks, and 23andMe (a genetic testing company named for the 23 pairs of chromosomes in a normal human cell) gave me a genetically “clean” bill of health. The report explained that they detected no mutations or gene variants that would indicate serious inherited conditions, only a couple of genes indicating an elevated risk for non-life threatening conditions such as psoriasis and restless leg syndrome.
This was before 23andMe suspended their health-related genetic testing to comply with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s directive.
After I received the health results, I played around with the “Ancestry Composition” section of the site. I was fascinated to find out that I was mostly British and Irish, which was at least partially similar to my adoptive parents’ British and German ancestry. Given my propensity for arguing, raising my voice in exciting situations, and talking with my hands, I figured there would be a bit of Italian in me. Nope. I was enchanted anyway with the idea of being British and Irish, and fantasized I was related to Bono.
Initially, I never thought to look at the “DNA Relatives” section of the site. I already knew who my biological mother was, and I knew she hadn’t had other children. As for my birth father, I figured he wouldn’t be looking for me, and given his age (early 70’s), he probably wasn’t spitting in a test tube to get in touch with his genes.
A few weeks after analyzing the health data, I received an email from 23andMe. It was a conduit email from a “potential relative.”
Hi – Through our shared DNA, 23andMe has identified us as relatives. Our predicted relationship is 4th Cousin, with a likely range of 3rd to 6th Cousin. Would you like to explore our relationship?
Fourth, maybe even a 6th cousin? Whoop de doo. With no blood relatives that I actually knew, except for my own boys, a 4th cousin was too distant to rouse my curiosity. Even if he were related to me on my paternal side, how would I know? These potential matches typically request lineage information—a list of surnames to help piece together a family tree. I had no surnames to offer, so I ignored that first message.
I received a few more requests, but they were all the same—distant cousins. The flurry of them, though, finally prompted me to check 23andMe’s “DNA Relatives” section. I could have shut off these notifications, but now I was a curious to see if there were other matches who hadn’t reached out yet.
On that page, 23andMe reported that I had 762 potential relatives. 762! What does one do with this kind of information? Okay, maybe a lot of people care about distant cousins—it’s a way to find common ancestors and build your family tree—but I didn’t have a family tree. I barely had a shrub.
Then I saw it: “One Close Family.” What? Who? I clicked on it, but before 23andMe would reveal any details, a warning popped up. I had to confirm that I really wanted the information.
23andMe asked for two layers of consent before it revealed a close family relationship. First, I was given the chance to turn off the “relative finder” function, which shows relations as close as second cousins. Once you’ve opted in, if 23andMe finds a close relative (closer than a second cousin), a pop-up warning explains how this “new” evidence of a close family relationship can be unexpected and even upsetting in some cases. Upsetting? Been there. Of course I wanted to know! I clicked, then:
You may learn information about yourself that you do not anticipate. Such information may provoke strong emotion.
Thanks 23andMe. Now I was scared. But I clicked “proceed” anyway. Then I saw it: Male, Father, 50% shared, 23 segments
Father? My biological father?! 23andMe had found my biological father! Boy, this was not some online game, yet I felt like I’d just won the lottery—50.0% shared, 23 segments.
I had to contact this guy. 23andMe required that initial contact be made through them. I could hardly think straight as I typed out a message to my father:
Hi,
I am contacting you because 23andMe has identified you as a relative of mine because of our shared DNA. 23andMe has predicted, through our DNA “match,” that you are my biological father. You won’t recognize my name, because I was adopted and bear the name of my adoptive parents. However, my birth mother’s name is Margaret Michaels. I hope that the name Margaret Michaels is familiar to you, although it was 50 years ago and I understand that it was a difficult time for both of you. I hope that you will respond to my message and that you are interested in exploring our relationship. I look forward to hearing from you! Laureen Pittman
(Original birth certificate reads: “Baby Girl Michaels”)
It hasn’t been an easy journey. At first, he thought our match was a mistake. My birth father—a self-proclaimed “old hippie”and artist who had fully immersed himself in the early 1960’s beatnik culture—had no recollection of his encounter with my birth mother. He doesn’t even remember her name, but since the geographic details and genetic facts all added up, our match could not be denied.
He lives in another state and I have yet to make the journey to meet him. We’re taking things slow and communicating through email. I’m grateful and amazed at his openness. He is telling me his truth, his story, and I am telling him mine. It’s really something to hear and be heard by a biological relative, and hard to explain how powerful that is to people who grew up with the ability to take that for granted. It feels like a miracle, like a whole new world opened up, with a little help from science.
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Thank you for visiting Secret Sons & Daughters. In addition to stories, you can find valuable resources, discover your rights to your original birth certificate, meet other adoptees, and join the discussion by commenting (below) or on our Facebook page. Comments are always welcome. And we’d love to hear your story. Please subscribe and join our growing community.
PACER of Northern CA: Helping Those Impacted by Adoption Since 1979
Monday, July 14th, 2014PACER (Post-Adoption Center for Education and Research) was founded by Dirck Brown in 1979, well before most of society even recognized the need for support and education for adoption-affected individuals.
Brown, an adoptee and successful college dean, knew firsthand the lifelong impact of adoption, and after searching for and reuniting with his birth parents in 1976, began an adoption support group in his own living room. His trailblazing idea blossomed from there. The organization was unique in that it provided support for all members of the adoption triad: adoptees, birth/first parents, and adoptive parents.
PACER has been a leader in Northern California’s adoption support community now for over 35 years. It is a nonprofit, grassroots group led by volunteers. PACER’s offerings include support groups, referrals, mental health services, community events, and educational resources for anyone affected by adoption. The group advocates for open records and transparent policies, as well.
April Topfer, PhD, is PACER’s current president. She is an adoptee and pre-licensed Psychological Assistant who has been in reunion with her birth father since 2012. Recently, Dr. Topfer offered to answer some of our questions about PACER’s impressive history, accomplishments, and offerings for fellow adoptees.
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Secret Sons & Daughters: When PACER was founded in 1979, openly discussing adoption issues was still a bit taboo. Some thought babies were blank slates who should blend in seamlessly with adoptive families with no desire to search for roots. What were PACER’s first years like and which triad members first embraced the group and its’ ideas?
Dr. Topfer: You could say openly discussing adoption was a bit taboo, or a lot taboo, at the time! Mental health education, practice, and research about adoption issues was not familiarly known, studied, or talked about.
For instance, we consider Sorosky, Baran, and Pannor’s seminal book The Adoption Triangle and BJ Lifton’s Lost and Found as being classics in the field but they were actually written the same year that PACER was founded.
Also, adoption expert Dr. David Brodzinsky was just beginning his research about adoption loss. Before this, the only book written by an adoptee about her experience was The Search for Anna Fisher, a 1973 memoir by ALMA founder Florence Fisher, who blazed the way for open adoption records, search, and reunion.
This gives us insight about the social atmosphere when Dirck Brown and his colleagues launched PACER. Basically, there were still a lot of unknowns and gross misperceptions about adoption triad/constellation members’ experiences.
Surprisingly, however, the first and largest group of members who embraced PACER was adoptive parents. They were extremely influential in obtaining large funding, grants, and sponsorships. Dr. Joe Davis, a physician from Stanford University Medical Center – and not an adoption triad/constellation member – also embraced PACER and its mission early on. Others were therapists and first/birth mothers.
Secret Sons & Daughters: Did you get any negative feedback from certain groups?
Dr. Topfer: No, I have not heard or read any negative comments about PACER from organizations or individuals. In fact, I’ve only heard very positive feedback.
There may have been negative feedback toward PACER members actively involved in the CA open records movement, though. PACER had not, until recently, committed itself to legislative and lobbying efforts for open records.
In the past, PACER was afraid they would alienate adoptive parents if they took a public stand against closed records. That has changed, however, since my time as president.
Secret Sons & Daughters: Are PACER members and participants mostly adoptees or do you have interest from birth and adoptive parents, as well?
Dr. Topfer: The majority of our board members are adopted persons. One first/birth mother is a board member. However, we have a large first/birth mother member population, especially in Sacramento.
Unfortunately, we don’t currently have adoptive parents on the board or any active adoptive parent groups. PACER is interested in changing this and has consulted with NACAC (North American Council on Adoptable Children) about how to reach out to adoptive parents.
Also, I’ve been soliciting interest from several therapists who are also adoptive parents. Therapist and adoptive parent Nancy Verrier (author of The Primal Wound) is one of them.
I think the biggest reason adoptive parents have not been involved with PACER is the disparity in experiences between adopted persons, first/birth mothers, and adoptive parents. Adoptive parents have always been the leading force in the adoption industry, as agencies, policy makers, and the media give their experiences more precedence than adopted persons and first/birth mothers. Adopted individuals’ and first/birth mothers’ voices have not been front and center.
PACER has shifted this power dynamic, giving adopted persons and first/birth mothers the support and a forum to express their experiences of loss, anger, guilt, shame, bewilderment, etc.
Secret Sons & Daughters: What are typical reasons adoptees first contact PACER? Do these reasons vary greatly between men and women?
Dr. Topfer: The main reasons adoptees first contact PACER are for issues around search and reunion, and a desire to be supported by others who understand their experience.
I haven’t noticed or heard that these reasons vary greatly between men and women. However, there are more women than men regularly attending our peer-led support groups.
Secret Sons & Daughters: Can you describe some examples of “breakthrough” or “a-ha” moments for new members seeking support?
Dr. Topfer: Good question. I don’t know the “breakthrough” moments for other members but I will speak about my own first experience as a PACER member.
I had attended a PACER adoptee group several times over a two-year span before my breakthrough moment. It took that long because, admittedly, in those first meetings I was intimidated by others who openly shared their search and reunion experiences.
I was still deep “in the closet” in terms of my search and reunion and exploring my adoptee identity. It wasn’t because I hadn’t searched before; it was because 15 years earlier when I had contacted my first/birth mother, there was not a welcoming response. So, in those first meetings, I didn’t feel I could contribute significantly to the group.
Now I wonder if other adoptee newcomers have felt similarly? After finally mustering the courage to talk about my adoption – which felt necessary for my own mental health and wellness – at this same time, I attempted to make contact with my first/birth mother again. As I opened up more, the PACER adoptee group felt less intimidating and more helpful.
As time progressed, I participated in other PACER events and even went to my first American Adoption Congress conference. At that point, I clearly saw the benefits of being with others who had similar feelings and experiences.
Secret Sons & Daughters: What sort of advice or support do you offer for someone who has had an unsuccessful search or rejection from found relatives?
Dr. Topfer: This has been my experience with my first/birth mother and her family. The best advice and support I can offer is to practice patience and letting go.
This doesn’t mean giving up – quite the opposite. It means continuing to hope that a connection will develop but not holding on so tightly that other family member opportunities are missed.
I see this pattern with adoptees: Their first, and usually only, primary focus is on their birth mother. It’s natural to have this sort of tunnel vision because as adoptees we didn’t receive the genetic bond and love from our first/birth mothers, and we desperately needed it!
Despite the importance of a mother’s bond, however, an adopted person must realize that he/she has two whole entire families with separate members who may be welcoming, warm, and accepting. In fact, it is other family members who are more likely to extend open arms because they don’t have the loss, shame, guilt, and grief of first/birth mothers.
As I stated, my personal experience included a restricted “birthmom tunnel vision” for years.
At the first contact attempt, my first/birth mother screamed and yelled at me. She was in hysterics. This scared me off for another 15 years but I still thought about her often.
Then, during a therapy session one day, it struck me that I have not only a mother but a father, as well. This felt revolutionary! My therapist was very supportive of my search for him.
Less than six months after I shifted my attention away from my birth mother, my birth father found me! It’s been two years since we connected and we have a great relationship.
Secret Sons & Daughters: Your site has an excellent, comprehensive list of articles and suggestions for finding an adoption-sensitive therapist. Have you found an increase in the number of mental health professionals that have joined in the belief that adoption has a significant, lifelong, evolving impact on an individual? What type of training is sought by adoption-savvy professionals?
Dr. Topfer: Thank you. I worked hard on gathering useful articles, videos, and other helpful resources for the website. Many articles are borrowed from C.A.S.E. [Center for Adoption Support and Education, which generously offers free use of information] and other sources.
In regards to adoption-savvy professionals, I haven’t found a noteworthy increase in mental health professionals and organizations embracing adoption’s significant, lifelong impact. Most therapists recommended on our site have been exploring adoption issues for a while.
I will add, though, there is increased discussion in the adoption community about adoption competency for professionals. It’s slowly trickling into mainstream mental health. The Donaldson Institute recently released a report about the “Need to Know – Competency in Adoption Therapists” and the APA has an Adoption Practice and Counseling Special Interest Group (SIG).
A recent California bill proposed that mental health professionals must be certified in adoption competency before obtaining adoption agency referrals. Unfortunately, the bill was gutted and now only states the need for training. Overall, these factors indicate the need for adoption competency is on the minds of professionals aware of adoption’s complexities.
Regarding training for adoption-savvy professionals; what I do know is that trauma-informed therapy is becoming the standard focus of treatment for not just adults but for children.
Adoption-sensitive professionals understand the aspects of trauma in adopted and foster children. They acknowledge long-term trauma caused by closed records in adopted adults, too. This opens up different modalities that a practitioner can use to help achieve levels of healing and development—neurological and neurobiological, attachment-focused, somatic, mindfulness, transpersonal, etc.
In this sense, adoption-savvy professionals perhaps will seek trainings that are trauma-informed, empirical, and experiential.
Secret Sons & Daughters: Do you have unique support options for individuals affected by various types of adoptions – infant, older/foster child, international, open vs. closed?
Dr. Topfer: No, not specifically, although we know our group members do have a wide range of adoption experiences.
We do see the need for more specialized groups, including “professionally-led” meetings, which we hope to start in fall of 2014. They will be facilitated by a professional, be fee-based, closed, and scheduled for a specific amount of time.
Our current groups are peer-led, drop-in, open, and not fee-based. During professionally-led groups, members will be able to explore their adoption experiences more intimately in a small group.
Secret Sons & Daughters: What do you think the future holds for open records laws within states and perhaps on a national level?
Dr. Topfer: The trend has been for states to finally open records but with conditions – a waiting period in which a first/birth mother can opt out of contact. Ohio, Illinois, and New Jersey have unconditional vetoes in place. Maine, Oregon, and Alabama do not have vetoes.
PACER does not have an official stance yet on conditional or unconditional records but we lean toward no compromises and no vetoes.
A representative from CalOpen, the leading open access organization in California, recently stated: “States that have passed conditional bills are ruining other states’ chances of passing unconditional open access bills. They are unfortunately sending a message that it’s fine for some adoptees to have access but not all; ultimately, that is not okay!”
Personally, I lean toward an unconditional access bill. I used to agree it was okay if some adoptees’ OBCs were sacrificed if the majority got theirs. The compromise seemed acceptable – until I realized my own first/birth mother could redact my OBC, despite Ohio’s recently passed open access bill.
I was born in Ohio and supportive of the bill (am still partially supportive), but when I read that my birth mother could take away what is truly mine, my heart sank. Those who act too quickly to put conditions on open access bills have not looked deeply enough into this dilemma.
Secret Sons & Daughters: If you would like to learn more about PACER, visit their comprehensive site: pacer-adoption.org.
Thank you for visiting Secret Sons & Daughters. In addition to stories, you can find valuable resources, discover your rights to your original birth certificate, meet other adoptees, and join the discussion by commenting (below) or on our Facebook page. Comments are always welcome. And we’d love to hear your story. Please subscribe and join our growing community.
The Dreaded Question: What Is Your Family Medical History?
Friday, June 20th, 2014My interest in finding my roots started early. In fact, I have been trying to find information about my biological parents since I was in middle school.
I had adopted friends who’d found their birth parents and I was happy for them, but I was upset about my own missing information at the same time. When I turned 18, I called the adoption agency that I had been adopted from to ask for information on my birth parents, but I was told that they could only send me the non-identifying facts. It took 11 long years of my persistent emails and calls to receive it.
To finally know something as simple as what time of day I was born was amazing! The information also included my parent’s height and weight measurements, and the fact that my bio-mom was 16 years old when she had had me. That helped me understand why she did not keep me. Both of my parents were from religious families, but different denominations. My mom’s biological father was unknown to her, which makes me wonder if she ever felt or feels the way that I do.
Agency workers claimed they had no accompanying family medical history for me, but that they would let me know when my biological mom contacted them with any updates. I let them know that I was not going to give up.
When I asked if there was anything else that I could do to uncover my family medical history—they told me they would notify me when my biological mother died. What a cold response. I hung up the phone and cried. This felt like a personal attack and reminded me of the awful remarks people used to make to me while I was growing up. Some called me “adopted trash.” It sucks knowing that some people just don’t care. I had reached another dead end—back to square one. Still, I took in a deep breath and decided to keep trying.
I wondered why someone from the agency couldn’t just ask my mother if she wanted to meet me, or say, “Hey, the child you gave up is going through a lot of health issues right now. Any information you could give us would greatly help her. It could also potentially help her children.” After adoptions were made final, did the agency really no longer care about those babies and moms who were in their care?
I made the decision to contact some people who had stayed at the same maternity home as my mother. They described it as a horrible place—the agency had lost many records and the state of Texas had even closed it for awhile. It later reopened, but it was said to have never really improved. I hope the agency and home is better now.
The family that raised me since I was a baby had always told me I was adopted. As soon as I wanted to find out about my biological family, though — like who I might look and act like, and where I had come from — it was game over. I was told that they were probably dead. And now the only parents I’d ever known didn’t want me around; they were very hurt and mad at me.
It meant nothing to them when I explained that they were the only family I had ever considered to be my family. Eventually, they started to push me away, only to officially kick me out of the house when I was 17.
I have had some hard times since then, including two abusive marriages, being sexually assaulted, and abducted by a trucker for months. I was young, vulnerable, and had no idea who to trust in the world—I found myself in terrible situations.
I do not talk to my adoptive family anymore, though I have tried to get back in touch to offer an apology. It seems I am not good enough for them, so I have moved on. Today, God has blessed me with an amazing and extremely patient husband, and I have beautiful kids.
I now wish to give my children as much information as I can about our side of the family and me, including our medical history.
I have ongoing health issues. I see doctor after doctor trying to sort them out, and each time, I am asked the same thing: “What is your family medical history?” I answer, “I was adopted and I don’t know anything.” They look at me as though they don’t know where to start with the medical testing. Sometimes they even ask: “Is there is any way you can find your family history?” And I always reply, “I desperately want to know and hope to some day.”
Now, as I wait to have dangerous medical procedures performed, I wonder why my petition did not make it through the court system to open my adoption records and provide me with the medical answers I need. Isn’t my life and the health of my kids important and valued? Many of my conditions are genetic. I believe that the mystery illness I am struggling with now, which doctors are stumped over, is genetic as well.
Every year, I write to the congressmen and governor of Texas asking them to help the adoptees with sealed records get the answers they need. Knowing if your biological family has a history of cancer or other medical issues can save your life. Also, knowing who you are and where you come from, I believe, is everyone’s right.
Even if a biological parent never wants to meet his or her relinquished child, I think agencies should have mediators who work with families and adopted people to provide more answers for them. For those parents who do want to meet, let them. There are ways to help everyone and heal the hurt. Many agencies and states provide this basic human right – why not Texas? Why not every state?
For some of us, our lives depend on it.
—
Thanks for visiting our online community. In addition to stories like this one, you can find valuable resources, discover your rights to your original birth certificate, meet other adoptees, and join the discussion by commenting (below) or on our Facebook page.
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Hey Ole’ Man—A Father Known and Unknown
Sunday, June 15th, 2014Hey Ole’ Man
Who are you? What are you thinking?
On the front porch
In your wife-beater shirt and jeans
Sipping coffee from a snowflake print mug
In July
Watching the road
In silence
Who are you?
My dad and not my dad
A husband for 50 years
A grandfather of eight
A U.S. Navy vet
A loyal football fan
A retired autoworker
A cancer survivor
A simple man with secrets
A complete stranger
Are you happy?
Angry?
Fed up?
Curious?
Relieved?
Scared?
Wanting more or just tired out?
What’s on your mind today?
The War?
The elections?
The ball game?
Your truck in the shop?
Your bills?
I think about you:
When I see an ad for Chevy
When Mellencamp sings
When I watch football
When something happens on the news
You have an opinion on everything.
But what do you think of me?
…
Thanks for visiting our online community. In addition to stories like this one, you can find valuable resources, discover your rights to your original birth certificate, meet other adoptees, and join the discussion by commenting (below) or on our Facebook page.
Subscribe to our blog to receive more adoptee tales, and consider adding your voice to the Secret Sons & Daughters collection.
Secrets in Review 4
Monday, June 9th, 2014Erma Bombeck once said: “There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.” One recent Secret Sons & Daughters’ adoptee tale did a brilliant job of showing just that.
Writer Mary Sisco’s sense of humor (and love for all things retro TV) had us laughing out loud about things we know are tragic, and a little in awe of the ways she used satire to endure not only secrets and lies, but truth too. Her story, An Adoptee Turns to Humor to Endure Secrets and Lies, wasn’t the only new take on the adoption experience.
New Hampshire writer Larry Clow’s piece left us pondering the blessings and challenges of Facebook. When it comes to adoption, social media’s big dog is a source of support, a place to connect (like our page!), a stealthy search resource for familial info and photos, and a potential source of pain. And yet, for all of the stories we’ve read thus far, even the most painful ones, there hasn’t been one person who said that the truth was not worth knowing.
In case you missed them, three new stories elicited several comments on the website: Taylor Perry’s reflection on shattered fantasies post reunion, Australian late-discovery adoptee, Di Dunning’s story, which showed that the pain of secrets long kept have no geographic boundaries, and Karen Goldner’s tale of struggling to find a sense of belonging in either of her families.
And speaking of comments, a fascinating discussion and debate is taking place in the comments section of 10 Questions to Ask When Searching for an Adoption Competent Therapist. Leslie Pate Mackinnon (whom I originally spoke with for the piece) recently responded to a question about her “bias,” and in doing so eloquently addressed the recommended standard of care in adoption today, why it’s important to stay a step ahead of pre-teens finding birth relatives on Facebook, and also included her thoughts on connection to one’s personal story vs. amputation from it. If the stories from our generation of adoptees have shown anything, it’s the high price many have paid for that amputation.
With that said, we let connection be our Mother’s Day inspiration this year and ran two stories in May that include what we like to think of as love letters—those initial correspondences that are often filled with hope and longing for connection.
Jason Clawson, in California Adoptee Finds his First Mother, shares the letter he wrote after he found his birth mother, and I shared a letter that came from the opposite direction, the letter my birth mother sent after she found me, in this post to ALL mothers.
While our “Adoptee Tales” are exclusively written by adult adoptees, between now and July 4th, we’d love to share more letters, especially those that speak to relationships with fathers of all stripes. If you’d like to submit a letter, click our Submit Tale form and put “Letter” in the title box.
Even if you don’t have a letter to share, please subscribe (here on our sidebar) to receive the latest stories, and updates. And “Like” us on good ‘ol Facebook and share your thoughts. Last week’s question: “Instead of searching, were you found by a birth parent? And if so, what was that like?” generated a variety of interesting responses. Also on Facebook, you’ll find a photo of Heather’s BIG news. She gave birth to a not-so-secret daughter, Kyra, on May 21st. Kyra will be our assistant story reader in no time.
One Adoptee Tale writer recently described Secret Sons & Daughters as a “beautiful island of thoughtfulness, respect, and camaraderie.” We aspire to live up to those words, and thank you for reading, commenting, and sharing these stories—we hope to hear your story soon.
Best wishes,
Christine & Heather
P.S. It’s not all about Facebook, you can follow us on Twitter too @adopteetales
Blocked: An Adoptee’s Facebook Search Yields Much Information, But Little Comfort
Wednesday, May 21st, 2014There’s little excitement in sitting at a computer, but on one warm weekday afternoon in June 2013 it was nail-bitingly dramatic. I was at my home office desk, out of work early from a crappy temp job, and a little scared. There she was on the screen, on Facebook—my birth mother, Diane. And there I was, staring stupidly at a blank “New Message” box trying to figure out what I wanted to say.
That wasn’t the first time I tried to contact her. It was more like the fourth. Since 2007, I’d written a letter, called her house, and even asked the case worker who had handled my adoption in 1982, to write a letter. I had hoped that communicating via a third-party might somehow do the trick.
But each time, my efforts were met with silence. In my first letter to her, I dumped out decades of emotional baggage. “Dear Diane, I think I might be your son,” I had written.
Years later, a therapist suggested, for a variety of reasons, that I be slightly more circumspect in my attempts; “hint at a family connection,” she had told me. “Be light, be casual, be vague—in case of inquisitive spouses.”
That’s what went wrong with the letter; I must have scared her off. And the phone call—had she received the message or had her husband heard it? But reaching out directly to her on Facebook? Maybe this could work.
Play it cool. That was my mantra—just say that you think you might be related and that you want to talk with her, nothing too heavy, nothing too emotional.
If you could’ve seen me that day, you’d think I had dressed for playing it cool. Khaki shorts, a white button-down shirt, sandals, and the beginning of a summer tan—I looked ready for a backyard barbecue. But trust me when I say that, in that moment, no one had ever worked harder at casually dashing off a Facebook message.
“Dear Diane, I am doing some genealogy research and I think we might have a family connection…” I listed my birth date and the name of the hospital where I was born. “I’d really love to talk. Please contact me.” I clicked “Send” before I could have second thoughts, then left to meet my girlfriend for coffee.
…
I’d hoped it was the last message like that I’d have to send—that this time, she’d reply, and acknowledge me in some way.
I started searching for her in 2005, the same year that Facebook opened up its network to the non-collegiate public and the same year my home state, New Hampshire, became one of the first states to reopen access to original birth certificates, which is how I learned her name.
The digital landscape of the early 2000s is almost unimaginable now. There were no smartphones and maybe only a half-dozen social networks. Our lives were still largely analog, and that’s how my search started, with snail mail and phone calls and copy machines.
Up until then, all I knew, thanks to my adoptive parents Vic and Sue, was that I had been adopted through New Hampshire Catholic Charities when I was three months old, that my birth mother had been in college somewhere in the state when I was born, and that her sister may have been allergic to bees.
I remember childhood summers, the sun bright and hot, and my mother dutifully shooing me away from any spot that might attract bees. At ice cream stands, you could hear my mother through the din of customers: “Larry, get away from that garbage can. There are bees all around it! You don’t want to get stung! What if you have an allergic reaction?!” We weren’t what you’d call a very outdoorsy family.
Her warnings worked. I avoided being stung until I was 21, when I ran afoul of a bee while repainting an old barn. As a spot on the back of my right hand swelled, I sat down and calmly waited for certain death. Nothing happened, though, and after 20 minutes, satisfied that I wasn’t going into the throes of anaphylactic shock, I cracked open a can of soda and resumed painting.
My search has been a lot like that bee sting, a string of accidental revelations. I caught a break in 2007 when I found Diane in a state university alumni directory.
On a humid Saturday morning in July of that year, I sat in the university library with Diane’s college yearbook open in front of me, looking at her picture for the first time. It was the first time I’d ever seen anyone who looked like me. Her smile tipped me off. It’s my smile, too—one that unfolds from our lips to reach a crescendo in our cheeks—a smile that lingers in the eyes.
Another lucky break and a little detective work yielded her married name and address. I learned that she still lived in New Hampshire, a two-hour drive from my home on the seacoast.
That was when I wrote my first letter. Two carefully printed and handwritten pages on a yellow legal pad, telling Diane about my life and how I would like to get to know her. She never responded.
In 2011, in a fit of daring, I called and left a message on her home phone. She never replied.
While the analog portion of my search for information proved fruitless, the digital side was greatly successful.
Thanks to the internet, I cobbled together a sketch of my birth mother’s life, and my biological family, through a series of late-night Google searches.
I learned about Diane’s three kids, her husband, and the church they attended. I read letters she had written to the local newspaper and found articles about her kids, their victories with local sports teams and spelling bee wins. An obituary for my great-grandmother yielded the names of cousins, aunts, uncles, and a legion of relatives I’d never even considered.
The clincher was a photo from Diane’s local newspaper of her and her children posing with a representative of a local charity. For their latest birthday, her twins donated their gifts to a children’s charity. Diane and the kids looked as though they’d just returned from soccer practice, or maybe from a family hike—glowing, beaming, full of life.
By the summer of 2013, I’d found my biological aunt—the one with the apocryphal bee allergy—on Facebook. And through my aunt, I had also found Diane. Her profile indicated that she’d joined a few months earlier.
Diane’s profile added more to my sketch: she had a dog and ran in 5Ks along with the rest of the family. There were no pictures of her, just her kids, my half-siblings. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be part of that family, running together with them— unconcerned of errant bees.
…
After sending that Facebook message to Diane, thoughts of a potential reply in my inbox consumed me during the coffee date with my girlfriend. I rushed to my computer as soon as I returned home and logged in to Facebook. My wall was empty. I scanned through my messages and saw it: Blocked. Diane had blocked me.
After eight years and many attempts to contact her, Diane had finally acknowledged me. It was that first bee sting all over again. A moment of pain, followed by nothing at all.
Today, I’ve got a folder full of digital artifacts, articles, photos, and familial facts, though I still feel little comfort.
Is it better to know something about Diane and her family—my family—than nothing at all? Is any acknowledgement, even if it’s a passive rejection over Facebook, preferable to those unanswered letters and phone calls?
It’s been a year since I sent that Facebook message. I’m still not sure which I prefer. I think, now and then, of writing another letter, of calling her one more time. I wonder if I can face a fifth or sixth rejection, and I wonder if that’s a reasonable price to pay for potentially knowing my mother.
Each time I log on to Facebook, I hope Diane will have returned my message. When I get my mail, I hope that mixed in with all the bills and catalogs, I will find a letter from her. Mostly, I hope that one day soon, she’ll make the next move.
Thank you for visiting Secret Sons & Daughters. In addition to stories, you can find valuable resources, discover your rights to your original birth certificate, meet other adoptees, and join the discussion by commenting (below) or on our Facebook page. Comments are always welcome. And we’d love to hear your story. Please subscribe and join our growing community.