Posts Tagged ‘Adoption Network Cleveland’

Secrets in Review, Issue 3

Saturday, April 19th, 2014

Since Secret Sons & Daughters launched two months ago, we have enjoyed connecting with adoptees through their powerful stories, comments and through our social media.

It’s exciting to watch the voices of the adoptee community grow more candid and outspoken.

We are honored to have shared adoptees’ tales about searching, reunion, and what it was like for those in their 40’s or 50’s to discover that they’d been adopted. We’d also love to hear stories about what it was like to reunite with your biological father. Have you experienced rejection from your families, and if so, how have you dealt with this hardship? Are you an adoption rights advocate? What event inspired you to work for open access in your state? Maybe you’re an adoptee who’d prefer no contact at all— we’d like to share those stories, too.

We’re happy to offer you writing ideas and editorial assistance. To learn more—read our submission guidelines.

At Secret Sons & Daughters, we are passionate about helping adoptees connect, and hopeful that through our stories, we will create a groundswell of people to support original birth certificate access across the United States. Today, only eleven states (see Discover Your Rights) allow adoptees to have that access.

As noted in a New Era for Ohio Adoptees Began Today, Ohio is soon to be the most recent state to join that short list to provide original birth certificate access to all adult adoptees.

The adoptive story collective holds power. We’re seeing that stories beget more stories, from a writer who shared his search angel information to help another writer, to these comments that speak to what it’s like to share an experience—

Amy, and adoptee, enthusiastically related to Scott Baker’s inspirational reunion story when she said, “I am in tears! I have looked for years on and off, but have recently started searching with all my heart. I have an emptiness inside that I can’t explain compounded by the recent death of my adopted father. Please continue to share your story with as many groups as you can as it gives such extreme hope! I am in NY, and it seems when search angels hear that they seem to shy away a bit. Thank you so much for the wonderful story, you are very blessed!”

Another reader and adoptee, Mary, summarized the potential healing effect of writing her story after reading Paige Strickland’s interview on self-publishing a memoir: “I like what Paige said about ‘writing got a lot of “garbage” out of my system.’ That’s what is happening with me now as I just started my search at age 65. I didn’t realize how much I had suppressed, and how it has affected my life…I didn’t realize how many adoptees are out there, as I have never personally known anyone who admitted to being adopted…I felt odd about wanting to know who my family was, especially after the things I was told—like there was something wrong with me for being inquisitive. Thank you Paige, and all the [adoptees] and search angels out there— for freeing me and giving me the opportunity to know the real me.”

Many others supportively connected with our contributing authors. Here are the highlights from the past month:

An Adoptee Comes Full Circle When He Finds His Birth Mother—Adoptee, Scott Baker

An Irish Adoptee Talks Adoption over Tea with Philomena Lee—Adoptee, and Journalist with The Irish Independent, Catriona Palmer

An Ohio Adoptee Finds Her Way Home to Herself—Adoptee, Molly Murphy

An Iowa Adoptee’s Thoughts the Night Before He Meets His Birth Mother—Adoptee, Dan Koerselman

Paige Strickland, Author of “Akin to the Truth: A Memoir of Adoption and Identity,” Speaks About Self-Publishing Her Book—Cofounder of Secret Sons & Daughters, Heather Katz, interviewed adoptee, Paige Strickland.

New York’s Spence-Chapin’s New Modern Family Center Offers Support for Adult Adoptees—Cofounder of Secret Sons & Daughters, Christine Koubek, spoke with adoptee, Misha Conaway, Outreach Manager, and Dana Stallard, the center’s Adoptee Services Coordinator about the center’s opening.

New Era for Ohio Adoptees Began Today—Christine also spoke with Ms. Betsie Norris, the executive director of Adoption Network Cleveland, and an adoptee whose father was partially responsible not only for Ohio’s sealed records practice, but also for its reversal many years later.

Coming up next are new late-discovery adoptee tales, and stories of secret daughters finding their strength through difficult reunions. In addition, Christine will share the highlights of her recent trip to San Francisco where she met a few adoptee tale writers and many others who are making a difference in the lives of adoptees at the American Adoption Congress Conference.

We’ve also reorganized our “News” section, which is now “Secret Talk.” Within it, you’ll find posts grouped under: Words of Wisdom, Legislation News, Secrets in Review, and Blog posts (which are our thoughts on various adoption related topics).

Please be sure to subscribe (here on our sidebar) to receive the latest Adoptee Tales and updates. And like us on Facebook to connect with other adoptees— help us reach 600 “likes” this week.

Thank you for spreading the word about Secret Sons & Daughters. We hit over 20,000 views yesterday!

Best wishes,

Heather & Christine
Follow us on Twitter @adopteetales

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New Era for Ohio Adoptees Began Today

Thursday, March 20th, 2014

Becky Drinnen’s adoption was finalized in mid-December, 1963, just weeks before Ohio began sealing birth records on January 1, 1964. She has had her original birth certificate since 1981, what she calls “important proof of my identity.” What if her adoption had been delayed just a few weeks? “My birth mother would have signed the same documents, my adoptive parents would have signed the same documents, yet I would not have had access to my original birth certificate,” she said. “Which strikes me as completely ridiculous, and illustrates the ridiculousness of the tiered access laws.”

The first step in eliminating those tiers, and creating equal access for Ohio adoptees, began today.  On December 19, 2013, Ohio Governor John Kasich signed Substitute Senate Bill 23 into law, granting 400,000 adoptees born January 1, 1964 through September 18, 1996 access to their original birth certificates. The law has two key dates.

Between today, March 20, 2014, and March 19, 2015, birth parents may file a “Contact Preference” form or a “Birth Parent Name Redaction” form.  The redaction form allows a birth parent to have his or her name removed from the original birth certificate prior to its requested release. If a birth parent chooses to submit the form, a complete social/medical history form must also be submitted. All forms are voluntary, and if the handful of states that have enacted similar legislation are an indicator, a very small percentage of birth parents choose to redact.

Once this waiting period is complete, adoptees can apply for their original birth certificates beginning March 20, 2015.

This bill is 25 years in the making and the result of several dedicated people, many of whom worked with Adoption Equity Ohio and it’s prime sponsor Adoption Network Cleveland. One of those dedicated people is Betsie Norris, Executive Director of Adoption Network Cleveland, and an adoptee whose father was partially responsible not only for Ohio’s sealed records practice, but also for its reversal many years later when he testified in support of the practice’s demise.

Ms. Norris searched and was reunited with her birthparents in 1986. Much to her surprise she found that her birth mother and birth father had married and had three sons. They welcomed her in to their family. In 1988, she founded Adoption Network Cleveland to provide support and assistance to others and decrease secrecy in adoption.  “Secrecy had been so powerful,” she said. “I was steadfast in wanting to create a discourse between all three sides.” Over the years, Adoption Network Cleveland has assisted in more than 1,850 adoptee-birthparent reunions.

Ms. Norris has also worked on open access legislation since 1989, and was thrilled that the bill passed virtually unanimously with bipartisan support. In addition, she said, “Ohio is the only state thus far to have a Right to Life group support the legislation.”

Adoption Network Cleveland’s excellent resource page provides birth parents and adoptees with information on what to do and when in terms of the new law.

Ohio adoptees can celebrate the new law at the 38th Cleveland International Film Festival (CIFF) next Tuesday and Wednesday, March 25 and 26, when two documentary films by Jean Strauss will be shown together:

An Adoptee ROARed in Ohio is a short documentary that reveals the interesting story behind Ohio’s sealed records, and how Betsie Norris worked tirelessly to change a system her own father had inadvertently created; and A Simple Piece of Paper, a moving documentary that follows more than a dozen individuals as they apply to the State of Illinois to discover the truth about their origins. The latter offers a preview of what could be in store for Ohio adoptees. Tickets are available here or by calling: 877-304-3456. Use discount code “ADOPT” to save $2.00 off the $14.00 admission price.

Nine states have passed similar legislation. Details are available on our Restored Access States page. In addition, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Colorado currently have similar legislation pending. To help support access legislation in any of those states click on the state name to be linked to each state’s version of Adoption Equity Ohio.

Kendra Crookston, whose reunion story Making Sense of Fantasy and Reality is featured on Secret Sons & Daughters, was born during Ohio’s 32 year period of sealed records. Even though she knows her birth parents’ names, she says that when the time comes, she’ll be in line for her record. “To many, I can imagine, the point must seem moot. I can assure you, it is not,” she said. “My existing birth certificate reflects little truth about my birth, and my original one is another piece to a life long puzzle.”

 

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Secrets in Review, Issue 2

Sunday, March 16th, 2014

Secret Sons & Daughters launched one month ago, and we’ve been deeply moved to see so many people connecting through stories.

Over the past few weeks, friends, family, and even a few reporters, have asked us: “Why? Why create something like Secret Sons & Daughters?” Usually we answer that (as we do on our “About” page) by talking about the estimated four million adoptees who have restricted access to their origins, ancestry, and in many cases, important medical histories that could help adoptees and their children; and we mention how we hope Secret Sons & Daughters’ stories can help shine a light on that fact, and put a human face on those numbers.

But it’s more than that, the reason why is something comments like these show best:

“You put into words what I have experienced my entire life. I was always afraid to tell people that I was adopted. I am going to write something to add here…but I wanted to thank you for creating a site where adult adoptees can go to see that we’re not alone!” —Molly

“I did learn one thing in life though, family does not have to be blood because my mom and dad loved my sister and I enough to take us in and raise us as their own with unconditional love. I feel if they told us [about our adoptions] from the start they may have thought we would not love them the same. Oh how wrong they were.” —David

“. . . a website where adopted people can share their stories of searching – or not searching – for their first families. Honest, untidy, raw, moving, the pieces I’ve read so far give me – a parent by adoption – more insight into the complex feelings of birth parents and of adoptees.” —Amy, an adoptive mom who shared our link on Facebook.

Several stories are responsible for that feedback. The Adoption Domino Effect, by Joanne Currao, was our second Late Discovery Tale, and it poignantly shows the impact secrecy in adoption can have on an adoptee and her children.

More than a thousand people read Joanne’s story within its first 24 hours on our site. It stirred quite a response in the comments section that follows it. Many people wrote to say how much they related to her story and shared details of their own tales, whether they learned they were adopted at age 2, 17, 36, or older.

Joanne responded to each person and one response in particular beautifully captures what is was like for her to share her story: “The more we speak up about it, the better it will be for all who come after us. I am glad that this story validated you. It is good for me to see that and to feel validated by all of you who read this as well. We are a soothing salve to each other.”

Singing to Christine, An Adoptee’s Song, written by Amy Christine Lukas, an adoptee/singer-songwriter, shows how her curiosity about whether her birth parents are “Somewhere out There,” grew after the births of her children.

Thanksgiving Day Reunion ’95, was inspired by Daryn Watson’s reunion with his birth mother.

An Adult Adoptee’s Dilemma: To Search or Not to Search, is my co-founder, Heather Katz’s reflection on a question many adoptees face.

In addition, a few therapists weighed in on 10 Questions to Ask When Searching for an Adoption Competent Therapist with opinions regarding open adoption.  The questions were provided by adoption therapist, Leslie Pate Mackinnon, who recently appeared on Katie Couric’s show as the “American Philomena.” Leslie weighed in in the comments section as well, saying in part:

A child needs their story, in as much living color as possible, the good, the bad, and the ugly. In the best cases, the child actually feels love emanating, is not merely told ‘she loved you so much she gave you up.’ The statement that adult adoptees often loathe. In the worst cases, the child can see for themselves why adoption was necessary and may be lucky enough to recognize at least a few good attributes of the person whose DNA they carry.

I encourage you to read her full comment at the end of that post. I wholeheartedly agree that adoptees should be entitled to their stories, especially as adults, and in whatever detail is possible.

Many thanks to four organizations for helping us spread the word about Secret Sons & Daughters. Each of them make a big difference in the lives of adoptees: Donaldson Adoption Institute, Adoption Network Cleveland,  C.A.S.E.—the Center for Adoption Support and Education, and St. Catherine’s Center for Children in Albany, New York.

I spent my first Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s in St. Catherine’s care and I’m very touched and grateful for their wonderful mention of SS&D and our support and advocacy for open records, as well as for the work they do to help sustain families. Any other St. Catherine’s adoptees out there?

We look forward to sharing three new Secret Son stories in the coming weeks and an Irish adoptee tale too. If you haven’t done so already, be sure to subscribe (here on the sidebar) to receive the latest Tales and News, and please “Like” us on Facebook. Many thanks for reading our tales. We hope to hear yours too!

All my best,

Christine

ck@secretsonsanddaughters.org

 

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