New York adoptees waiting for original birth certificates to arrive may be getting impatient. Well, there’s a good reason for the hold up.
Today I learned the New York State Bureau of Vital Records is experiencing significant delays in processing orders from adoptees and their descendants.
The news came from the New York Adoptee Rights Coalition. The coalition received an update from the New York State Department of Health Pre-Adoption Birth Certificate Unit. The update only applies to the areas of New York outside of New York City. Adoptees from the city follow a different process to apply for their OBCs.
State offices are operating with reduced staff and resources, the result of the state’s COVID-19 public health emergency.
Thousands of New York adoptees have ordered copies of original birth certificates.
How Orders for Original Birth Certificates Are Processed
As of August 5:
The bureau had completed the majority of applications received during the month of January.
Employees were processing requests that came via mail and VitalChek during the week of February 10-14.
Employees handle applications in the order in which they are received. They try to prioritize orders from senior citizens.
The bureau is working with the Office of Children and Family Services to develop a process for people born outside New York but adopted within the state. Applicants who fall in this category can expect to receive a letter from the Department of Health in a month or so.
Since New York’s historic adoptee rights law took effect January 15 of this year, thousands of New York adoptees have ordered copies of their original birth certificates. As of July 31, the bureau reported processing nearly 6,300 of the more than 9,700 applications received.
If you already applied for your OBC, do not contact the Department of Health for updates. Do not submit another application. Be patient.
Now that they have the legal right, New York adoptees are demanding their original birth certificates.
January 15 marked the start of a new era of adoption openness in the Empire State. On that day, a new law that gives adoptees the right to their original birth certificates took effect. Unlike other states that have unsealed birth certificates for some adoptees, New York provides the right to all adoptees, with no restrictions or conditions.
Since the law went into effect, the response has been overwhelming. Like a stampede, thousands of adoptees from all around the state have requested copies of their OBCs. By Jan. 17, the New York State Department of Health had received more than 3,600 requests for certified copies of OBCs, and that’s not counting the hundreds, maybe thousands, of requests from New York City adoptees.
New York adoptees finally gained the right to their original birth certificates under a new law that went into effect on January 15, 2020.
In the first two months since the law went live, more than 10,000 requests have been sent to the state and New York City combined.
Given that more than 19.4 million people call the Empire State home, it’s no wonder the law caused a major pileup.
Patience is required, my friends. It takes longer than a New York minute for birth certificate requests to be fulfilled. I heard a couple of people who submitted requests for birth certificates on Jan. 15 received their documents about one month later.
How To Request Birth Certificates from New York
At this time, New York City and New York State are not taking walk-in requests. On its website, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene noted the need to limit the number of people gathered in one place as a protection against the coronavirus.
If you haven’t already requested a copy of your birth certificate, here’s what you need to do:
If you were adopted in the state of New York but not in New York City, the quickest way to apply is online at VitalChek’s website (www.VitalChek.com). You can also call the VitalChek Network at 877-456-7747. Warning: I called and the friendly recorded voice informed me that the wait time for connecting with a human being could be lengthy. For faster turnaround, New York State encourages everyone to use the online system. If you must fill out a paper application, go to the New York State Department of Health’s vital records site. Fill out the application and mail to: New York State Department of Health Bureau of Vital Records, PAC Unit PO Box 2602 Albany, NY 12220-2602. The fee is $45. If you have questions, send an email to AdopteeBillPublic@health.ny.gov
If you were adopted in New York City, you can request your birth certificate from VitalChek. You can learn more about the process at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s website. According to the site, online orders take 10 to 15 business days to process while orders by mail can take up to 90 days. The fee for an online order is $15 for each certificate, plus an $8.30 processing fee for each order.
Adoptees Treasure Original Birth Certificates
You cannot put a price on the importance of these documents to adopted folks. Remember that many adults do not have their pre-adoption birth certificates because laws keep the records sealed. The most determined people have obtained court orders or taken other drastic steps to get their birth records.
OBCs are important because they reveal facts about birth parents that state governments and adoptive parents had concealed.
For other adoptees, birth certificates are not full of revelations. They simply confirm known facts, which in no way diminishes the document’s value. People who already know who their birth parents are and the circumstances that led to their adoptions still appreciate having the official document. Getting the birth certificate is like savoring the icing on a piece of cake.
For example, I know of a man who is happily united with blood relatives. While he probably didn’t learn anything new from the New York birth certificate, just obtaining the piece of paper made him feel “whole.”
New York adoptees are fortunate. Many states continue to treat adoptees like second-class citizens by keeping original birth certificates sealed. Unlike other states that have unsealed birth certificates for some adoptees, New York adopted a clean law that provides access to all adoptees, with no restrictions or conditions.
Big Reveal for Late Discovery Adoptee
Receiving the original birth certificate was my big “a-ha” moment, a revelation if ever there was one. On an unforgettable day in 2012, the OBC from the state of Illinois landed in my mailbox. Nervously I carried the thin white envelope to the kitchen, the sunniest room in my house. I wanted to see the truth under bright light. Tom was just as curious as I was. He and I stood together at the kitchen table, not knowing what we were about to find out.
Holding the document with both hands, I scanned it for a name. Seeing my birth mother’s name didn’t ring any bells. My first mother had not been a member of Mom’s family or anyone I’d known from school or the neighborhood. The birth certificate provided other details, each one fascinating, new and precious. My birth mother’s signature was not so much a fact as a detail that made her feel human and real.
I think of that day as the great unveiling. It was like a kindly stranger from Springfield, Illinois took me by the hand, walked me to a heavy curtain, lifted the curtain and showed me, for the first time, a truthful if incomplete picture of the first day of my life.
That was eight years ago. In 2020, people who were adopted in New York are having a-ha moments like I did. They are ripping open envelopes and marveling at the facts before them, or just enjoying the satisfaction that comes with having their birthright.
In case you missed it, here’s great news for New York adoptees. Under a new law, adult adoptees will be able to obtain a certified copy of their original birth certificates.
Marking a victory for adoptee rights advocates, the law provides unrestricted access to original birth certificates. Unrestricted access means all New York adoptees can obtain their OBCs without exceptions. The children and grandchildren of deceased adoptees will be able to request OBCs as well.
Adopted adults sit tight as next steps are worked out. Gregory D. Luce, founder of the Adoptee Rights Law Center, provides an excellent overview of New York’s adoptee rights law, which will take effect on Jan. 15, 2020.
Original birth certificates provide facts about birth parents, which can help adoptees find out about their origins
Hard as it is to believe, New York is only the 10th state to provide adoptees with unrestricted access to their birth certificates. Other states provide access with restrictions or no access.
Original Birth Certificates Reveal Hidden Truths
Original birth certificates can open a door to one’s hidden history. That’s the best way for me to describe the impact the OBC had on my life. I remember the thrill I felt as I held the birth certificate in my hand for the first time. There before me, I saw the name of my birth mother, her home address, age, place of birth, maiden name and even her signature.
The piece of paper revealed truths and dispelled myths I had about my birth mother. With the information on the OBC, I was able to find blood relatives, ancestors and family history.
Adoptees and adoptee rights advocates are excited about New York’s legislation, which came as a result of their hard work.
If you’re curious about the law, check out the Unsealed Initiative’s site for more articles and video links.
With any luck, other states will follow New York’s example.
Adoptee searches are fraught with uncertainty. Searching for blood relatives requires a certain amount of guts, grit, patience and tolerance for pain and discomfort. Brace yourself. Expect the unexpected. You have no way of knowing what you’re in for.
And so the adventure began for adoptee Laureen Pittman, who shares the ups and downs and twists and turns she encountered in an engaging memoir, “The Lies That Bind” (2018: Amazon KDP).
Adoptee and blogger Laureen Pittman tells the story of her search to find her birth parents
Pittman’s remarkable story begins with her birth in a California women’s prison in 1963. Her birth mother was an unmarried 18-year-old woman serving time on drug charges.
As an infant, Pittman was adopted by a married couple and encouraged to think of adoption as nothing out of the ordinary. Being adopted doesn’t matter, or so she was told.
Adoptee Search Begins With Birth Mother’s Name
By many accounts, her childhood in sunny California was typical. Pittman grew up with an older brother, who was also adopted. She didn’t begin the search for her biological family until she was a young woman. Her adoptive parents provided her with the birth mother’s name and with that information, Pittman was on her way to discovering the truth, in bits and pieces.
She hired a private investigator, who dug up the non-identifying information about her birth mother and birth father. Later, she would learn that some of the “facts” in the non-identifying information were falsehoods.
Though Pittman approached her birth mother, Margaret, respectfully, Margaret rebuffed her overtures. The birth mother had created a life that didn’t acknowledge the baby she had relinquished. Margaret covered up Pittman’s existence. She had never told her mother about the pregnancy.
Margaret resented the intrusion, feeling as though her privacy had been violated.
In letters to Pittman, the birth mother spoke glowingly about her successes in life and never inquired about Pittman or her family. Hurt by her birth mother’s rejection, Pittman ended the correspondence with Margaret.
DNA Test Identifies Adoptee’s Birth Father
Years later, through an astonishing stroke of luck, Pittman would find her birth father. His name popped up as a close match on Pittman’s DNA test results. Through emails and Facetime, Pittman and her birth father, Jonathan, got to know one another and a warm relationship developed.
Pittman would not discover any details about her conception. Suffice to say, Jonathan and Margaret conceived Pittman in the drug-tinged, psychedelic ‘60s. Jonathan had no recollection of Margaret, had no idea he had fathered a child.
He took a DNA test not with the hope of finding a long lost biological daughter but for answers to nagging questions about his father, who died when Jonathan was 6. Jonathan’s secretive mother had refused to answer his questions even as she lay dying.
The story moves in an unexpected direction, as Pittman and her father work to unravel the mystery.
The book resonated with me on a personal level. Like me, Pittman was born in the 1960s, when people concealed out-of-wedlock pregnancies and adoptions.
Adoptee Searches Uncover Family Secrets
While Pittman is not a late discovery adoptee, she and her father Jonathan uncovered long-buried family secrets, much like adoptees who discover their hidden adoptions later in life. (My parents, Claire and Bob, went to their graves without telling me I was adopted, leaving not so much as a single piece of adoption paperwork behind. They kept the adoption hidden from me and my sister, Melissa, also adopted. Through Melissa, I found out about my adoption a few years after my father’s death.)
With sensitivity, “The Lies That Bind” examines issues that are important to adoptees. In recounting the painful experience of being rejected by her birth mother, Pittman explores adoptee rejection, one of the perils adoptees can encounter when they find biological parents or other relatives who want nothing to do with them.
“The Lies That Bind” is a thoughtful book that adoptees can relate to and a quick read. I finished it over a weekend.
When I began my adoption search years ago, I wanted to uncover the names of my birth parents and find out everything I could about my biological mother and father — how they had met, what they had done for a living, their interests, hobbies, talents, political leanings, quirks, whatever I could find out.
Oddly enough, I was not concerned with family medical history. Learning about diseases and medical conditions that affected my blood relatives was not a priority, which makes me different from other adopted people. Understandably, not knowing their medical history, not being able to pass along the information to their children troubles adoptees. Not me, at least not when I started to search. Back then I just wanted to find out who my parents were and whether I had any bio brothers and sisters.
Adoptee (Finally) Sees Value of Family Medical History
Now however I realize family medical history would be good to know so that I can be informed about my healthcare needs. My goal is to become a real grownup and this week, I did a grownup thing. I scheduled a dental appointment and a mammogram without prodding from anyone else. Now I realize this is not remarkable for mature adults who take care of themselves but for me it’s a good start since I tend to drag my feet when it comes to seeing doctors. In the past, my husband, Tom, who is conscientious about his healthcare, has had to kick my butt to get me to schedule routine appointments. This time, I made the appointments with no husband nudging. I am trying to change.
Adults should know their family medical history. After all, doctors expect us to be able to answer questions about the occurrence of diseases among our relatives. A patient’s family medical history can help doctors make accurate diagnoses and smarter recommendations for screenings or treatments.
And since I’m getting up there in age and have a son, Jake, who should know about potentially inheritable diseases, I figure it’s time to learn the facts about the illnesses and conditions that have affected my blood relatives.
Adoptees Face Challenges to Learn Medical History
But this task is difficult when you’re adopted. Unlike people who grow up with bio families, adoptees face challenges related to adoption secrecy. In my case, I grew up not knowing I was adopted. Had I asked Mom and Dad about their family medical histories, the information would have been meaningless. After all my parents were biologically unrelated to me. It was just seven years ago that I learned my birth mother’s identity and that metastatic breast cancer caused her to die at the age of 48.
Since then, I’ve learned a few other things. I know the diseases that caused the deaths of my birth mother and birth father and the history of mental illness that affected my mother and some of her close relatives. From talking to first cousins on my dad’s side, I learned about the medical issues they’ve dealt with, and other diseases that affected their relatives.
Death Certificates Shed Light on Health Conditions
To learn more about my family medical history, I am digging up death certificates for grandparents, aunts and uncles. I purchased a copy of my maternal grandfather George’s death certificate ($9 to the Minnesota Historic Society) and found death certificates for my maternal grandmother, Susan, and an aunt, in Ancestry’s database.
Death certificates can help adoptees learn about family medical history
I mailed a request for my uncle Eric’s death certificate ($13 to the Hennepin County Department of Vital Records). Online I filled out a request for uncle Chuck’s death certificate ($9 to the Minnesota Historic Society).
In addition to the immediate cause of death, the certificates reveal medical conditions and underlying causes that contributed to death. Death certificates reveal interesting facts about the deceased. I learned from his death certificate that my maternal grandfather, George, had worked as a “yardman.” George had lived in St. Paul, Minnesota for at least 30 years.
I’d love to hear from readers who overcame obstacles to uncover their family medical history. Please post comments in the comments section!
Reading the adoptee memoir, “You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are” (2018: BFD Press), brought back memories of my own search for blood relatives and the importance of original birth certificates.
In his well-researched book, adoptee Rudy Owens discusses his difficult childhood and the obstacles he overcame to get the original birth certificate from the state of Michigan.
Owens found Michigan’s birth certificate laws confusing even to the authorities in charge. As an adoptee born in 1965, Owens fell within a group that could not get the original birth certificate without a court order. Owens made numerous requests to the adoption record keepers. He got his birth mother to sign a waiver, which would have allowed the state to release his records. Yet the waiver made no difference. His unwillingness to take no for an answer earned him a reputation. Adoption bureaucrats had flagged him as a “problem” adoptee.
Adoptee Rudy Owens fought adoption bureaucrats in Michigan to get his original birth certificate.
With no help from Michigan, Owens embarked on a search for blood relatives who could possibly help fill in the blanks about his origins. Owens’s search yielded new family connections and heartache. While his birth mother welcomed Owens when they met for the first time in Detroit in 1989, his birth father refused to acknowledge Owens as his son.
“Get off my property,” the father said, as he glared at Owens from the front door of an upscale house in San Diego. “You’re not my son.”
What painful words to hear. Owens and his father never met again.
Watch Out For “Dangerous” Bastards/Adoptees
Withholding original birth certificates from adoptees is discrimination. Owens believes discrimination against adoptees stems from lingering stereotypes about bastards, aka adoptees.
He experienced the bastard stigma himself. Without knowing him, relatives on his birth father’s side of the family regarded Owens as a threat to the family.
Owens even encountered an adoption supervisor from Wayne County Probate Court in 2016 who said that he had heard of “birth parents being tracked and killed” by their illegitimate offspring.
“He stated this as if it were fact—though it never happened—and highly relevant to his work to keep birth records sealed tightly shut to all adoptees,” Owens writes.
People who are not adopted don’t realize how lucky they are. They never have to battle bureaucrats for birth certificates. They know where their ancestors came from and the diseases that run in the family. Adoptees encounter roadblocks in their quest for answers. We have to wait for laws to change or get court orders just to claim a birthright.
Original Birth Certificate Reveals Hidden Identity
Owens’s desire to learn the answer to the age-old question, “Who am I?” brought back a flood of memories. My need to know where I came from took on great importance after I learned I was adopted in the early 2000s. Uncovering the truth was frustrating. My adoptive parents were dead, my adoptive cousins could not help me and my original birth certificate was not available. Illinois and most other states supported keeping original birth certificates sealed.
The law changed in 2011. In that year, Illinois adoptees born on or after Jan. 1, 1946 became eligible to request their original birth certificates.
The process was straightforward. I mailed in a request with a check for $15 to the Illinois Department of Public Health. I waited patiently. The original birth certificate arrived in the mail in the spring of 2012.
What an exciting discovery! My birth mother’s married name, maiden name, age, address, place of birth and even her signature are all there on the original birth certificate.
Adoptees Treasure Original Birth Certificates
The original birth certificate was the key that unlocked the door to my hidden adopted life. Who am I and where did I come from? I needed answers to those basic questions. My original birth certificate made searching for blood relatives possible.
Without his original birth certificate, Owens took a different route. He worked like an old-fashioned detective to find blood relatives and learn about his medical history.
And he never gave up the quest for his original birth certificate. After fighting the state of Michigan for years, Owens received the OBC with the help of a court order in 2016.
“Good fortune had smiled upon me,” Owens writes. “The journey taught me that some efforts, even those that take decades, are worth it.”
In this well-written memoir. Owens skillfully weaves his personal experiences with interesting adoption history.
My sister Stephanie and I traveled to Arkansas to explore my birth father Steve’s old stomping grounds and meet family.
Beautiful, green, quiet, peaceful and rural – those words came to mind as I took in the scenery on the drive from the Clinton National Airport to Logan County, a small county in western Arkansas. I looked out the windows and saw acres of flat farmland, grazing cows, bales of hay, stands of tall trees and hilly curving ribbons of two-lane roads. That landscape repeated itself many times. Car horns, alarms and the rumble of vehicles don’t seem to exist in this serene place. Continue reading “Adoptee Learns About Birth Father, Meets Cousins”
My adoption file provided answers to some of the questions I had about my adoption.(Image by Tawny van Breda from Pixabay)
Remember how thrilled I was to learn that my adoption file existed in Cook County, Illinois? From the contents of that circa 1960s paper file came a report with new details about my hidden adoption.
The report sat in my inbox. Feeling excited, not knowing what I would learn, I clicked open a PDF from the Cook County, Illinois Department of Adoption and Family Supportive Services.
For $100, Cook County provided a two-page, double-spaced summary prepared by the county’s adoption specialist who pulled the information from my adoption file.
The name at the top of the page jumped out at me. Baby Girl W. Cook County identified me as Baby Girl W. after I was born but before I was adopted. (The report identified me by the complete last name of my birth mother’s husband but I’m using just the first letter of the name here.)
It’s hard to find words for how I felt seeing that name, my temporary name, on an official document. All my life, I’ve been known as Lynne Miller, Miller being my adoptive father’s name. It was surreal to see myself referred to by this other name. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen the name – it appears on my original birth certificate – but it still jolted me .
The report consisted of three parts. Part A focused on my birth mother, Part B focused on my birth father and Part C was about me. The information came from my birth mother, Lillian, who was interviewed by a social worker four days after my birth.
The interviewer described Lillian as being 5 foot 3 inches tall, weighing 110 pounds, having a small physical build, with brown eyes, brown hair and an olive complexion. While I’ve seen plenty of old photos of Lillian, I’d never seen a written description of her appearance. I didn’t know she had an olive complexion.
Adoption File Reveals Details That Led to Adoption
In explaining why she chose to place me for adoption, Lillian said I was conceived while she was separated from her husband. After a four-month separation, Lillian and her husband reconciled and Lillian discovered she was pregnant. They knew the unborn baby wasn’t his. Lillian, mother of four children who ranged in age from 3 to 7, said she thought adoption would be best for Baby Girl W’s welfare. She was six months pregnant when she decided to give me up for adoption.
Lillian’s attorney, who made the placement arrangements, provided Lillian information about Claire and Bob, my adoptive parents and Lillian was satisfied with the information.
My birth mother stated her parents, George and Susan, were deceased but didn’t offer any details on when or how they had died. George had worked as a factory worker and Susan had been a nurse, Lillian said.
Asked by the social worker about her health, Lillian said she was in good health then, but 10 years earlier she had suffered a nervous breakdown that caused her to be hospitalized for three weeks.
Three weeks in a hospital! That stunned me. Lillian would have been 17. I hate to think how she was treated for a mental breakdown. This would have been 1953 in southern Indiana. I pictured men in white coats scrutinizing Lillian, nurses jabbing her with needles, wheeling her from one room to another, my birth mother crying or screaming or maybe unconscious, knocked out by powerful drugs.
Did the breakdown mark the onset of bipolar disorder, which Lillian had struggled with as an adult?
Adoption File Describes Birth Father
Lillian had known who my biological father was. What a relief! My sister had led me to believe Lillian was a carouser who wouldn’t have known who the father was and that troubled me. I didn’t want my birth mother to be that type of woman.
My birth mother’s description of my biological father Steve matched my understanding of him. Lillian said my father was a 35-year-old married auto mechanic. He stood 5 foot 9 inches tall, weighed around 160 pounds and had blue eyes, blond hair and a fair complexion. My biological father graduated from high school, then attended trade school where he learned how to repair cars. At some point, he served in the Navy.
What remains unclear to me is the nature of the relationship between my birth parents. Was I conceived during a one-night stand or did my biological parents have a longer, deeper thing? Lillian didn’t provide any details about the relationship to the social worker. Perhaps she would have been forthcoming if her husband and their lawyer hadn’t been in the room.
My Biological Father Didn’t Know About Me
Lillian told the social worker my biological father didn’t know about me. My bio dad apparently went back to his other life without knowing he had fathered a baby girl, his third daughter.
Now I don’t want to leave anyone with the impression that I’ve lost sleep over not knowing how much I weighed when I was born but it’s one of those little details that people who aren’t adopted learn from their mothers. Many adoptees don’t have this information.
In the last paragraph, I found the answer.
“Medical information regarding the child (Baby Girl W) at birth shows that the child was born full term at 40 weeks with a normal delivery without complications,” the report said. “The child weighed 7 lbs., 6 oz. at birth.”
Via email, I asked the adoption specialist a few follow-up questions. She told me the hospital discharged my birth mother when I was three days old. When I was five days old, my adoptive parents arrived at the hospital, court order in hand, and the hospital released me to their care.
The adoption was not a done deal. A case worker visited Claire and Bob’s home as part of a mandatory home study process. The report didn’t provide any information about the case worker’s observation. Once the case worker completed the home study, a judge finalized the adoption six months after my birth.
A couple of things in the non-identifying report are inconsistent. Blood relatives have told me Lillian came from Irish and Scottish ancestry yet Lillian told the social worker she was of German descent. Lillian said her father had died but my records show he was alive. Perhaps he was dead to her in spirit.
If you were adopted in Cook County, email Melissa Reyes at Melissa.Reyes@cookcountyil.gov or call 312-603-0552 to request the non-identifying information in your adoption file. It’s well worth the hundred bucks.
I’d love to hear what other adoptees discovered from non-identifying information. Feel free to leave comments.
Somewhere in Cook County, Illinois, there’s an adoption file containing more truths about my hidden adoption.
To find out what’s in my file, I contacted Melissa, an adoption and family support specialist who tracks down adoption files for adoptees who were born in Cook County.
First we needed to make sure my file existed. On the phone, Melissa asked questions about my biological mother, Lillian, and other details about my adoption. She put me on hold for a couple minutes, then informed me she found a card on my adoption. In other words, my adoption file should be available.
Adoption File Exists
Woohoo! I felt thrilled and oddly comforted. A caseworker, lawyer, social worker and judge presumably crossed the “t’s,” dotted the “i’s” and followed protocol. I’m an adoptee with a proper paper trail, a legitimate bastard if there can be such a person.
I hoped the file would provide answers to some lingering questions.
Adoption files can provide answers for adoptees searching for information about their biological families. (Image by Monika Robak from Pixabay)
Other than knowing my birth mother had delivered me at a hospital in Skokie, I knew very little about the details of my birth. I wanted to find out whether Lillian knew who my biological father was or whether Steve, my biological father, knew about me. How much time did Lillian and I spend together after my birth ? How old was I when Claire and Bob, my adoptive parents, took me home to the Southwest Side of Chicago? Assuming a social worker interviewed my birth mother, I wanted to know what Lillian told her.
With regard to the adoption file, Melissa tried to manage my expectations, saying “if we find it” and “if it is at our warehouse.”
Adoption files sometimes go missing. My file could be in the wrong drawer, cabinet or closet, wherever these records are kept in Cook County’s warehouse. I pictured a vast, cheerless building with thousands of adoption stories tucked in a sea of beige or gray file cabinets. My file molders along with those of my fellow adoptees who were born in and around Chicago in the 1960s.
If Melissa finds the file, she will prepare a report for me containing non-identifying information in exchange for $100.
My Unofficial Adoption File
At home in Brooklyn, my unofficial adoption file includes my original birth certificate signed by Lillian, and the legal amended birth certificate with Claire and Bob listed as my parents. In a red box, I’ve stashed pages and pages of handwritten notes taken from interviews with family members who knew my biological parents. I’ve accumulated knowledge and photos of my biological relatives and ancestors. Last year, I even got to meet a bunch of cousins at a family reunion in southern Indiana.
But I still want more information. Had my parents told me about my adoption, I doubt I would have all this curiosity.
Melissa said she would go to the warehouse on Friday to look for my file and promised to call me that day to let me know if she found it. When the phone rang Friday afternoon, I ran downstairs to grab it from Tom. It was Melissa.
Chicago was in a deep freeze. The heat in the warehouse was out of order so Melissa wasn’t able to search for my file. She apologized. I felt disappointed. We agreed to stay in touch.
Chicago remained frozen for days. The temperature was 9 degrees below zero when I emailed Melissa the following Wednesday. Melissa had no news for me. She and her co-workers had been told not to travel outside of the office until the weather warmed up. Apologizing again for the delay, Melissa said she’d get back to me by the end of the week with any updates.
All I could do was wait for the North Pole-like conditions to blow over.
Two days later, Melissa emailed me. “Great news, I located your file at the warehouse today!” she wrote.
COMING SOON: I’ll share the new details that I discovered about my adoption.
I thought parents no longer hid adoption from their sons and daughters. Moms and dads broach the topic with their children at a young age, explaining what adoption means in simple terms and letting the little ones ask questions. At least that’s how my friends and acquaintances handled it with their kids.
Unfortunately, though, some adoptive parents never tell their children. For whatever reason, they feel compelled to hide the adoption from the adoptee, who grows up believing lies about her family.
If you don’t think telling your child the truth is the right thing to do, then consider how difficult or impossible it will be to hide the adoption forever. In spite of your best efforts to conceal the adoption, it will come to light eventually and you will have to face your son or daughter and deal with a damaged relationship.
Cousins Talk, Adoption Revealed
Here’s a recent example. In a support group, a man revealed that his cousin, a woman in her 30s, did not know she was adopted. Everyone in her extended family knew, everyone except for her. The guy felt burdened by the knowledge. He thinks his cousin should know. He tried to persuade his aunt, the woman’s adoptive mother, to tell her daughter but the aunt refused. She told him to butt out.
The discussion generated dozens of comments, with most commenters in favor of telling the woman but recognizing the truth, especially coming at this late date, would cause inevitable pain. One commenter noted it would be better for the woman to hear it from her mother rather than through a DNA test.
Ultimately, the man bravely told his cousin about her adoption. This guy had the guts to do the right thing, knowing it would turn her life upside down and possibly cause family trouble.
I think his conscious and thoughtful decision to tell his cousin the truth signals how times have changed. I was born in the 1960s and never knew I was adopted. Everyone in my extended family knew but nobody breathed a word. Adoption was the elephant in the room. My sister, Melissa, confirmed everything with one phone call to a cousin. We were in our 30s when we learned about our adoptions.
When to Tell Your Child She’s Adopted
For adoptive parents, the question should not be “do I tell my daughter she’s adopted,” but “when do I tell her?”
Experts encourage adoptive parents to explain adoption to kids at a young age, though exactly when is open to debate. Some experts think it’s best to tell the child when he is between the ages of 6 and 8, while others believe children may benefit from knowing about their adoption at an earlier age. While talking about adoption can be a nerve-wracking experience, adoptive parents should realize telling the child is their obligation.
The adoption talk doesn’t get easier with the passage of time. Putting off the discussion only makes it harder for the adoptee to process the truth. And there’s always a chance the adoptee will find out from someone else.
These days, it’s not realistic to expect an adoption to stay hidden. Anyone who thinks she’s adopted can confirm her suspicions with a DNA test or just by calling the right cousin.
It’s disrespectful for parents to not tell their sons and daughters the truth. Adopted people deserve to know about their biological origins just like everyone else in the family. If parents could trade places with their child, they’d understand why this basic knowledge about one’s identity is so important.
The renowned author Alex Haley eloquently summed up this need:
“In all of us there is a hunger, marrow-deep, to know our heritage- to know who we are and where we have come from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning. No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, an emptiness, and the most disquieting loneliness.”
