The Great State of Maine, one of six free states, is an example for the rest of our Nation. Here is a link to their Birth Records Law for Adoptees: no impact on taxpayers, equality for all Maine Born Citizens.
Tag Archives: truth in adoption
The State of Maine is an Example on Birth Certificate Equality Access for all Maine Born Citizens
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Filed under Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoptees' Civil Rights, Original Birth Certificate
Tagged as State of Maine Birth Certificate Access Law for Adoptees, truth in adoption
Tagged as State of Maine Birth Certificate Access Law for Adoptees, truth in adoption
Truth in Adoption: How I Petitioned for My Adoption Files
Filed under Adoptees' Civil Rights, Adoption Loss, Adoptive Parents, Family Systems, Natural Fathers, Natural Mothers
Tagged as natural father, Natural Mother, Natural Parents, Petitioning Surrogate's Court for Sealed Adoption Records, Surrogate's Court, truth in adoption
Tagged as natural father, Natural Mother, Natural Parents, Petitioning Surrogate's Court for Sealed Adoption Records, Surrogate's Court, truth in adoption
I was reunited with my natural family in 1974. By 1981, I had petitioned Surrogate’s Court for my Final Order of Adoption, even though I already had a copy (see yesterday’s post).
In 1985, I petitioned Surrogate’s Court of Erie County, New York for all of my sealed adoption files. I wanted every piece of paper they had on my adoption: the signed relinquishment papers, petition to adopt, and any other paperwork. I wanted permission to seek my birth certificate, too, but was told that petitioning for the birth record was a separate process.
Being politically correct for the time period, I used the terms “birthparents” and “birth mother” and “birth father”. Today, I would use the terms “natural parents” and “natural mother” and “natural father” because those words accurately describe the relationship. Also, these are legal terms used to designate between the natural parents, foster parents, and adoptive parents of an adoptee, although, as you will see tomorrow, the term used in legal documents to describe my natural father is “father”. That’s because he is my father and was my legal father until after he signed relinquishment papers.
So, I began with the simple petition to the court:
With the help of a law student who gave me specific statements to use and a form to follow, I typed up the following (reproduced here minus specific identifiers and other information not releveant to the general public):
My request for sealed reports and documents from Vital Statistics Office, Catholic Charities of Buffalo, and Millard Fillmore Hospital were denied. With my natural father’s permission, I obtained my medical records and my mother’s medical records from her admittance to the hospital while pregnant with me until her death three months after my birth. Because the records that were released to me from Surrogate’s Court contained most of the information I sought, I did not pursue further petitioning to Catholic Charities. Dialogue between my natural father and I filled in the blanks of where I was from birth until placed in the custody of my pre-adoptive parents, a four month period not covered by documents held by Surrogate’s Court.
Tomorrow I will present the papers I received from Surrogate’s Court.
~ ~ ~ Joan M Wheeler, BA, BSW, born Doris M Sippel, author of Forbidden Family: A Half Orphan’s Account of Her Adoption, Reunion and Social Activism, Trafford Publishing, Nov 2009.
Truth in Adoption: My Adoptive Mother Threw My Birth Certificates, Baptismal Certificates, and Final Order of Adoption on the Table
Filed under Adoptee Birth Certificates, Adoptee False Baptismal Certificate, Adoptee False Legal Birth Certificate, Adoptee True Sealed Birth Certificate, Adoption Psychology, Adoption Trauma, Adoptive Parents, Amended Birth Certificate, Original Birth Certificate
Tagged as adoptee as caged pet, adoptee being scorned by adoptive mother for the truth of her birth, Amended Birth Certificate, emotional scars from being deliberately lied to, Final Order of Adoption, original birth certificate, safety deposit box, secrets and lies in adoption, truth in adoption
Tagged as adoptee as caged pet, adoptee being scorned by adoptive mother for the truth of her birth, Amended Birth Certificate, emotional scars from being deliberately lied to, Final Order of Adoption, original birth certificate, safety deposit box, secrets and lies in adoption, truth in adoption
I did not see my birth certificate for the first 18 years of my life.
I found this out when I was 18. A few days after being found by siblings my adoptive parents did not want me to know, my adoptive mother retrieved a large manila envelope from a bank’s safety deposit box. Mom held the envelope up high and shook the contents of the envelope in front of me onto the kitchen table. As the contents fell, Mom yelled, “These mean nothing to me now! I guess we were just your babysitters!”
There on the table were the documents of my birth and adoption: my original birth certificate, my amended birth certificate, two baptismal certificates, and the Final Order of Adoption. I examined each one closely, shocked that Mom yelled at me, again, for something that wasn’t my fault, and that she held these papers in secret from me. These papers pertain to my life, and should have been revealed to me in a loving manner, with kindness, gentleness and parental love. Instead, what I got was hate from the mother who adopted me.
That, in itself, is tragic, but the fact that my adoptive parents held my original birth certificate and my falsified birth certificate in a safety deposit box, “safely” away from me, for 18 years means that my parents held the truth of my birth from me. They did so intentionally. They lied to me because they wanted me all to themselves. I wasn’t worthy of the truth, and for this, I am still angry and mad as hell. And very sad. I felt then as I feel now: not like a daughter, but a kept child, a pet kept in a cage with no freedom.
I was brought up with secrets. I was so used to those secrets that I was unaware that I actually had a birth certificate. I did not know I had one that stated the facts of my actual birth, nor did I know that I had one that reflected a fictitious birth. I didn’t even know what a Final Order of Adoption was.
What’s even more shocking is that this treatment was done to me when I was still in high school. It was 1974. I was raised an only child. I had no reasonable adult to turn to for help. No counselor, no therapist, no relative, no friend, no one. By today’s standards, what my mother did to me that day would be considered child abuse. No parent would scream and yell at a high school senior over the fact that she had just been found by her own flesh and blood. No adoptive parent today would lock their child’s birth certificate under lock and key in a secret bank vault as if they were hiding something horrendous. Or would they? I resent being treated the way I was. Even though that happened 36 years ago, the pain of the lie and the pain of the amount of hate directed toward me is still there.
I would hope that no adoptive parents would do that to their adoptees today.
You can read more about my birth certificates in my book, Forbidden Family, here and here (scroll down to section on my birth certificates).
Tomorrow I will talk about how I petitioned the court for my adoption files.
~ ~ ~ Joan M Wheeler, BA, BSW, born Doris M Sippel, author of Forbidden Family: A Half Orphan’s Account of Her Adoption, Reunion and Social Activism, Trafford Publishing, Nov 2009.
