A mind at peace, a mind centered and not focused on harming others, is stronger than any physical force in the universe. – Wayne Dyer

* * * * * *

“When superior people hear of the Way, they carry it out with diligence. When middling people hear of the Way, it sometimes seems to be there, sometimes not. When lesser people hear of the Way, they ridicule it greatly. If they didn’t laugh at it, it wouldn’t be the Way.”

— Lao-tze, 6th century bce Chinese philosopher, founder of Taoism, from Tao Te Ching

“People have ridiculed the concept of the Way (or the idea of striving to thinkarete, self-actualizing, self-improvement, etc.) for centuries. Remember Lao-tzu’s wisdom that if lesser people don’t laugh at it, it wouldn’t be the Way”.

from philosopher Brian Johnson, Founder of Zaadz and thinkArete

Coersion and Single Mom

The effects of the loss of a baby on women who lost them to adoption

* * * *

This must be shared:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/13/1074096/-Adoption-Apologies-Expected-in-Australia-Why-Not-in-America-

Tue Mar 13, 2012 at 02:46 PM PDT

Adoption Apologies Expected in Australia – Why Not in America?

by jdelbalzoFollow

This past year has been very difficult. Facing death of family and friends, moving forward in grief, I’ve tried to hide the tears. But they come anyway. Just when I think it is okay to smile, a song, a walk along the canal, or a memory brings tears. I am grateful for the loving embrace of friends who comfort me.

Nicole with a touch of my hand, small groups of church friends in a room, Sandra with her hugs and warm conversation, Brian with his ever-present stillness, Heather and Cathy with their kindness and sincerity, Elaine with her lunches and laughter, Kathy for her knowledge, John and his gifts of music tricks from long ago, Mary with her lovely voice, Mary B and her cookies, Patrick and Kent with their guitars, Todd and his playfulness, Kevin J with his steady happiness, Kevin C for his smiles, Jonathan with his sense of humor and hugs, Banjo Bob and his ready wit, Jim Y for your love of life, Tom S for I Wanna Be Ignorant, Dave for dancing and hugs, Doug and Sue for their hospitality, Phil for his bridging 30 years of memories, and my new friends who greet me with acceptance and love, my old friends who I don’t see very often but we share our times of need and gatherings. When the sadness of this past year brings me to tears, I am grateful for all of you who make my life enriched.

I am also grateful for the family who still care. And for the friends of my aunt who still call. My son and daughter who bring me gifts of your souls.

I am grateful for the strength I’ve found within myself because all of you are in my life.

The following was written by an anonymous adult adoptee who has given permission for this letter to be posted here.

(What you are about to read may shock you.  It may challenge you.  And, hopefully, it may inspire you to educate yourself further on the realities of adoption. Please read the following with an open mind, and try not to take anything said here personally.  Because this is not meant to be an attack or a judgment; it is meant to be an honest and heartfelt expression of one adoptee’s experience that would hopefully bring understanding and respect for the often ignored portion of the adoption equation.)

To all adoptive parents, hopeful adoptive parents, and anyone who has ever even considered adoption:

Being adopted hurts.  Being adopted is hard.  It is not beautiful; it is brutal, it is tragic, it is a cause for great sadness. For in order for a child to even be available for adoption, that child must first go through some sort of tragedy; whether that be abuse, hunger, homelessness, neglect, or even the simple fact that he or she is losing the life and family he or she was born into.  This makes adoption a thing to mourn; not a cause for celebration or joy.  To be joyful about adopting a child is to be glad that this tragedy happened.

I don’t think there’s a soul alive who would actually choose to be born into a situation where being relinquished for adoption, voluntarily or otherwise, was necessary.  

Of course there will always be a need for children to be removed from their parent(s) and placed in safer, more stable, loving homes – but please understand that no matter how good and loving and wonderful the adopting parents are, nothing will ever erase the pain, the grief, and the loss that comes with being adopted.

The very foundation of adoption is that of loss – a child loses his or her mother, father, and entire family; a mother, father and family loses one of their children.  And, yes, even a loss for the adopting parent – sometimes the loss of the expectation of having their own, biological offspring, the loss of a dream of having a baby of “their own.”  A separation of one family MUST occur before a new one can be built through adoption.  Maybe it isn’t a voluntary destruction, maybe the destruction is necessary for the health and safety of the child – but it is still a destruction of the very core, fundamental foundations of that child’s life that will forever be altered.

Think of it this way…one of your parents dies, and your surviving parent eventually goes on to remarry.  Though you might grow to love and have a great relationship with your parent’s new spouse, no amount of love and happiness in this present situation will erase the grief you feel over the loss of your other parent.  So please, if you have adopted or are considering adoption, keep this in mind.  

Adoption should be the very last resort after all other options have been tried.  Ask yourself this – does an adoption HAVE to happen?  Is there anything I can possibly do to help this young mother keep her child?  Are there resources I can direct her to, items I can supply her with, can I offer her the support and encouragement she needs to be a good parent?  If so, then pursuing adoption is not the right choice.  Too many unnecessary adoptions happen as a permanent solution to a very temporary problem.  Adoption, after all, is forever – while a current living situation, job situation, etc., is temporary and can be changed and improved.  Most women who relinquish their children do so because they feel they have no other choice…but what if she does have another choice, and only needs the support and encouragement to make it?

Adopted people know we are a second choice, a “Plan B,” a solution to someone else’s problem.  While there are some people out there who would choose adoption first, most only do so after failed attempts at pregnancy or to “complete” a family of all boys or girls or to give their current child a sibling.  Adding to your family through adoption should never be about meeting some need of your own…it should always and only ever be about providing for the CHILD’S needs.  Please don’t put the added pressure on an adopted child by forcing them to live up to the unspoken standard of the child you couldn’t conceive or the son or daughter you couldn’t produce.  Adoption is not a cure for infertility, nor are adopted people “gifts” to be passed around in order to complete somebody else’s life.  We are human beings in our own right, with our own feelings, needs, and wants.  Don’t add to an already painful situation by expecting us to be something we weren’t born to be.

Please be willing to be completely open and honest with the child you may someday adopt.  It doesn’t matter how horrible of a situation they came out of; tell them the truth, and tell them early.  For the truth can be dealt with, it can be processed and closure can be found; but nobody can get closure from fantasies and daydreams.  Adopted people are stronger than you give them credit for; believe me when I say, we imagine and prepare for every possible scenario when it comes to our families or origin.  Don’t think we haven’t entertained the idea that our biological parents were the worst of the worst, or idealized them as some sort of saintly creatures, and everything in between.  We have already survived the loss of our original families; don’t for one minute think we can’t survive knowing the reason why.  And on that note, if an adopted person ever chooses to search, reunite, or just know more about their family of origin, don’t guilt them into not doing it or make them feel beholden to you.  It has NOTHING to do with you.  NOTHING.  Human beings are born with an innate curiosity about who and where we come from.  For some adopted people to feel whole, they need to know their own personal history and explore their roots.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  After all, you, as the parent, are responsible for your adopted child’s happiness and well being…not the other way around.  Swallow your pride, put away your jealousy, and support your adopted child in any quest for truth they may wish to undertake.  Believe me, they will thank you for it.

Don’t fall into the terminology trap.  Adoptees know they have more than one set of parents…two that created them, and the parent(s) who are raising them.  ALL are real to the adoptee.  Don’t get caught up in who is “real” and who is more important; let your adopted child choose the terminology that suits THEM.  If you have been a good and loving parent, that’s all you need.  Besides, a parent can love more than one child, so why can’t a child be allowed to love more than one parent?  The heart has an infinite capability to love.  Don’t begrudge your adopted child the possibility of loving people he or she may not even remember.  

And don’t disparage the biological parents or family either.  They may be evil people, the scum of the earth…but to say anything bad about the biological family is the same as saying something bad about your adopted child.  The child did come from these people, after all; and better or worse we did inherit parts of ourselves from them.  The old saying applies here more than anywhere else…if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

Adopted people experience a range of issues from having been adopted…many suffer from the fear of rejection and abandonment, have problems trusting others and forming relationships.  After all, our very mothers could walk away from us, so what’s to stop anyone else?  Though not all adoptees experience these, many do, and to varying degrees.  Just because the adopted person in your life hasn’t mentioned it, don’t think they don’t feel it.  Many will never, ever talk about their negative adoption issues for those exact reasons…fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, and just the overwhelmingly negative response they expect.  If the adopted person in your life (your child, a friend or other family member) ever does talk about it, take your personal feelings and judgments out of it.  Resist the temptation to say things like, “But you had such wonderful [adoptive] parents!” or “but you could have been aborted/thrown in a dumpster/etc.!”  Adoptees are the only subset of society who are wholly expected to be grateful for our very lives, and with this expectation comes the need to try to suppress any negative emotion or feeling.  Most adoptees won’t even admit to themselves, let alone other people, that they are hurting.  After all, we got this “better life,” didn’t we?  We don’t have the RIGHT to feel sad/angry/depressed.  So many adoptees choose to stay silent and instead live a lie.

And, yes, that goes hand-in-hand with the child-parent relationship thing…remember, the PARENT is responsible for the health and well being of the CHILD, NOT the other way around.  Only in adoption are adoptees somehow expected to always be careful not to “hurt” their adoptive parents; not to rock the boat or bring up something about their adoption because their PARENTS might not like it.  This is another reason so many adopted people don’t speak about adoption…we are afraid of hurting our adoptive parents.  I know that as a parent myself, I would never expect my children to be responsible for my well-being…so please, don’t ever place that expectation on adopted people either.  After all, their adoptive parents WANTED to adopt, they WANTED a child, and chose this path for themselves.  The adoptee most often did not choose it and had no say in the matter.  Don’t expect gratitude.  ANYONE could have been aborted, could have been abandoned, could have been abused.  These are not phenomena that are solely related to adoptees.  Just because a person was adopted doesn’t automatically mean they were unwanted, that they “could have been” anything…they are just people who are being raised by a different family and are living a DIFFERENT life, not necessarily a better one.

Please, if you are considering adoption or have already, educate yourself.  Read books such as the Primal Wound.  Read blogs by adopted people and relinquishing parents.  Go into it with an open mind and open heart.  Understand that there is the very real potential that the child you someday adopt might just struggle with it.  And while you can be a terrific parent, a wonderful guide and mentor, the damage has already been done.  Be prepared to do the hard work of helping your child deal with any grief, anger, and other issues he/she may feel.  TALK to them about it.  Adoptees are notorious for keeping things bottled up…let them know it’s OK to talk with you about them.  Reassure them that you will NOT be hurt, offended or damaged by their feelings.  ALLOW them the freedom to feel whatever they feel.  

If you are considering an open adoption or have entered into an open adoption, HONOR that.  Unless there is some clear and present danger to the life of your child, KEEP THE COMMUNICATION OPEN.  Don’t cease contact with the biological family because it’s an inconvenience for YOU.  Understand that yes, at times it might be emotionally trying for your adopted child, your child may come away from visits or reading letters and feel depressed and angry, but don’t take that as a reason to cease contact.  TALK to your child. Help them understand WHY they are feeling this way.  It’s only natural that this might happen; and in the same breath, the biological mother/father/family may also feel overwhelmed at times and pull back, but do what you can to keep the lines of communication open.  Remember, adoption is based on loss, and being reminded of that loss can be overwhelming.  But that doesn’t mean it should be avoided.  Your adopted child will thank you someday for sacrificing your own happiness and comfort to allow him/her to keep this very important connection.

Try not to make a big celebration out of your child’s adoption day (and PLEASE don’t EVER use the horribly offensive and insensitive term “Gotcha Day”).  The same goes for birthdays.  For while it may be a happy occasion to remember, keep in mind that it also marks the day that the adopted person was permanently and forever separated from their mother, their father, their original family.  Birthdays are especially hard; for most adoptees have the knowledge that our births were not cause for celebration; nobody was bringing our mothers flowers and balloons and offering congratulations; our entrance into this world was one of sadness and trepidation.  And it marks the day we were physically separated from our mothers; for many of us, it was the last time we ever saw her.  So if the adoptee in your life withdraws around his or her birthday or doesn’t appear to like celebrating, respect that.  Understand that to many of us, it is not a cause for celebration.

I am not trying to tell anyone not to adopt.  I am not saying, “shame on you” to anyone who already has adopted.  What I am saying is, please step back and really think long and hard about the ramifications of adoption on the very person who is at the center of it all – the child you hope for or the child you have brought into your home.  Be ready and willing to put a lot of hard work into helping this adopted child heal, to feel whole and complete in themselves.  Be prepared to put your own needs and wants on the shelf and to put away your expectations, do what it takes to attend to the needs of your adopted child.  All the love in the world, all the toys and gadgets and material things you might provide will never replace or erase what was lost.

Family preservation should always be the goal.  Adoption should never, ever be utilized unless it is the last and only option left.  Because adoption should be about finding homes for children in need; NOT finding children for people to fill a need.  Jesus commanded us to help the orphan AND the widow…we as a society should do more to help families stay together instead of tearing them apart.  Nobody really wants to be adopted…if given a choice, they’d rather their family situations could improve so that they wouldn’t have to be separated.  Would YOU have liked it if your mother gave you away?

Sincerely,
An adult adoptee

My adoptive mother died a few months ago. I have been slowly going through her belongings. Deciding what to keep and what to give away is a very difficult task.

I had already generally gone through a box of my mother’s old jewelry and set it aside for the “give away” pile. But a relative who was with me took a second look. She found a small plastic bag with a string of beads. She pulled it out and said, “This looks like a baby bracelet.”

I immediately swung around as my relative placed the beaded bracelet in my hands. I recognized the initials and last name as that of my natural mother. The beads were pink; this was my baby bracelet worn in the hospital after my birth.

How could I have missed this when going through the box the first time?

More importantly, why was this the first time I had seen this bracelet? My adoptive mother kept it in her jewelry box since bringing me home on April 22, 1956, four months after my birth. My natural father had given her this bracelet, along with my clothes and birth certificate and baptismal certificate. Why did my adoptive mother keep this bracelet all these years? She surely could have given it to me during the course of my reunion with my natural family from 1974 onward. But I discovered it and reclaimed it a few months after her death.

This is yet another reminder that for all I know about my birth and my adoption I shall never really know my life. I was a baby born to a dying mother; I was dying at birth. The conditions and events that surrounded the people who took care of me, especially my natural father, were tense. My future hung in the balance until my mother died. Nearly a month later, my father handed me to another couple to raise as their daughter. I grew up the only child of this couple. My former life ceased to exist.

I hold this bracelet now as a mere portion of my life before adoption. Those six weeks I lay in an incubator, clinging to life: this is what this bracelet symbolizes for me. It’s not my name on the bracelet, it’s my mother’s name, for I am my mother’s daughter and this is the way the hospital knew I belonged to her. My birth and those first few weeks of my life were not happy moments.

As I clear through the belongings of one mother recently deceased, I am reminded of another mother who died long ago. Her death changed the course of my life.

My baby bracelet brought me, not a moment of happiness, but a day of mourning a lifetime of loss.

http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial-page/from-our-readers/my-view/article450236.ece

MY VIEW

Real birther issue is still unresolved

Joan Wheeler, born Doris Sippel, lives in Buffalo and thinks adoptees should have access to their birth records.

Published: June 10, 2011, 12:00 AM

President Obama recently released a copy of his long-form original birth certificate to prove that he was born in the United States. If he had been adopted, he would not be able to produce his original birth certificate for the public or even for his own viewing. By law, he would be able to obtain only an amended birth certificate.

Does this mean that adoptees are prohibited from becoming president?

I am an adoptee and I have two conflicting birth certificates.

As in all adoptions, the judge who presided over my adoption ordered my original birth certificate sealed and replaced with an amended one. The registrar of vital records switched most of my birth facts onto a new document, but the amended certificate does not contain the attending physician’s signature attesting that he

witnessed the birth. And it does not prove who my biological mother and father were.

In the aftermath of 9/11, to obtain a passport or an enhanced driver’s license, one must present documentation of birth filed within five days of birth. Many adoptees’ amended certificates were issued a year or more after birth; delayed birth certificates are not acceptable proof of birth. And amended certificates don’t prove who actually gave birth to the individual named. Adoptees cannot obtain documentation of birth and adoption because these records are sealed.

Birth records for adoptees have been sealed and altered since the 1930s to hide illegitimacy for mother and infant, and to protect adoptive parents. The adoptee rights movement began in the 1950s to change these laws. Two states never sealed records; six states have varying degrees of open records. New York has been a closed-record state since 1935.

I, like many adoptees, want unrestricted access to my original birth certificate. Adoptees are the only group of people denied access to their own birth record. This is a matter of civil rights, social inequality, personal dignity and genealogical knowledge. Non-adoptees can obtain their birth record, but adoptees cannot get theirs.

Opponents to open records claim mothers’ identities must be kept secret because they were promised confidentiality. Mothers who have lost children to adoption say that secrecy was imposed upon them. Additionally, the stigma of illegitimacy doesn’t hold true for full or half orphans (like myself) or step-parent adoptees. Adoptees say that stigma in adoption is unwarranted.

So, how did I get my short-and long-form original birth certificate if the records were sealed?

My widowed father, at the time he relinquished me, gave my birth certificates to my adoptive parents. When I turned 18, they, in turn, gave the documents to me.

Despite this, I am still legally prevented from obtaining my original birth certificate.

All amended birth certificates state the adoptee’s new name, replace the parents by birth with the names of the new parents and include most facts of the birth. A registrar of vital statistics certifies the facts are true. They are not, since no adoptee is born to the parents named on the amended certificate.

New York State adoptees are supporting passage of Senate Bill 1438 and Assembly Bill 2003, which would give adult adoptees access to their original birth certificates. This is half of the solution. For true adoptee equality, falsified amended birth certificates should be replaced with honest adoption certificates.

The ex-husband of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s lover plans to sue claiming that “the birth certificate of the couple’s love child was falsified.” Details can be found here.

I’m not sure if Rogelio Baena stands a chance in his lawsuit against Arnold Schwarzenegger. While I agree with his outrage and the fact that his name is on the boy’s birth certificate as the father, it is pretty much a universal law that any child born within a marriage is considered the child of both wife and husband. The reason this is so is to protect the wife and child from the rage of the husband should he find out he is not the father and to give the child a name and inheritance rights.

But if Rogelio Baena is successful in his lawsuit against Arnold Schwarzenegger, he may well establish a president: “Rogelio Baena’s name appears on the birth certificate as the boy’s father, and attorneys have told him that if Schwarzenegger and Mildred Baena knew this was not true, they engaged in conspiracy to falsify a public document — a serious crime in California.”

Not only could this be a president-setting case for husbands of women who have children via affairs, but this could also be of benefit to millions of adoptees whose birth certificates are routinely falsified upon the finalization of adoption. According to Rogelio Baena’s attorneys, conspiracy to falsify a public document is a serious crime in California. I suspect it is a serious crime in all of the United States.

As those of us in the adoption reform movement have been saying for many years, why are our birth certificates amended — falsified — by our local Registrars of Vital Statistics? Why is this not a crime? Why can’t adoptees sue? We know our birth certificates were falsified because the parents named on our legal birth certificates did not sire nor give birth to us. Our legal parents became our parents by legal adoption, not biology and birth. When will the truth of our births be fully recognized?

I wonder if Rogelio Baena will win his lawsuit over the falsification of his son’s birth certificate. Perhaps he will be granted the removal of his name and the rightful father’s name will be placed on the boy’s birth certificate.

It is a shame that the 13 year old boy whose birth certificate is in question must go through this public humiliation. That, however, is another story.

President Obama recently released a copy of his Long Form Original Birth Certificate to prove that he was born in the United States. However, if he had been born and adopted in the United States, he would not be able to produce his Original Birth Certificate for the public or even for his own viewing.  By law, he would only be able to produce an Amended Birth Certificate. 

An Amended Birth Certificate is issued at the finalization of a person’s adoption.  This “birth certificate” replaces a person’s birth name with a new name and his/her natural parents’ names/information with his adoptive parents’ names/information.  Once an Amended Birth Certificate is issued, a person is prevented by law from viewing/possessing their truthful documentation of birth.  His/her Original Birth Certificate is sealed forever.

It is discriminatory to seal an adopted person’s birth certificate and replace it with a falsified one.

“We’re not going to be able to do it if we just make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts.” – President Barack Obama, 3/27/2011.

I have two birth certificates. I was born with one name, issued a birth certificate, and one year and one week later, my adoption was finalized. The Surrogate Court judge who presided over my adoption set in motion the legal process for my true birth certificate to be sealed and an amended birth record to be issued. The Registrar of Vital Records carried out the task of switching my birth facts onto a document which is similar, but not equal to, the form used to create non-adoptees’ original birth certificates. The law is different for all adoptees.

Before I use my own documents as examples, I must explain that while I am not legally allowed to obtain my own Long Form Original Birth Certificate because I am an adoptee in a closed record state (New York), I do have both my short and long form Original Birth Certificate, as well as my short and long form Amended Birth Certificate. Why? How?

Because at the time I was placed in my pre-adoptive parents’ care, my father who relinquished me gave my birth certificates and baptismal certificate to my pre-adoptive parents. My adoptive parents gave all of my documents, including the Final Order of Adoption, to me when I turned eighteen just after my reunion with my natural family.

As previously stated, I am still legally prevented from obtaining my Original Birth Certificate. That is a legal battle I have been fighting with other adoptees since the mid-1970s.

What do my two long form birth certificates state? The forms are similar, but different. Both have a raised seal and are signed by the Registrar.

My Original Birth Certificate states: name, date, time, city, weight, length of pregnancy, hospital, parents, single birth and not a twin or triplet, and attending physician signature. This question was asked: “How many other children are now living?” Answer: four.

My Amended Birth Certificate states my new name, and replaces my parents by birth with the names of my new parents, and includes most facts of my birth. Though the document states this mother gave birth in this hospital, no hospital records would be found for this mother. Deleted are: length of pregnancy, how many other children were living, and the attending physician’s signature.

Records are sealed and amended even in open adoptions. It is time to allow adoptees access to their true birth certificates. It is also time to replace fraudulently falsified Amended Birth Certificates with honest Adoption Certificates. Change the law.

For more information: http://www.unsealedinitiative.com (NYS adoptees), http://www.americanadoptioncongress.org/

With the recent passing of my adoptive mother and my natural father now four of my five parents are dead. Only my step mother survives.

Today marks the 55th anniversary of the death of my natural mother.

So I sadly mark their memories:

Genevieve Herr Sippel (natural mother) died March 28, 1956 at age 30.

Edward Wheeler (adoptive father) died February 15, 1982 at age 67.

Leonard Sippel (natural father) died January 11, 2011 at age 86.

Doloris Cannell Wheeler (adoptive mother) died March 12, 2011 at age 95.

The pain of loss is real. All four parents are real. All adoptees have two sets of real parents.

My adoptive mother, Doloris T. Wheeler, passed away early in the morning of March 12, 2011 after a long battle with leukemia.

I love you, Mom.

…

To My Mother

by H. Phelps Clawson, 1923

Death! Is there some wild terror in your name

That causes mortal men to tremble so?

Your scythe spares neither poverty nor fame,

Nor saint nor sinner, yes, they all must go.

And I, who stood beside my Mother’s bier,

 Felt you cold fingers clutching at my heart,

Trying to force a cry, some sign of fear,

 To show I’d play for you the common part.

 But Death! You are a fool; you could not see

 With your dull eyes that it was I who won,

That from above she had sent down to me

A wondrous Mother-message to her son;

A glorious light of peace, eternal rest,

And happiness that she had never known.

I saw her smile, and to my tortured breast

Came the great knowledge—I was not alone

But nearer her dear self than I had been,

And she was more my Mother than before.

Oh! All the mighty vision I have seen

Since she flung wide that sacred golden door,

And showed to me the fullness of her love,

A staff to guide my footsteps through the night,

And though she’s with the brilliant stars above

She’s nearer me to help me towards the right.

Again, a little child close by her side

I seem to walk and look into her face,

For she is still and ever was my guide,

And I with manhood’s wisdom now can trace

Each act of Mother-love, and all she gave

To me to carry onward through the years—

A courage that makes beautiful her grave,

And robs our earthly parting of its fears.

…

…

There is the assumption that all adoptees come from “shameful” births that “need” to be hidden by sealed birth records. This is just not so. There are many adoptees who were relinquished by widowed parents, divorced parents, and parents who remain married after surrender. None of these adoptions warrant the stigma of illegitimacy and the dictates of a handful of mothers who want their perceived right to privacy. They don’t have a right to privacy because all their rights were tossed out of the window when they signed the relinquishment papers. I am a half orphan and I see no reason why these mothers’ feel that their perceived rights should supersede my right to my own birth certificate: I am not illegitimate so their logic does not apply to me, or other half or full orphans, or step-parent adoptees or foster care adoptees.

Adoption legitimizes the illegitimate. Since I was born legitimately to married parents, I did not need to be legitimized by adoption. My legitimate and true birth certificate was sealed upon finalization of my adoption and a falsified birth certificate was issued to replace it. I want my legitimate birth certificate returned to me. My argument is not a slap in the face to my fellow adoptees, it is simple fact. I am an adoptee and I stand with my fellow adoptees (illegitimate and orphaned) for the right to our true birth certificates. Whatever we do with our birth certificates is up to us. Our birth identities are on these documents, therefore, they belong to us and no one else.

We are adults and do not need parental permission to do anything in life. Our adoptive parents lost their parental rights over us when we reached adulthood. Our natural parents lost all their parental rights to us when they signed relinquishment papers. It is that simple.

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.

http://www.obcforme.org/

 Rest in Peace, BJ. You were one of the first adoptees in the adoption reform movement to write and tell the adoptee’s truth. Thank you for that, and thank you for your friendship. – Joan Wheeler

New York Times Obit for Betty Jean Lifton

Betty Jean Lifton Dies at 84; Urged Open Adoptions

By MARGALIT FOX

Published: November 26, 2010

Betty Jean Lifton, a writer, adoptee and adoption-reform advocate whose books — searing condemnations of the secrecy that traditionally shrouded adoption — became touchstones for adoptees throughout the world, died on Nov. 19 in Boston. She was 84 and lived in Cambridge, Mass.

Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times

Betty Jean Lifton in 1985. She lectured widely about potential psychological effects.

The cause was complications of pneumonia, her husband, the psychiatrist and author Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, said.

Ms. Lifton, who lectured widely about the potential psychological effects of adoption, was best known for a nonfiction trilogy: “Twice Born: Memoirs of an Adopted Daughter” (McGraw Hill, 1975), in which she recounts her adulthood search for her birth mother; “Lost and Found: The Adoption Experience” (Dial, 1979); and “Journey of the Adopted Self: A Quest for Wholeness” (Basic Books, 1994).

An outspoken proponent of open adoption, Ms. Lifton was often interviewed on the issue in the news media. (Nine states now allow adult adoptees access to their original birth certificates.)

She was a past board member of the American Adoption Congress; in recent years she also worked as a psychological counselor, with a practice centered on adoptees and their families.

When “Twice Born” was first published, there were few books about the adoptee experience. Adoption in general was a veiled topic, and adoptees — assuming they were told anything — rarely knew their given names, their birth parents’ identities or the precise circumstances of their adoptions.

As a result, generations of adoptees grew up with a void where their personal histories should be and, Ms. Lifton argued, with deep feelings of confusion, grief and loss.

“When I was born, society prophesied that I would bring disgrace to my mother, kill her reputation, destroy her chances for a good bourgeois life,” she wrote in “Twice Born.”

She added: “I say that society, by sealing birth records, by cutting adoptees off from their biological past, by keeping secrets from them, has made them into a separate breed, unreal even to themselves.”

The book’s publication, which gave momentum to the emerging adoption-reform movement, prompted an outpouring of mail from people with similar stories. These letters, and subsequent interviews with adoptees, informed the next installments in Ms. Lifton’s trilogy, in which she examined the psychological toll that closed adoption can take, and the psychological affinities many adoptees appear to share.

While some critics seemed discomforted by Ms. Lifton’s use of mythic metaphor (“I write of perilous journeys of the spirit, of labyrinths, of ghosts, of strangers with mysterious origins, of princesses and princes asleep under spells,” she said in “Twice Born”), others praised her willingness to speak frankly about a taboo subject.

Her other books include “The King of Children” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1988), a biography of the Polish Jewish doctor, writer and children’s advocate Janusz Korczak, who was killed in Treblinka. She also wrote for children, including books about adoption and many titles inspired by Japanese folk tales.

Blanche Rosenblatt, as she later learned she was originally named, was born in Staten Island on June 11, 1926. Her mother, Rae Rosenblatt, who was 17 when Blanche was born, and her father, a bootlegger and bon vivant, were unmarried, a scandalous condition then. (In the first edition of “Twice Born,” Ms. Lifton gives her birth mother the pseudonym Bea Silverstein.)

Ms. Rosenblatt eventually gave up Blanche to a foster home. At 2 ½, she was adopted by a Cincinnati couple, Oscar and Hilda Kirschner, who renamed her Betty Jean.

When Betty Jean was 7, Hilda Kirschner informed her that she was adopted, adding that her birth parents were dead. Such falsehoods, Ms. Lifton later wrote, were par for the course at the time.

Betty Jean Kirschner earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Barnard College in 1948; in the 1990s, she earned a Ph.D. in counseling psychology from the Union Institute.

In 1952 she married Dr. Lifton, a psychiatrist who went on to write many influential books, including psychological studies of war and the Holocaust. The couple lived for several years in Hong Kong and Japan.

After returning to the United States, Ms. Lifton, long haunted by her opaque past, contacted the agency that had handled her adoption. She learned that her parents were probably still alive and began scouring public records for traces of them. Bit by bit, the information she gleaned led her to her birth mother.

They met several times in the years that followed. Though their communication was often strained, for Ms. Lifton, as she made clear in her writing, it was absolutely necessary. She later searched for her birth father, only to learn he had died not long before.

Besides her husband, Ms. Lifton is survived by their two children, Kenneth and Natasha Lifton; four grandchildren; and a half-brother, Donald Billings.

She dedicated “Journey of the Adopted Self” to her two mothers, who, she wrote, “might have known and even liked each other in another life and another adoption system.”

A version of this article appeared in print on November 27, 2010, on page A17 of the New York edition.

November 20th is National Adoption Day. To “celebrate”, I spent the day in mourning for the family from which I was taken. It is a fact of life that for every adoptive family to be happy, there is a family that had to be broken in order for the adoptive family to get their precious baby. I lost my entire family because of adoption. For this, I am not happy. I am not grateful. I am not glad that I was not aborted. I almost died at my premature birth; many day go by with my wishing I had died so that perhaps my mother could have lived. I never blamed my  father for my relinquishment for he was grief-stricken, faced with immediate decisions, and he made those decisions under duress. I was raised in a loving home as an only child, showered with love and affection. However, the lifetime of deceit, intentional lies and actual disdain and panic that I would one day meet the very siblings my adoptive parents fought to prohibit me from knowing — that is what is despicable about my adoption. That, and the fact that my name was changed, my identity was changed, for no good reason. A lifetime of pain and loss for me and my children.

Happy National Adoption Day. NOT.

…

These are the papers that I obtained from Surrogate’s Court, Erie County, New York:

On Oct 24, 1956, my natural father and pre-adoptive parents met in Surrogate’s Court. They signed a joint contract “Consent to Adopt and Agreement to Adopt”.

Notice that the paper states that my natural father “will not interfere with the rights, duties and privileges of said child when adopted. He was not, as opponents to open records claim, granted any special confidentiality by the consent to adoption papers that he signed when he relinquished his parental rights to be my legal father. My father told me, when we discussed this a few years later, that the judge told him to stay away from the newly formed adoptive family. There was no verbal or written promise of confidentiality granted to my natural father.

Here is the agreement signed by my natural father and my pre-adoptive parents:

Here are the other papers released to me by the Surrogate Court Judge.

As you read these papers, keep in mind that while my adoption was treated as a closed adoption, both sets of parents knew of each other before I was conceived. My adoptive parents (before they became my parents) and their extended families were present at the funeral of my natural mother to pay their respects at her passing. As you read these papers, keep in mind that the five children involved had no say in what the adults did to permanently separate them as a sibling group. With so much information exchanging hands, with so much at stake, this adoption should never have taken place.

My Final Order of Adoption:

~ ~ ~ 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.