National Adoption Awareness Month

It's National Adoption Awareness Month?

We are aware. Are you?

We've all seen the advertisements/public service announcements for National Adoption Month. Are you aware that this was originally conceived to promote foster care adoption of older children? Are you aware that it's promotion is now heavily funded by agencies facilitating the adoption of infants under one year of age? (average cost to the adoptive parents exceeding $30,000)

Something these ad sponsors won't tell you is that in all but six states, the adopted person's original birth certificate will be sealed from their inspection FOREVER. They won't tell you the rules prescribing this sealing are relatively recent inventions designed to shield the adoptive family from scrutiny. They won't tell you that the relinquishing mother has no legal right to anonymity and well over 90% don't want it anyway, instead saying that the sealing is to protect the mother's privacy. They won't remind you that making a MINOR party to a legal contract sealing their birth certificate forever, without informed consent and without legal representation, violates contract law in fifty states, yet is allowed in this sole instance. And they won't tell you that the US adoption industry spends millions of dollars each year on lobbyists to fight efforts to grant adult adoptees the same right to their birth certificate that all other citizens enjoy. Were you aware of those facts?

We believe that supporting any industry at the expense of a US citizen's right to a copy of the only true record of their birth is offensive. Unless you live in one of the six states which allow it, your lawmakers have voted down efforts to allow adult adoptees in your state a copy of their original birth certificate. Please give them a call or a note telling them that this issue means something to you. Treating adopted adults differently because of something they didn't choose just isn't fair, especially when no one wants it but the profiteers.

Make your legislators aware of what this month is really about. Let's not celebrate, let's educate.

Follow this link for your representative's email, address and/or phone number.

Posted by Adoptee Denied at 10:01 PM

I am becoming more active on an adoptee board again and again reading blogs from all parts of the triad. As I travel on this journey to self I always come back to my adoption.... where it lies in me and out of me and how it has effected my perception of .... everything.

I am going to tell you a story that happened two years ago.
My amom was visiting us. She was talking about my abrothers then girlfriend now wife who has two kids from a previous marriage. She said Dad said what if B and K ( brother and girlfriend) get married and don't have kids of their own and we never get to have any real grandchildren?

I read recently an excerpt of an article on appropriate adoption language.... it said to say that a child WAS adopted not IS adopted. I AM ADOPTED..... Every day of my life.... and by extension my kids are somehow to.

My aparents love my kids. They really do.... but now that they have a real grandchild .... yes B AND K HAD A BABY.... ( my fake nephew according to this real b.s. line of thinking) the differences in treatment are there.... again.... reopening old wounds, not just hurting me but GOING to hurt my babies. Who get to be fake just like me.

Pinch me. Pinch me. Pinch me.

http://www.parentingtree.org/articles/parenting/top-10-keys-to-using-positive-adoption-language.php

family size

Hi.... I am thinking about something.... and this is not well thought out so I may come back to edit it.

My birthmom came from a family of 6 kids. My birthdad came from a family of 10 kids.
My two best friends since Juniour high school..... you know the first friends you kind of pick? both come from Large families. One from 12 and one from 10.

Conicidence that I have always enjoyed their families? As crazy and dysfunctional as they are?

I have been fascinated by them to a point that I wanted to be in their families.

I wonder if it is because I knew somewhere in me that I was a part of a large family also? Or was it just that big families are interesting and my feelings are relatively normal of anyone adopted or not?

my head......

I'm back

I found this old blog from November and I thought I would just continue on with this.....
Since the last post I have spoken to my birth mother on a handful of occasions. With one fall out where she basically told me she was disappointed in who I was..... and she seems to know me so well.
So I am guarded and wounded by her but okay. It was a very hard thing to do and I am still glad to have met her.... but do not know if I can have her in my life as she hurts me so with her anger.

On a great note- I contacted my supposed birth father- John in September and we have been corresponding thru email ever since. We just took a DNA test to be sure he was my biological father- and he is! We have spoken now 2 times on the phone and emailed more pictures back and forth. He looks alot like me. Which is very weird to see myself now thru my parents.,...
Complete.

We hope to meet when he comes thru my state in the summer. I look forward to that.

I have figured out alot about adoption and my adoption and its impact on me following Sandy's visit. I have learned alot about how others feel about adoption- and how I feel about adoption.
I have gotten to find that I have more questions than I do answers and I hope by blogging here I can find some answers and even more questions I am sure.

You can expect a blog soon about snynchronicities and the reunited family which is a book I am reading.

Emilie

So someone thought I should write a blog.....intro

And I guess it would be cheaper than therapy- which I think most people- having the week I have had..... would also need.

I guess I will introduce myself....

My name is Emilie. I grew up in Northern Illiniois and was adopted when I was 13 days old by my family. A teacher and a insurance salesman. They had tried for 8 years to get pregnant and waited on an adoption list for 5 of those years. My dad really wanted a girl so they got skipped over the Number one spot and then they got ME!

3 months later they were pregnant. Yes. I know- that happens alot. and 9 months following they had my brother. Their biological son. But I was chosen. Special.

So my life goes on. I always knew I was adopted. I had a file on my adoption with some information about my birth mother and father. She was 22. Old enough to know better right.

I found her through the adoption agency I was put thru when I was 20. She had had a rough life but had her own apartment and we seemed alot alike.
I had planned to go and see her then... but my amom freaked out and wanted to go along. It was not her place.... so I felt to not hurt my amom I would just not go at all.

So we lost contact and I would call her every couple of months.... or once a year. If I had gotten married, had a baby, moved. Always thinking- the next time I call she would have moved, died, gone to prison.... Something. The guilt I felt and the want to have her in my life and the confusion I felt.... well it was all too much to bear.

So in August I started calling her- regularly. I could tell something was different about her. She was guarded- who wouldn't be. The pain I caused her. Man.

But finally I broke through and we decided she was to come out around our birthdays. We were both born in October- just a few days apart. Then my son broke his femur.... and was put into a SPICA cast- which is this HUGE cast that goes from his rib down his left leg down his right leg to the knee with a bar adjoining the two legs.... oh- and there is a cut out for him to relieve himself.... which mainly ends up wherever he happens to be laying.....

I digress.... so we decided to postpone the trip a few weeks.

She is to be here November 6th. The days leading up to her arrival are full of excitement.
I am preparing the house and the room she will stay in. I have gotten gardening magazines since I know she likes gardening.... and a pair of pink fuzzy socks.... she got me socks too- odd right.

And she arrives by bus. I go to pick her up and we see each other and hug. She is a good 5 inches taller than I- her 5'11 and I maybe 5'6. She had these tall boots on to top it off and tight leggings a maroon v-neck sweater with lots of jewelry. She looked strong and rough. But beautiful.... and so much like me.
We got in my car and headed to my house. She was in my HOUSE! It was so great. Neither of us cried and it was just comfortable.... but we were both excited. We spent Tuesday at my house.... her drinking a few beers and smoking ciggerettes- going thru pictures and just hanging out.

Tuesday night we layed in her bed and we cried. I cried for the mother I never had- her pain and mine. I cried for this feeling of peace and closeness I had never felt before in my life- that I was feeling lying next to her. I cried for what seemed like hours. We talked little and we just held each other and sobbed. It was the most intimate moment of my life. The most open I have ever been. I felt real- not living someone elses reality- but home. Where I was meant to be. True.

I woke up Wednesday morning.... feeling like a new person- and for once with my life- the world felt right and I sat alone with my thoughts.

Wednesday we ran errands did a Dr.s appointment and lunch, and WalMart. She insisted on buying us some things..... and I let her.
We got home and she started to act strange. Very upset with my 3 year old son who is in a body cast. So she went outside. When I went out to her awhile later- I found her very upset and speaking very meanly about my son and my parenting. I tried to explain that he normally was not so whiny but that he was in a body cast.... to no avail. I went inside.
She came in awhile later and I tried to speak to her. She informed me she was leaving.
The confusion and pain seared thru me like a knife. What does she mean?
I tried to talk to her, with her, figure out what was going on and all she did was lash out at me. Screaming at me in an angry tone that I was a spoiled little brat. My kids were whiny spoiled brats and we were basically terrible people. She even said my house smelled like urine.
She was screaming at me and it just never stopped. It still hasn't stopped.

I can not relate all she said to me- as I am trying to forget it. But it was not nice. She took anything I had ever shared with her and stepped on it. On me.

So I left. She was obviously troubled and I got my husband to watch our home and get her to the bus station. She apologized to him - said she would call me- and she has not called me.

Her boyfriend says she does this sometimes... but he can not figure out why she would have treated me this way- as I was all she ever talked about. He was crushed and promised to stay in touch.... he has not either. She may be mentally ill, on drugs and most likely a combination of the two..... it does not make it better to my heart tho. To my soul.

This happend 1 week ago tomorrow.

I have not heard from her and I do not know how to feel.

My friends say things like- well she really was a stranger anyway.... you did not know her.... like she was nobody to me. She was everything to me.

So close.