Through the reunion registry on this website, I recently found my daughter. All the information we shared was consistent and we had several online chats that confirmed our relationship. I was dubious about contacting Catholic Charities in DC for confirmation about my daughter, who lived at St. Anne's until she was adopted, but I was pleasantly surprised when I did call and spoke to a very helpful social worker. She immediately sent out the paperwork I needed to initiate the process of unsealing our adoption records.
However - it cost $500 and up to 8 months for a "search" and we had already found each other, something she implied, although she could not confirm or deny without a court order. (In our case, since we already found each other, we decided to go the DNA route for confirmaion - a 5 day process at a lower cost.) Here's the process if you want to unseal the adoption records in D.C., based on the information received from the social worker at Catholic Charities:
1. File a motion with the court to unseal the adoption records (the Catholic Charities social worker provided the information for preparing a motion, so you don't need to hire an attorney)
2. The court appoints an intermediary - in our case, it would be the social worker at Catholic Charities who I spoke with that would initiate a "search".
3. The intermediary contacts and interviews the parties, and obtains the adoptee's and birth parent's permission to proceed with unsealing the adoption.
4. The intermediary makes a recommendation to the court.
5. The court acts upon the recommendation of the intermediary.
Again, I was very pleasantly surprised at the amount of support and encouragement - and even help - received from the social worker at Catholic Charities. It was the last thing I expected. So give it a try!
And keep checking the postings on the reunion registry - don't be put off by minor discrepancies, because some of the information could be flawed. For example, I had posted that the adoption took place in Maryland (where both the adoptive and birth parents lived at the time), my daughter had posted Virginia (where she was born), and we both were wrong because it was done in D.C. (according to the Catholic Charities social worker, who could not officially confirm or deny the relationship
). Also, I had failed to post the birth name, yet that is how I found her because she
did post it. AND, it turns out we both were posted on the registry for several years but overlooked each other because of these discrepancies.
Good luck with Catholic Charities and the reunion registry! When the timing is right, I'm sure you'll find each other. Moms and their children belong together, and I think God is helping us "fix" the mistakes of the 60's and 70's with reunions in the new century.