[amy claire]

hi ray! my name is brian linton and my daughter was born on oct 5th of1974. i am despretley searching for my daughter and have been for about 12 years now. her birth mother was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and i have diabetites. i would like to warn her of these and also find her because i am getting older and i would love to see the child i so wished to keep. i have two daughter now and one has a child of her own, they have been searching for her also. they have never givin up. i would give anything to find her. thank you.

[raybuffer]

Brian,

I am not a searcher but I will help advise you if you can provide some more basic info:

What state and county was the child born in?
Do you possess her orignial birth certificate?
Have you contacted the State/Adoption Agency?
Are you registered with ISRR and the Internet based registries?
Have you looked into an organization called TIES?

Ray

[snuchida]

I given up my daughter when I was 15 years old.Well that's been almost 29 years ago.She was born in Lexington KY at St.Joseph Hospital.I was raped but I kept her until she was 8 months old.The rape consumed me and I couldn't take it anymore so I gave her up.But after all those years I regretted my decision.I didn't have any money to get a lawyer or anything.So I've been searching all these years trying to find her.The agency that took care of the adoption said her father was an engineer;the man whom adopted her.

[amy claire]

ray,

she was born in sacramento county california, and i do not posses her original birth certificate.yes i have contacted the agency and when i did they said that her file stated that the mother kept the child. that could not be true because i lived with her mother for 5 years after the adoption.yes i am registered at ISRR and no i have not checked the other one. thank you
Brian Linton

[raybuffer]

Brian,

I have not heard of this kind of situation before. What does the agency reply when you mention the 5 year relationship after the birth? Are you able to contact the birth mother and get her involved in the search? If as you say the mother and you relinquished the child, there should have been a paper you both, or the birth mother alone, signed separating your parental rights. Producing that to this agency should evoke a different response.

Once you can get them to confirm the child is no longer with the birthmother, then you can corner them into giving nonidentifying information about her placement, OR tell you if she was never placed and grew up in foster care (which would mean her name stayed the same as when she was born).

California vital statistics are available online, you should also research her birth and have all the information available (time, place, weight) for your talks with the adoption agency.

Hope this gives you a place to start.

Ray

[brenluc]

Hello,
My name is Brenda Lucas I gave up my first born for adoption 14 almost 15 years this new year in jan. I feel that i have been treated unfairly, I was promished veraberly at the time that I would recieve yearly letters and pictures, to let me know how my daughter was doing. So I signed the papers. I was 19 at the time and being forced by my parents to give my child away. I do not even recall what happened to the papaers I signed or if the aggrement of pictures and letters were wriiten in the papers, that is why I need to find my daughters records. I f there is anyway anyone can help me do this with out cost or litttle cost , I will be indebted to you. My life had an empty void and always will until I can hold my daughter in my arms again. thank you.

Brenda Lucas new member.

[Sue120281]

In reply to your question...yes I am a birth mother that is trying to find about my son that was born 12/2/81. I have been told that his records are sealed. I am trying to find information on him.
I would like to know how he is. Can you help in any way?

[becca1]

Hi Ray! I need some help/advice. My husbands' 2 sons were adopted out in NJ about 10 yrs ago. The oldest turned 18 last year. My husband really wants to see his son but the courts in NJ won't tell him anything. How do I go about finding his son for him?

[Sherri Etters]

Hi Ray,
I am a birthmother, and I am trying to find my daughter. I have been actively looking for her since she turned 18. She was born on July 17,1977 at Laurens Hospital in Laurens, South Carolina. I was 15 at this time, and my father and mother decided that this was the best thing to do. I did not know that the adoption was closed. Noone told me anything like this. I guess noone cared. I have paid to be put on the reunion register in my state. I paid to get the 7 pages of non-identifying information. She will be 26 this year. I would love more than anything to find her. I have two other children that are just as anxious to find her as I am. I can't understand why records should be kept closed after someone turns of age. If my daughter doesn't want to see me this is find I guess, But I would love for her to know that she has other family members. This would be her choice. I would not pressure her into anything. This should be her decision.
Thanks

[Sherri Etters]

I was 15 when I had my daughter. My daddy and mama decided for me that this was the best thing to do. I did not know that the adoption was closed. It was in South Carolina and DSS will not relesae anything, but the nonindentifying information that i already have obtained. I have been put on the reunion register for my state two times. it seems as though after 26 years, she would be already got in touch with me if something was going right. My luck has never been great, but I wish it would change a little bit. I have tried numerous things to get in touch with her, but nothing sems to help. Ray, if you know of anything I could do to help along the process, I would greatly appreciate your input. I will await your reply.
thanks, Sherri

[Rosalind]

Brian,

I am a birth mother from 1959, who searched and was reunited this summer.

At the time of placement, after we had nurtured and loved our babies for 6 weeks, we were told, "Get on with your life, you will forget her, never speak of this again"

What a bunch of rot, I now know. Never having met another birth mother in all those long painful years, I was unaware of what was causing these long periods of uncontrolled crying and depression.

When I started to search and needed to remember the name of the
agency. I was asked to describe it, at that moment the" floodgates of memories" opened and the years of pain and anguish flowed.

I was fortunate in that my adoption took place in the UK, where the authorities are more forward looking in their thinking regarding the information available.

With the assistance of the social worker and many friends that I met during my search I was able to find meet and hug my daughter.

I cannot describe the peace that descended upon me after that meeting, yes we look alike!!

We stay in touch though she still lives in UK and I in California.

The clothes I had lovingly knitted were never given to her, the letter I had written also.

I bear no bitterness toward my daughter only to the callousness of the adoptive mother and the system. As I have said in previous posts the amother lied both in her application and in the years that followed, but since they were a family of great wealth the agency never bothered to check.

Brian, it is my own opinion that all birth mothers have earned the right to know that their child lived and had a good life. In my estimation the adoptee owes their birth mother that modicum of respect.

In the past few months since the reunion, in a desire to "heal" I have read all that I can find on the feelings and attitudes of birth mothers, I was surprised to know that I was not unique in my pain.

In the UK , where adoptees have had access to their records since 1975 the records show that less than 4% of birth mothers refuse contact. and a similiar percentage of adoptees.

My greatest fear was always that I would die not knowing what had happened to my daughter. I can tell you it is not a pleasant thought, but thankfully I was lucky.

Rosalind

[cgrant]

How do you find out if your b/c was altered? I have a picture stating that I was 3 in Dec. 1986, but if this b/c is unaltered, i would have turned 3 april 1987. please help.

[patrisha]

Hi Ray & Janet

I am a reunited b/mom to a 33 year old son that was born in Washington DC and used the DCFF to successfully search for me.

I had been convinced early in my pregnancy that adoption was the "best" thing I could do for my child due to my financial circumstances and lack of any family support. In the later months I began to feel differently. I had filled out the original placement forms, but I knew the final relinquishment papers would not be signed until after birth so I felt I had time to change my mind.

I became ill with pneumonia in late February and was still very sick when I went into labor and delivered prematurely on a Friday in the first week of March. As soon as I held him I knew I wanted to raise him myself.

I was told my baby would require a couple of days observation and could not go home with me until Monday. I went home Saturday and with the help of a friend hastily put the nursery together and came back on Monday morning to pick up my son.

I was told when I got there (by a less than sympathetic nun) that my son had been picked up by Social Services already and that I signed the papers right after delivery. Well, I did remember signing a lot of forms but I had thought they were the hospital admission forms I couldn't sign when I came in. I went home alone & devastated.

After our reunion we had access to the original relinquishment paper(s). 2 different sets of documents were in the file. The 2nd set (and the only set containing the actual relinquishment) reflected a distinctively different signature dated months after his birth. (I was not even in the same state on the date they were signed) His "amended birth certificate" listed his birth place as a pediatric hospital that didn't even have an obstetrics ward. Even the Social Worker that acted as our intermediary could not explain these discrepancies.

Telling him I felt I had been manipulated into giving him up for adoption (vs. not by my own choice) would have sounded like a phony excuse without the black & white proof from that file.

Incidentally, even in post-reunion circumstances the original birth certificate is still not available to either of us in DC.

I guess my reason for wanting to unseal records is to expose some of the less than ethical practices of the past.

[raybuffer]

ALL: Sorry my reply is late coming, but I was out of the country for a few weeks and just returned.



Sherri,



I'm not aware of the contents of those 7 pages, but if you know the county/city in which the adoption was finalized, identifying your daughter may be a matter of cross referencing all the names of children in "Final Adoption Decrees" within a two year period of your child's date of birth, on file at the same county's courthouse with the birth records of all children born the same day as your child. The amended birth certificate will have the same name as the final adoption decree. Check to see if a birth index is available for your state, if not, vital statistic records (birth certificates or cards) may be available online or by microfilm at a department of health and vital statistics office.

It is a laborious process but this loophole makes it certainly easier for a birthmother searching than an adoptee.


Good Luck!



CGrant,

Altered birth certificates are not "extremely" common, but you could first inquire with the agency that handled your adoption, second, ask them for non identifying information in writing. Usually they will not lie in the non identifying info regarding birth date info.



Patrisha,

I am happy for your closure and your activism. It is ridiculous that you are unable to obtain the OBC. Just one more nonsensical barrier.



Rosalind:

Some more Stats for you,

Almost 15,000 adults who were adopted haverequested their original birth records from the four states with openrecords in as many years. According to "Open Records Trigger Requests by
Adoptees," by Cheryl Wetzstein, published in the January 20, 2003 edition of the Washington Times, over 80 percent of the 854 birth parents who contacted the four states (Alabama, Delaware, Oregon and Tennessee) consented to the
adult adoptees contacting them. Just 15 birth parents in Delaware have vetoed the adoptees' request for records, while 472 of 502 adopted persons have received their records.

Rosalind, I agree that adoptees and birthmothers have a mutual responsibility to provide one another with some form of closure.

Sue120281,

Tell me the city and stae of the adoption and I can pass along some resources.

becca1,

It sounds like the adoptions happened after the children were older, which may imply it was a forced relinquishment by child services/DCF, if this is the case I would start there and you may require an attorney to incourage DCF to forward a letter from him to his sons.

Brenluc:

Unfortunately many of those picture and letter clauses are voluntary by the adoptive parent to follow through on, and are usually not enforcable. Have you contacted the attorney or agency who handled the adoption? I would first try to track down the party who created the document and politely ask them to make inquiries for you remembering that they may be under no obligation to do so.



Peace,

Ray Buffer

[Sherri Etters]

Hi Ray,
Thank you for the reply, my daughter was born in laurens county. I live in clinton, but she was born in laurens,sc at the old laurens hospital. I am going to try to get access to her birth certificate at the court house, if I can get access to this information. In this state, it is very hard to get much of anything. I am willing to try anyway to find her. I have run into several dead ends, but I still keep trying.
Many thanks to you, sherri