[sherierenee]

I lived at St. Anne's Infant and Maternity Home from January 1970 until my son was born on April 6, 1970. His adoption was handled through Catholic Charities in Washington, DC.

[Mary Lu]

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 of $375.) 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 us to prepare our own 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. 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). 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!