Tuesday, March 20, 2012

The Declassified Adoptee: Why my [Amended] Birth Certificate is a Lie

The Declassified Adoptee: Why my [Amended] Birth Certificate is a Lie: photo © 2008 Eric Acevedo | more info (via: Wylio ) "Why would they lie?"  I thought to myself when I first saw my amended birth certific...

Friday, March 16, 2012

An Open Letter to Adoptee Rights Foremother, Florence Fisher

Dear Ms. Fisher,

My name is Amanda. I was born in 1985 and surrendered at three days old into a privatized version of foster care, destined for private, domestic, infant adoption. I am one of the thousands of adoptees whose records were sealed due to the unethical activities of adoption workers decades prior, like Georgia Tann, which activists worked long and hard to have somewhat restored to Tennessee adoptees in 1999. I held my uncensored adoption file and original birth certificate in my hands and my mother in my arms at the age of 24.

Friday, March 9, 2012

Misfit Adoptee

Square peg round hole, misfit lost soul.
Adrift, astray, and tossed away.
Banished and outcast, no history or past.
Hopeless, forlorn, on life's journey alone.
These wasted years and rivers of tears,
that flow each time I'm left behind.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Guest Author: "Conceived in Rape"

By Guest Author: "Jill"

This is Jill's original narrative that was incorporated into Amanda's post "A Reality of Domestic Violence: Coming to Terms With Having a Parent who did Something....Awful" which appeared at www.declassifiedadoptee.com on February 26, 2012.

When Amanda asked me to write about my perspective as a person being conceived in rape, at first, I didn’t feel like I was qualified.  You see, I don’t really know that I was conceived in rape; I only know that I was possibly conceived in rape.  When I found my birthmother in 2006, through the help of post-adoption services at my Agency, it wasn’t  even a thought – a possibility.  I had received my non-identifying information 20 years before and with the amount of information listed about my birthfather, I had no inkling that this was anything but a relationship between my birth parents during a time period (1960s) that it wasn’t socially acceptable to be a single parent.  Or so I thought.  That was what I was told my whole life.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Pushing for openness - Sonoma News - News 2012 - Sonoma, CA

Pushing for open adoptions - Sonoma News - News 2012 - Sonoma, CA

My beautiful sister Teresa

My beautiful sister Teresa

Teresa
(1961-2012)
Meeting and getting to know my sister Teresa was the greatest gift in my life. I met her in 1994 when I met my dad Earl for the first time. She died yesterday at age 50.
I always wanted a sister and she was the very best for the past 18 years. I will be attending her funeral this weekend and conclude BLOG WEEK "What Annoys you about the Adoption Establishment" with this post on my Split Feathers Blog. I wanted the readers of Lost Daughters to read it, too.

This is what reunion taught me:

Getting to meet siblings is life-changing.
Knowing my first family and siblings helped me go full circle on my adoption journey to healing.
Finding family who looked like me and loved me unconditionally was priceless.
I am glad I never gave up the search for my first family.
My reunion happened 16 years after I started looking for them. I don't regret
opening my adoption, despite the laws that prevented me and unwritten rules that
said I should never search because it would hurt my adoptive parents.
Adoptees, please start your search if you haven't. FIND YOUR FAMILY!
Write your legislators and tell them to open your adoption records. Contact
Soaring Angels on Yahoo Groups and get your non-id paperwork. Don't wait, start
today.
If you need my help, email me: tracedemeyer@yahoo.com.
Trace/Laura Thrall-Bland
BLOG WEEK: My beautiful sister Teresa