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Health & Fitness

Adoption Birth Records See the Light of Day

With adoptees now having access to their mysterious origins, Illinois is opening windows, unlocking doors, and shedding light.

Adoption stories are mystery plays.  They are “whodunits” that cast adult adoptees as principal investigators in search of lost souls and personal puzzle pieces.  These mystery histories compel the genetically curious to explore a plethora of circuitous paths, searching for people who are unknown, or unremembered, yet somehow missed.  They are enigmas about what it means to be a parent, to be a family, to be a “self”. 

Adoption stories are also tip-toes, egg shells, and hush-mouths.  In decades past, young expectant mothers would be surreptitiously swept away with baby cargo in tow, saving the family from shame, only to return nine months later with nary a mention of the relinquished child.  Current day taboo topics such as: infertility (“why can’t we conceive?”), family loyalty (“to whom do I belong?”), and the capacity to love (“will I love this child as my own, and will this child love me?”) elicit discomfort.  However, despite the topical reticence, questions linger.  The adoptee wonders: Where did I come from?  Why was I given up?  The adoptive parent wonders: Will my love be sufficient? Will they seek out their birth parent?  And the birth parent wonders: What has become of my child? Will they ever wish to see me? 

Operatic in form, adoption stories contain such sweeping leitmotifs as disrupted attachment (between mother and child), loss (of the mother, of the child), search (for the parent, for the child) and reunion (with those who were lost).   Some adoptees, out of loyalty or fear, never search for their birth parents.  Other adoptees search, but don’t find.  Still, others find, but don’t connect.   With persistence, determined adoptees search, find, connect, and then traverse a great deal of psychological and emotional territory integrating their experience. 

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If these stories tilt towards the melancholic, it is because the opening act of adoption begins with loss.  The original relationship, for whatever reason, doesn’t continue.  Unless the child has specific knowledge that the parents were deceased or deemed unfit, adopted children live with the tacit understanding that they were somehow unwanted.  The possible self-esteem ramifications of this are not too hard to imagine, setting a template for future psychological, emotional, and relational difficulties.  Even in the most loving, nurturing and idyllic adoptive families, adoptees still quietly wonder about the unknown other: “who else am I?”

Recognizing the medical, psychological, and emotional benefits of knowing one’s origins, the tide towards open adoption has been swelling for several years.  In Illinois, restrictions to obtaining information from one’s birth record have loosened even further.  As of November 15, 2011 adoptees born after January 1, 1946, may request a copy of their original birth certificate:

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http://www.idph.state.il.us/vitalrecords/vital/non_certified.htm 

Unless the birth parent has petitioned to have their identifying information removed, copies of birth certificates with identifying information will be granted.  For adoptees investigating their mystery histories, this is a watershed.

I recently spoke with an adult adoptee who shared how the transformative experience of discovering and meeting her biological family was life altering.  As if locating a long lost puzzle piece, the magnitude of the event was something she felt only other adoptees could truly “get”.  Seeing and meeting other biological family members who share similar physical characteristics, vocal timbre, unique talents and interests, was like recovering the long lost first chapter of a very important book in which she was the protagonist.

Question marks and puzzle pieces.  Tip-toes and egg shells.  These have long been the fabric of adoption stories.

“What became of my child?” birthparents ask.

“Will they search for others?” adoptive parents ask.

“Who else am I?” adoptees ask.

For the triadic members of adoption stories, Illinois is opening windows, unlocking doors, and shedding light.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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