Senator Amy Klobuchar

It arrived in my email this morning:

For the past four years I've had the privilege of serving Minnesota in the United States Senate. It's been an extraordinary journey filled with extraordinary moments. But above all, my service in the Senate has been defined by a simple value - putting Minnesotans first.

It's something I've worked hard to do on issue after issue, case after case. We cut through red tape so that our Minnesota National Guard members would receive the full educational benefits they deserved. I helped Minnesota families bring home dozens of adopted children who were stuck in Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake there. We opened markets overseas for our farmers and opened up credit at home for our small businesses. And I pushed through tough reforms to protect consumers from unsafe products and contaminated food outbreaks. All of this has been about putting Minnesotans first.

But in order to carry on this fight, I first need to win a fight of my own: my battle for reelection next year. And this is a fight in which I need your help, because the stakes are high.

In case you missed it, I put the sentence that hit me in bold. After emailing Senator Klobuchar my concerns last year about her attempts to facilitate Haitian adoptions (with little to no regard for the ethics of the situation), she's still touting it. I know this is a form letter that is sent to all of her "supporters." But I am no longer a supporter, and this email isn't helping.

So I sat down to compose a response. I will print it out and mail it, a physical letter, later today.

Dear Senator Klobuchar,

First of all, I want to thank you for your service. I have long been a supporter and was thrilled when you were elected to the Senate almost five years ago. I know you are a hard-worker and care about the state of Minnesota.

Having said that, however, I am writing to you because of your continued support of Haitian adoptions. Though I had sent you an e-mail over a year ago expressing my concerns about what was happening in Haiti - children who still had parents alive being taken out of the country by unscrupulous "missionaries" - your response indicated nothing to suggest you shared that concern. More recently, I have begun receiving e-mails requesting donations for your upcoming campaign, emails which tout the Haitian adoptions as one of your accomplishments.

Senator Klobuchar, I would request that you do some research on adoption. Most adoptees across the country have no access to their history, their origins. Adoptees born here (except in a few states) do not have access to their original birth certificates. International adoptees have even less hope of connecting with biological family members. Indeed, many prospective adoptive parents (though not all) indicate they would rather adopt oversees so that the child will never be able to reunite with his or her biological family.

Knowledge of our histories, our traditions, our cultures of origin... all of this is essential to the development of a fully realized human being. And it is knowledge too often denied to adoptees. Your glib support of the Haitian adoption practice demonstrates a lack of appreciation of the issues really involved here. It is a form of cultural imperialism: rather than helping Haiti care for its children, you are facilitating the removal of those children to a foreign land where they have no relatives.

It saddens me to say that I will not be donating to your campaign this time around. And I will not be voting for you. I think you do good work and that you mean well. But unless you are willing to better educate yourself on the adoption issues, I cannot, in good conscience, support you as long as you push forward in this way.

I believe that you want to work for all Minnesotans. But you need to consider your actions and how they will affect the children, who are the ones most affected by adoption.

I expect it will have little to no impact. I don't like being a one-issue voter. And I don't expect the other party to put up anyone better. It's just maddening to me that, after all this time, there is so little awareness of the complexities of adoption, and the difficulties it can bring to the children affected.

Perhaps, if you know people from Minnesota, you could get them to write to Senator Klobuchar as well. Just a thought.

Parents Have Little Effect?

I wrote about this on Over A Candle, but there was more I wanted to point out that was specifically adoption related.

The story below aired on NPR's "Morning Edition" today. It is an interview of an author who makes the argument that parents don't have much impact on their kids in the long run, so parents should just relax. Once they relax, they can have more kids. I'm being brief, but that was the gist of the argument as he presented it during the interview.

The opening paragraph of the story (below) summarizes the argument. By itself, the argument would have caught my attention, but later on he explains his reasoning. He looked at adoption studies to determine that nurture had very little to do with the sorts of interests and capacities children develop, that so much of who we are is determined by genetics.

I can't help but wonder how different people would react to that? Would most adoptees say "duh"? Would adoptive parents balk or agree? Would adoption advocates be outraged? Or would everyone look at it as a entertaining, but otherwise meaningless, claim and just shrug?

I don't know. This early in the morning, I don't even know what to do with this silliness. But it struck me even in my rather tired state. And I thought I would share. You can listen to the interview at the link below.

'Selfish Reasons' For Parents To Enjoy Having Kids:

An economics professor has a plan for raising children: have lots of them, and don't stress about nurturing their potential. Bryan Caplan, author of the book Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, says that a child is helped the most if they are in a positive atmosphere.

. . .

There is a cheekily subversive tone in Caplan's book, but he makes a serious argument about nature versus nurture. He cites studies of identical twins who were adopted by different families — but then went on to live very similar lives — as proof that the influence a parent can have on their child is overstated.

Lull

In college, whenever there was a break in the conversation (which science told us happens every seven minutes), someone would yell out "Lull!" to acknowledge it. What can I say, college was weird.

My own reunion is chugging along at a steady pace. Not much happening. My mom's side is good, still glowing from Christmas, I imagine. My dad's side recedes further and further away. I haven't heard from him since I met him last summer. And his sons and I seem to have drifted a bit.

None of that is troubling to me, and I've been focusing on other things in my life. Stuff that is mostly not adoption related, and so I have felt little impulse to post here.

On a lark a couple of months ago, I clicked on Shelly's link in the sidebar to see what she has been up to. I found out she has started another blog, about her own reunion. She decided to do that because she felt as though she hadn't been active enough here to start posting, and while I would have loved to see her here, I'm glad she's got something of her very own. Because, as I snuck in there, she has embarked on her own reunion!

Indeed, she is set to meet her biological mom tomorrow! I wish her well, and I hope it is a wonderful experience for her. If you can be supportive and encouraging, please go check out her new blog: Hi, Mom. So, what's your name?

And hopefully I will get back to posting somewhat more regularly here.

Peace.

The Narrative

This morning I got up early to move my car out of the driveway so my wife could get her car out to go to work. After switching the cars around, I turned on the television. It came on to NBC and the Today show. They were discussing the case of Carlina White, a woman who had been stolen from the hospital when she was born. She had reunited with her biological family after 23 years (she had discovered the truth only when she asked her "mother" for her birth certificate).

After the initial happy reunion, Carlina has become distant from her biological family and has apparently inquired about money that her parents received in a settlement with the hospital. She has even gone back to the name she was raised with.

The Today show interviewed her biological mother. It was rather brief and perhaps superficial, though it didn't have the "gotcha" qualities you might expect on a daytime talk show. It was a difficult story to watch, sad and perhaps a bit too familiar.

As I watched, I began thinking about what others would think. How many people would connect this with adoption? Would they see the emotional ups and downs that Carlina is clearly going through as resonating with many adoptees?

I doubted it. After all, it wasn't an adoption but a kidnapping. And there are allegations that she was abused. Thus we have an easy explanation for why she is now behaving the way she is. She was raised in a bad situation, by people who didn't really love her. The popular view of adoption would suggest that if she had been raised in a loving home, things would be fine now. Thus there is no take-away for adoption in this story.

That's the narrative. That's what our society believes. We have made a concerted attempt to de-stigmatize adoption. It's not just that families formed by adoption are just as good as families formed by biology; we seem to need to believe that there are no differences between the two.

Adoptees who are troubled by aspects of their history are thus no different than other children who grew up in troubled homes. Such adoptees must have something wrong with them. Either their adoptive parents did not do right by them somehow, or something happened in utero to screw them up. Most adoptees are perfectly well-adjusted with no issues at all surrounding their adoption.

Again, that's the narrative.

That's what needs to be changed. It is not my intent to re-stigmatize adoption. It is not my intent to speak for all adoptees. Everyone's experiences are going to be unique. But there are a lot of commonalities among many adoptees. And it speaks to the complexity of adoption and the feelings it may provoke from those who experience it firsthand.

We would like adoption to be a simple good. It solves a problem of providing children with a home, and we want to believe we have done right by those children. Understanding the complexities of adoption requires challenging that simplistic view of the situation.

For the sake of all adoptees, we need to change the narrative. Not to pathologize adoptees. Not to stigmatize adoptees. Not to treat adoptive parents as somehow less worthy. But to recognize that there are issues and complexities that many (though perhaps not all) adoptees (and parents, both biological and adoptive, as well as other family members) will have to deal with.

We are arranging families. We can sugar-coat that however we like. We aren't stealing babies the way that Carlina was stolen. But we are taking a child from one family and grafting it into another. If we aren't willing to face up to the possible repercussions of that, we ought not do it at all.

It's time to change the narrative. It is well-entrenched, however, and it will take time. Still, we owe it to every child we claim to do this for.

Christmas 2010

Cross-posted from Over A Candle.

Ronni and I hadn't been sure where we would spend Christmas this year. We toyed with the idea of staying home. In the end, we opted to visit my biological family in Missouri.

United Airlines, though, had other plans. Apparently, last week, Chicago had bad weather. Not bad enough to cancel flights, but enough to delay flights. We got delayed in Fargo, but our connecting flight was also delayed, so we thought we were okay. We finally got to Chicago, and waited around for our flight to Springfield. At the last minute, I got a call from United cancelling our flight and rebooking us on a later one.

So we trekked back across O'Hare to the new flight. Upon arrival, we found that the gate agent was at lunch. So we waited in line for half an hour. When she finally arrived, she informed us that we had been rebooked. For the next evening. I have never liked O'Hare, and I certainly didn't want to spend more than 24 hours in the place. So I asked if other airlines were flying to Springfield. Only American had another flight.

After lots of phone calls and being placed on hold, we managed to get a flight on American that would get us to Springfield before midnight. The gate agent told us that we couldn't retrieve our luggage, but that it would be going on the next flight to Springfield, arriving shortly before we would.

Further delays put us in Springfield after midnight on Wednesday morning. Sure enough, our luggage was nowhere to be found. The first flight on Thursday, we were assured. You can guess that it didn't happen. My luggage arrived at the end of the day on Wednesday, and Ronni's came in Thursday morning.

All of this confirms my initial opinion: I hate Chicago. If I never fly through O'Hare again, it will be too soon. I don't know why I thought this would be any different than every other time I've tried to fly through Chicago.

Still, upon arrival in Springfield, we had a very nice time. I didn't care about the luggage thing. I was just enjoying our visit. It was crazy and chaotic, and simply fun.

I woke up early Christmas morning, and sat with my brother Rick watching the tree while our mother slept on the couch. She eventually woke and we all sat talking quietly in the glow of the Christmas lights.



The stockings had been hung. Not by a chimney, but with much care. And one for everyone who was going to be there.



Soon people were up, and we chatted while waiting for Santa to pass out gifts. Ronni, Audra (Ben's wife), and my brother Chris had the arm chairs.



Rick, his girlfriend Katy, and my brother Ben were on the couch.



Other people were wandering about, in the kitchen, sitting at the table, or just grabbing seats where they could.

Gifts were opened, and Rick had given mom a wonderfully soft dragon blanket.



Of course, the star of the day, mom's new cat Pepper, had his own version of Christmas.



Naturally, no get together would be complete if Ben and I weren't hamming it up together.



Needless to say - but I'll say it anyway - a good time was had by all.

The next day, very early, we were up and flying back to Chicago on our way home to Fargo. Thankfully, Chicago seems to only take it out on me during one direction of my flights. Going home was smooth, and even our luggage arrived on time.

I missed my family in Ohio this Christmas, but we had a lovely trip to Missouri.

Gifts

I am sorry for the long absence here. My life imploded in many unusual and nasty ways in the last five months. Things are getting better, slowly, and I won't go into all the details here, but they are getting better.

Earlier today, something kind of funny and cool happened, and I wanted to share it. This is the only place I really can safely share it at the moment, so I figured it was time for a post.

I am visiting my biological mom this Christmas. Despite Chicago's best efforts to prevent us, we got here very late on Tuesday night. Our luggage arrived, in stages over the last 26 hours. But we're here, and it is good. Actually, it is great. This is the least stressful Christmas I think I've ever had. It is affirming in ways that are hard to describe.

This morning, that validation took a very concrete form. My mom told one of my brothers that I had brought presents for people. His response, as she reported it later to me, was something along the lines of: "Even grandma? What do you give the bitch that made your mom give you up for adoption?"

My jaw about hit the floor. My mom thought it appropriate to share with me, my brother had the insight to see the issue, and I felt surrounded by people who had some small insight into everything I had gone through. It was amazing. And has provided me a source of chuckling ever since.

I'm the first to recognize that my mom's mom isn't really there anymore, so it's hard to be mad at her. The person who had a role in my adoption has been gone since before I met her. And I don't harbor a lot of resentment now. Still, it meant a lot to me that he would say that, that he would have some inkling of the emotional quagmire that this is.

Even before my mom told me, this has been a wonderful visit so far. That just pushed it over the top. I feel really lucky this holiday season.

Difficult Decisions

I know that this is National Adoption Month and National Blog Posting Month. But I just don't have the energy to try to write two blogs every day this month. Even though I still feel ire when I hear about National Adoption Month. I just don't have that much consistent writing in me at the moment.

But I also feel guilty that I've let this blog slide so much in the last couple of months. A lot has been going on, and I have no intention of baring it all here, but it's been kind of a roller-coaster.

And it probably isn't over yet.

Tonight we made travel plans to visit my wife's family over the winter holidays. But we didn't make plans to visit my (adoptive) family, which we usually do just before or just after the trip to my in-laws. This will be only the third time I haven't made it home for the winter holidays in my 40 Christmases on the planet.

I'm doing this for me. I'm trying to assert what I need a little bit more. This isn't easy for me. My sense of responsibility and obligation to others is pretty high. I'm not trying to punish anyone in my family, and I hope that they aren't hurt by my decision. But I need this, just this one time, if no other, that I do what I need to over the holidays, rather than what I think others need me to do.

We may visit my biological family over that time period. We may not. Depends on weather, on cost, on if the schedule works for everyone. But if not, we may just spend Christmas at home with our cats. Which is also something I'd really like to do.

Whatever happens, I'm scared of the aftermath of this. I haven't yet told my parents I'm not coming. I don't know how they'll react. But I'm trying to take care of myself just this once. We'll see how it goes.

In Support of OBC Access

If all the hand-wringing amounts to just that - hand-wringing - then isn't it time to give all adoptees the same access everyone else has?

The Self

I try not to cross-post between here and Over A Candle too much. But because of the adoption themes inherent in this post, and because I know not everyone who reads here reads there, I thought I should share this in both places.

I have, for many years, considered getting a tattoo. I knew that, if I got one, it would have to be a rune. And because runes play so deep a part of my spirituality, I could not trust just anyone with doing the art. It would invariably have an impact on my own spiritual life. So I needed someone I could trust.

Unfortunately, I never really met anyone I got to know well enough who also did tattoos. So I sat on the impulse for over a decade.

Earlier this year, I saw an episode of Flashforward where a woman had a Japanese character tattooed on her wrist. It occurred to me then that I should get a rune tattooed on my wrist.

But I still needed someone to do it, and I needed a design. At first I thought I would have just a simple character, but I realized I should get something a bit more unique. I did look at designs online, and I found one or two I liked, but I wasn't sure I wanted the runes I was finding (including Eihwaz, the rune for defense). I liked them, but I wasn't sure.

Earlier this week, I finally decided I needed to get a rune tattooed. It was time, and I had to do it. But I still needed a design. When I began thinking about it a couple of months ago, a friend had offered her services. This is a good friend from the online adoption community I'm a part of.

I told Devon what I wanted. The rune for the Self, Mannaz, seemed the only real choice for the tattoo. I showed her a picture and told her what it meant. Then I gave her almost no direction in designing a stylized version of the rune.

Here is how Ralph Blum describes Mannaz in his work The Book of Runes, which I have used as a resource for more than twenty years. The following are the opening and closing paragraphs from Mannaz's entry (in the upright position):

The starting point is the self. Its essence is water. Only clarity, willingness to change, is effective now. A correct relationship to your self is primary, for from it flow all possible correct relationships with others and with the Divine. . . .

If you take the Rune of the Self and cut it down the middle, you will see the Rune for Joy with its mirror image. There is a subtle caution here against carelessness. The dancing acrobatic energy of balancing is called for now - the Self is required to balance the self. Nothing in excess was the second phrase written over the gateway to the temple at Delphi. The first counsel was Know thyself.

With almost no guidance, but for a few comments on early drafts, here is the final piece of artwork that Devon came up with for me.



There is a lot of meaning in this for me. The first thing I noted in her original draft was the wooden look of the various stems of the rune. It seemed natural, made of twigs, and that look really appealed to me. That is preserved in the final artwork.

More, though, on the first draft, she already had the wrapped joints. I couldn't exactly say at the time why they appealed to me, but I can now. It looks to me as though the rune is actually several parts joined together with twine. I do think that does wonderful job representing the different parts of myself, bound together, but not fully united as a single whole. My Self is made of various elements. Notice, too, that the central wrapping binds together Wunjo, Joy, with its mirror opposite, as Blum suggests in his entry. Devon didn't know this when she created the piece, but her bindings were perfect.

She then mentioned to me that she was thinking of adding roots but worried that it could be offensive in some way. It was the whole adoptees not having roots thing that she was thinking of, I believe. But I liked the idea. My Self, cobbled together as it is, still has roots. So I encouraged Devon to add them, to see what they looked like.

She added roots to both the top and the bottom, but we agreed that it was a bit too much. She took them off the top, and I knew she was on to something. A couple of changes to the proportions of the legs and the width of the rune, and you see the final product.

When she sent me the picture above, it was a text message on my phone. And I knew immediately that she had given me the design I had long wanted. It was perfect. She had gotten everything so perfectly... I was in awe. I immediately wanted to show everyone. Heck, I wanted to go out and get the tattoo that day.

But I had to wait. She needed to hook her scanner up so that she could send me a clean copy. That happened Thursday. But I was too busy with other things Thursday to go to the tattoo parlor. So Friday, I went almost as soon as it opened at noon.

I guess Friday the 13th was good day for tattoos. The parlor was packed. I went up to the counter and showed them the artwork Devon had created for me. The guy thought that going smaller would lose too much detail. But a woman behind the counter immediately took an interest and set up and appointment with me for later in the afternoon.

I left for a few hours to pass the time. I was anxious to get the work done, but I managed to wait. Barely.

When I returned to 46 & 2 Tattoo, Stephanie had me fill out some paperwork and then ushered me into her chair. We discussed how it should go on my wrist, and she convinced me that, rather than going up or down the arm, it should be sideways, so that I could look at it upright, and also show it to others.

She shaved my arm and placed the ink trace on my arm. After discussing the process, I sat down and she got to work. It didn't hurt much at all. I don't know if I have a high tolerance or if I have few nerves on the inside of my wrist, but it was an easy twenty-five minutes.

As she worked, she talked to me. She asked me if my mom knew that I was getting this today. She said that she asks everyone, no matter how old they are. I said that she didn't. Then I remembered I had mentioned it to my biological mother, so I said that, actually, she did. And then, in a fit of the weirdness that happens to me as an adoptee, I explained that I have two mothers, and one of them knew.

She then said, much to my surprise, that she was an adoptee, too.

Seriously. I mean, come on. There is a way this whole thing was unreal. She talked to me about my search and reunion. She asked me about my relationships with all my different families. She mentioned that she was from Kansas (one of two states that never sealed records) and had gotten her information five years ago, but had yet to actually search.

I knew, somehow, that this was right. In Devon, I had found the perfect person to design my tattoo. And in Stephanie, I had the perfect person to actually ink it into my skin. Sometimes, the universe will have its way with or without our planning.

I know you're probably wondering by now, so here it is...



Now I really want to take excellent care of this. I want it to look good for years to come. I think the lines are even sharper in person than in this picture, but this gives you a pretty good idea what it looks like.

I cannot stop looking at it. It's a beautiful piece. Thank you to Stephanie for doing an amazing job. And thank you especially to Devon for designing exactly what I wanted.

Confirmation and Loyalty

Even while so many things seemed determined to fall apart... Okay, now I'm not owning my own agency... Let's try again...

Even while I seem so determined to torch so much of my life, this seems to be the week for validation.

Yesteday I had a long, and long overdue, talk with my best friend in the whole world. If my (biological) mom understands me so well because we are so alike, this friend understands me because she has been with me through so much. She has known me for over twenty years, and she has seen me at my worst. Repeatedly. And she is still my friend despite all of that.

We talked about a lot of things, but at one point we turned my search and reunion. I mentioned that my reunion had brought up a lot of things for me, including anger at my adoptive parents. I felt sheepish even saying it, but I was trying to explain everything to her. She immediately jumped in and said she was so glad to hear I was finally angry. She confessed that she had been angry at how my parents had failed me ever since she first met me. She seemed to think it was about time.

That took me aback. I think I had long worried that my anger was a product of my search and reunion, that that process had colored my perceptions of my childhood. Hearing from her that the problems I had come to see were really there, were evident twenty years ago, reassured me that it wasn't just that the reunion had changed my view. Rather, it allowed me to see things that had always been there. That was very therapeutic for me.

And yet, I still struggle with the loyalty piece. I still feel as though I owe my parents something. I still feel compelled to visit as often as I can manage and to be the good and happy son and adoptee. I don't want to be that, anymore. I don't think I CAN be that anymore. Somehow, I need to break that cycle. And I am working on it.

It amazes me how healing it can be to feel validated by people that know me.

Kindred Spirits

I have been going through a really rocky time. I don't know what my life will look like when I come out of this. Right now, it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I'm trying to find that end, trying to find my way out.

At my wife's encouragement, I called my mom, my first mom. I was scared. So many times, I have tried to talk to people, and I have seen them run away, or dismiss me, or just fail to understand. I have faced ridicule and judgment. And I was afraid, too, that she might be disappointed in me. I'm pretty sure I could handle disappointment from almost anyone else, but not her.

But I didn't want to fall into the same patterns with her that I have with almost everyone else in my life, so I found some courage to talk openly and honestly with her.

And she was kind. And she listened. And she told me stories to make me laugh. And she gave me advice. And she understood.

It is impossible, I think, to explain just how meaningful that is to me. We are so similar, down to the mistakes we make and why we make them. Every sentence out of my mouth, it seemed, she understood because she was that way, too. To know that there is one person on the planet who gets how I think, and thinks it's normal, and who has been through it enough to be able to give me some guidance...

I don't feel okay right now. But I feel better than I have felt in a very long time. To know that she is out there, that she accepts me, that she loves me, despite everything, or maybe even because of it... It is the best thing that I could have at the moment.

I like feeling special and unique. I imagine many people do. But sometimes, I just want to know that, even if I am crazy, I'm not the only one. Tonight I know that.

She said, tonight, that more she knows me, the more she knows me. And I knew what she meant. For those that need a translation... The more she learns about me, the more she sees just how alike we really are, and she can understand me more and more by thinking about herself. And it's true, for me, too. In finding her, I've found myself. I can understand myself a little better because she is here as a model. And she seems to know exactly what I need to hear to feel a little better. I don't know if I've ever had that experience in my life.

Even while my world seems to be falling apart around me, my mom seems to be a solid point for me to hang on to. And that truly is a gift. To have someone who is insane, just like me.

Louisville Protest Video

One more bit from the Louisville protest a couple of weeks ago. A YouTube video from still photos (including some taken by yours truly) has been put together by the organizers. I wanted to share it with everyone who might be reading here.



Please go view, comment, and add the video to your favorites.

That's it for the moment. I'm sure that details on next year's gathering will begin trickling out soon. Until then, you should go the Adoptee Rights Deomnstration website to see how you can help.

Trust

Spending time with my fellow adoptees the past few days was amazing. It's hard to know, even, how to explain it to someone else. Being around people who get it, really truly get it, is so freeing and validating. It allows me to be myself in a way that I don't often get to be.

Yet, trust issues don't go completely away. It's frustrating, really. I'm around people who have shown nothing but kindness and compassion to me for years, and I still worry that they don't like me.

I mean, I know they like me. But part of me feels foolish around everyone, and it doesn't go completely away. I worry I've said something stupid or offensive. I don't think I did, but that feeling wouldn't go completely away.

It's so hard to believe people might like me. I don't know why. Maybe because I have never felt like I could be myself, and now I worry that being myself would mean being someone others don't like. I suspect that doesn't make much sense. But for whatever reason, I struggle to believe that people like me and want me to be around.

I don't want to feel that way around other adoptees. And I did feel more comfortable around them than around nearly any other people. But moments of self-doubt did creep up now and then. They were moments of frustration in what was otherwise one of the best weekends of my life. I just want to trust people more. If anyone deserves it, it's my fellow adoptees.

The Louisville Protest

Yesterday, adoptees, first mothers, and other supporters marched to support equal rights for adoptees. In case you haven't picked up on it yet, adoptees in forty-four states are not allowed access to their original birth certificates. Every year they gather at the National Conference of State Legislators for the protest. This year that meant going to Louisville.

The night before, we made signs for use in the march. Much fun was had by all.



Sunday morning, we began to march to the convention center.



There was a lot of energy and excitement as we marched.



We got to talk to a few legislators on their way into to register for the conference.



But I would be lying if I said it wasn't hot. It was. Very. Everyone was committed, but we needed breaks from marching.



We were told not to sit on the wall, though, so we took our breaks in the park across the street. The heat index was supposed to be around 110, and it felt like it. By the end of the day, we were all pretty tired. But we were happy for what we had accomplished. Literature handed out, news interviews, people talked to, and awareness raised.

The party afterwards suffered from a lousy restaurant. Extremely poor service and a failure to provide adequate space marred an otherwise wonderful day. But once we quit the restaurant, several of us hit a nearby pub and enjoyed ourselves immensely.

The only downside to the whole event, for me, was how quickly the time passed. I didn't feel like I had enough time to visit with friends. Being surrounded by these people was both empowering and comforting. It was almost like a two-day long support group with a healthy dose of activism thrown in.

I originally did not plan to go next year, as San Antonio in late July is not my cup of tea. But now I don't think I can wait any longer to see this group of people. I wish I was still there. So now I'm going to try to find a way to make it again next year.

And I look forward to the day when we don't need the demonstration anymore, and we can just plan a weekend party. But until then, I cannot imagine a better way to spend two days than protesting with my fellow adoptees.

The Day Before

We left by eleven to drive to the Adoptee Rights Protest in Louisville. It looked to be nearly a five hour drive, but that still got us there by four. Plenty of time to check in and eat before the sign-making party.

Plenty of time, that is, if nothing went wrong.

Twenty minutes down the road, and the engine maintenance light came on. We pulled off at a nearby gas station, and I checked everything I could, which basically consisted of the oil level and making sure the gas cap was on correctly. But neither seemed to be the problem.

There is something so typical about this, that I wasn't even surprised. Indeed, I think I would have been more surprised if nothing had gone wrong. It seems that lately all of our trips have some kind of snafu.

This was my grandmother's car, so we called my father, hoping he would tell us that it was normal for the car and we could ignore it. But it wasn't to be. Instead, he offered to switch cars with us. He drove down to meet us, letting us take his car, as he drove the other to get it checked out. (Turns out, it was the air filter.)

So we were back on the road, and on target to get to Louisville by five. The rest of the trip went smoothly and we found the hotel without a problem.

We met other adoptees almost immediately. First it was Theresa, then Jeff. There is something so cool about meeting other like-minded people, especially ones you have such great admiration and respect for.

We were starving and thought we had enough time to eat before the sign-making party. We found an interesting looking Irish pub, and it would have been perfect if the service had been timely. As it was, we got to the party about half an hour late.

I think I colored in one sign over the course of the next two hours. It was too hard to do that and meet people face-to-face who I had known forever online. Jeni, Kara, Julie, Dory, Joy, Elizabeth, Linda, Jim, Diane, Cheerio, Amanda, Spencer... I'm sure I'm forgetting people, but it was so much fun.

At the end, there was a brief workshop for how to talk to legislators. Gaye and Jeff did a terrific job. As a student of strategic nonviolence, it was fascinating to hear others employ the principles in a real training session.

After that, there was much drink to be had. Maybe too much. Though, for me, I'm usually so shy around other people, it may have helped loosen me up a bit, so I actually managed to talk to people. (I hope not too much. And I hope I didn't say anything too stupid.) We had a blast. We had been told the hotel bar closed at ten, but I think the bartender realized how much money there was to be made and stayed open until midnight.

I wish even more of my online friends had been able to make it. There is just something so amazing about meeting some of your favorite people on the planet.

And in just over an hour, we'll be gathering to go do what we came here to do.

Green Shirts

In just over four days, my wife and I will be driving to Louisville. We're going to visit my adoptive family in Ohio, but we're taking a couple of days out of our visit to go to the Adoptee Rights Demonstration. I still feel a little a residual guilt over taking time away from visiting my family, but I'm trying to ignore it. I hope they understand, but whether they do or not, I need to do this for me.

In preparation for attending the demonstration, I bought us green shirts to wear at the protest. I think this is my sixth shirt emblazoned with an Adoptee Rights message. I can't have enough.

I am really excited to meet more of my fellow adoptees face-to-face. The visit I had with several of them last winter was terrific. And getting to meet so many more, while demonstrating for adoptee rights... Well, that's just too cool.

If you want your own green shirt, you can buy one at Cafe Press: The Green Shirt (just be sure to select Kelly Green as the color).

Hope to see you in Louisville!

New Open Records Report

The Evan B. Donaldson Institute released its latest study on granting adoptees access to their original birth certificates. The summary is below. You can click on the title to read the whole report.


FOR THE RECORDS II: AN EXAMINATION OF THE HISTORY AND IMPACT OF ADULT ADOPTEE ACCESS TO ORIGINAL BIRTH CERTIFICATES

Authors: Dr. Jeanne A. Howard, Susan Livingston Smith, and Georgia Deoudes.

Published: 2010 July. New York NY: Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute

For the Records II: An Examination of the History and Impact of Adult Adoptee Access to Original Birth Certificates" is based on a years-long examination of relevant judicial and legislative documents; of decades of research and other scholarly writing; and of the concrete experiences of states and countries that have either changed their laws to provide these documents or never sealed them at all.

The Institute's report suggests that, while a growing number of states have restored OBC access to adopted people once they reach the age of majority, efforts to accelerate the trend have been impeded by misunderstandings about the history of this controversial issue, misconceptions about the parties involved (especially birthmothers), and mistaken concerns about the impact of changing the status quo – e.g., legislators often assume that negative consequences will occur but, in fact, they do not.

Among the findings in the 46-page Policy Brief, which updates and expands the Institute's November 2007 report, "For the Records: Restoring a Right for Adult Adoptees," are:

• Barring adopted adults from access to their OBCs wrongly denies them a right enjoyed by all others in our country, and is not in their best interests for personal and medical reasons.


• Alternatives such as mutual consent registries are ineffective and do not meet adoptees' needs.


• The vast majority of birthmothers don't want to be anonymous to the children they relinquished.

The recommendations in the Institute's new Policy Brief include:

• Every "closed" state should unseal OBCs for all adult adoptees, retroactively and prospectively.


• States that already provide limited OBC access should revise laws to include all adult adoptees.


• No professional should promise women anonymity from the children they place for adoption.

Pieces of the Puzzle

My wife asked me, as we drove home Saturday, if it felt good to have all the pieces of the puzzle now. Never one to answer a simple question simply, I had to clarify. I don't think I have all the pieces of the puzzle.

Meeting my father was the last step. I can't imagine what more there is. Sure, there are some extended family members to meet, but that's not what I mean. I have the pieces. I can even see how they fit together, I think.

But, for me, there will always be some serious what-ifs. They can't be answered. I can speculate. I can contemplate. But I'll never have those answers.

And I'm okay with that, I think. That doesn't mean I won't ever wonder, but I'm okay with the realization that I'll never have the complete picture of my life because of adoption. Some of those pieces are lost, gone forever.

I know there will be drama. If my adoptive dad ever finds out about meeting my biological father, he may feel hurt. If my biological father wants to have a continued relationship, that could lead to issues. But overall, I feel rather comfortable with what I know and where I am right now.

I'm sure that means something is going to go wrong now, but I'm a pessimist that way.

The short answer, then, is that I do feel like I have a kind of peace and satisfaction with my reunion as it stands. I may not have all the pieces, but I have so many more than I did when this started. And that is a good thing.

The Reunion That Almost Wasn't

My biological father and I very nearly did not meet. And I was ready to throw it in. I actually still feel a little conflicted about it all.

I didn't meet him yesterday as I expected too. When I first talked to one of his sons, he explained that my father wanted to meet me alone, before meeting me with the rest of the family. So I thought we would meet and then meet with his sons for dinner.

When I finally got in to meet with him, I heard from my brother that my father was busy during the afternoon, and wanted to meet me today for breakfast. So I just met my brothers and their families yesterday. We had a good time.



My brothers explained that my father would call me this morning for breakfast.

Nine o'clock came and went, and I began to figure that he wasn't going to show up. So I went to breakfast with my mother before coming home. Just as we started to wrap breakfast up, one of my brothers called and told me that my father wanted me to call him.

I have to admit, I didn't want to. I had driven half a day to meet him. And he bailed. He refused to talk to me directly, preferring instead to go through my brothers. And now he wanted me to call him to meet. I know he was feeling guilty, ashamed. I get it. But how many hoops would I have to hop through to deal with this?

I very nearly just left. Part of me still thinks maybe I should have. But I did the least I could do. I asked my wife to call him, tell him where we were, and tell him we were leaving in twenty-five minutes. If he wanted to meet, he had that long to get there. He said he would be there in ten to fifteen minutes.

So we waited. And waited. My deadline came and went. I decided, for some reason, to give him five more minutes. He should have been there fifteen minutes earlier, and he wasn't. The last five minutes passed, and we got up to leave. We were out the door when we ran into him and the older of his sons.

We turned around and went back into the restaurant. We talked for about forty-five minutes. It was a good conversation, if not terribly deep. I'm not entirely sorry I stayed. And maybe I reassured him that I wasn't mad about something that had happened forty years ago. I don't know when I'll see him again, though he seemed open to continuing to stay in touch.

After everything, I very nearly didn't ask for a picture. But at the last possible minute, I did.



All of this happened less than twelve hours ago, and I had a long drive after that. I'm still decompressing. But I did, finally, meet my biological father.

Eve

In less than 24 hours, I should be meeting my biological father and my two brothers on his side.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous. And that's putting it mildly.

It feels a little like the spinning in my stomach before my first reunion three years ago. I don't know if they will like me. I don't know if I will like them.

But I will know the answers this time tomorrow. Stay tuned.