Ungrateful Little Bastard

So this Italian dude on the shores of Babylon

2010-09-10T21:44:00.001-04:00

started all this fun wireless stuff, letting me blog en route to Memphis.

Yanno, that plaque isn't entirely correct. I know this because me and Guglielmo, we go way back to 4th grade reading. Out-loud reading was always a death grip fear for me, because of my stuttering. My assignment one day was a two paragraph blurb about the G, and that's how I know the first American Marconi station was on Cape Cod.

It was really important to me to get that out-loud reading assignment correct, so I poured over it for days, practicing "Guglielmo" until it was as smooth as honey. I liked saying that name because I was told I was half-Italian, so I imagined Guglielmo the grandfather of one of my likely suspects. I wanted to be related to him because I thought he had nice eyes and because he did something cool.

I practiced, and practiced, and practiced, and finally on the assignment day I read my paragraphs without a single stutter, extremely proud of myself over my correct Italian pronunciation of his name. At the end, Sr. Bernard said, "That was very good, Theresa, only his last name isn't Macaroni, it is Marconi" and everyone in the class laughed and that's why I hate adoption.

Anyway.

I took that picture yesterday, my last day on my Long beloved beloved beloved to the point of nauseum on this blog Island. I didn't get out the door as fast as I would have liked due to some unfortunate irritating-me-immensely-and-holding-me-up drama which seems to be my lot in life. The fact that I would so very much like to have a quiet life yet always seem to have anything but leads me to believe I somehow share the same character defects as this guy. But, I am out and just one more day's drive away from my new home.

Yes I cried, of course I cried, how could anyone not cry to leave a town named Babylon, there is no more perfect name in all of America, and a wonderful name of a place for any bastid to reside. As at one time or another we're all assumed from some idiot to be offspring of prostitutes, or thankfully rescued by adoption from being whores ourselves, to live in a town whose name is so closely tied with promiscuity is beyond perfect. Although my internet time is limited, I have seen more than a few "destined to be a teenage prostitute" posts from some particularly odious rescuer-minded adoptive parents over the past few weeks, waxing repulsive projections of the futures of their adoptlings had they not blessed them with adoption.

I know those kind of projections piss you off as much as me, so to make you happy instead, I wanted to let you know that when you cross the border to Tennessee, across from the welcome station is a building shaped like a guitar, but someone should really cut those trees back so you can get a better look at it.

I was able to google 'building shaped like a guitar tennessee' when I got to the hotel thanks to my friend G-Macaroni. That's how I found out this cool building was once the Grand Guitar Museum in Bristol, TN which claims to be the birthplace of Country Music. Next time I blog, it will be in the birthplace of rock 'n roll. I don't like country music as much as I like rock or wireless, as a matter of fact I don't like country music at all, but I think it's funky nevertheless that this birthless bastid left one American birthplace for another.

Wireless, country, rock and me. None of us have birth certificates, but we're all still here anyway. Give me a little bit to get settled in, and I'll be back soon.

Oh and by the way, speaking of births of a sort, one thing I must must do once settled....

It's only a day-trip away. You so know I'm going. I must must must make a field trip. I mean, c'mon. You just don't see shit like this up in Long Island.

I'd never star on the show "Hoarders", but

2010-09-02T14:35:00.000-04:00

damn, we've got a lot of crap.

I've got an incredible amount of roughly abused furniture I'm giving away.

You can't have the good new stuff, that's coming with me.

But if you're:

on Long Island
strong enough to haul this shit out of my house
have a van or truck or other vehicle big enough to transport said shit

you can take my shit. Hit me up babygirlm1963 at yahoo.com. Emails are forwarded to my cell because I'm l33t like that, so I can get back to you.

"I've always been into things from China"

2010-08-26T08:01:00.000-04:00

Via sfgate.com

In a scene near the end of "Wo Ai Ni Mommy," Jeff Sadowsky explains that Faith had recently asked him, "Why would you want a daughter from China?" His explanation: "Well, I've always been into things from China. I guess, from the martial arts -- I've always been -- I love China." Donna quickly steps in to course-correct: "I told her, 'I wanted a daughter, and you needed a family. We didn't see you as being Chinese, we saw you as a beautiful girl who wanted a family.'"

Uh-huh.

There can be only one

2010-08-25T15:05:00.001-04:00

Originally posted at AAAFC, reposting here because moving makes me cranky and bitching is good for the complexion

Via email:

Dear Theresa,

I am working for the communication department of (retracted because I'm being nice) and I am currently opening an account on its behalf on Twitter. I found out that the name ULB was already taken and I allow myself to contact you just to check a few things with you. I would like to know what the name ULB means to you because I haven't seen any connections between this acronym and your name or your activities on adoptee rights. We would like very much to use this name as it stands for our (retracted because I'm being nice). Do you think it might be possible that you give it to us? I know it's quite a strange request but I'd rather ask, just in case it is possible. I thank you in advance for your concern and look forward to hearing from you.

And my reply, because I wasn't feeling so nice:

ULB is a name I have used for a long time and is very much known in the adoption blogging community. While the Twitter feed may be sporadically updated now, it's my identity. No, you can't use it.

Seriously... asking an adoptee to give up their identity?

Not cool.

For the importance and reclaiming of acronyms, be sure to visit Addie, who not only KAD's as a NCFA, she'll also kick my ass if I don't get my reunion piece into her Pieces of Reunion book.

Did you get yours in yet?

Traumatic for real kid to witness tossed adoptee, adoptee just fine

2010-08-24T22:04:00.003-04:00

The Independent in the United Kingdom reports on the un-humanness of adoptees.

In "Adoption: How I lost my little sister", Michael Bywater shares a traumatic memory of witnessing what we already know too well: the discountability of adoptees.

In the article, he recounts a stunningly clueless exchange with writer and shrink Susie Orbach, who in one line pretty much says it all:

"I had another sister once," I said. "They sent her back."

For once, the studio – normally a civil sort of a bear-pit, everyone anxious to say their piece – fell silent.

"I was ... three and a half? Four? They adopted a baby. I remember her name. Beverley Henderson. 'This is your new sister,' they said. And then after a few weeks – I don't know how long in reality – she was gone. They sent her back. I never saw her again."

After the broadcast, walking to the lifts, Susie Orbach said: "You know what I said about coming to see me? Forget it. We've got to the bottom of it, on-air. No wonder. What a thing to do to a child."

"Send her back?" I said.

"No. She was probably fine. I mean to you. To give you the idea that it could happen to you, too. That you could be sent back. For no reason. Just ... sent back."

This falls into the adoptees are magic category. The same sort of magic that tells pregnant women in childbirthing classes how important it is not to separate from their newborns after birth, but that it's A-OK to do it to us.

I do think it was a traumatic thing that Michael Bywater witnessed. I have no doubt it probably terrified the shit out of him in ways he can't even articulate. But worse still is the underlining message - adoptees, unlike really kids, do not deserve the same compassion and consideration as the real.

Save $$$ and pay CASH to purchase a baby!

2010-08-21T12:06:00.000-04:00

Via @jaeran on Twitter

Financial advice and frugal tips so you too can pay CASH for your next Healthy White Infant! (Product code: HWI)

We Paid Cash! Our Adoption

Better Off, Better Smile

2010-08-20T02:12:00.000-04:00

Just go watch, seriously.

Better Off, Better Smile

This is Not a Legal Record

2010-08-18T07:47:00.000-04:00

Please take a moment to visit Real Kid / Bastard Spawn Extraordinaire, Nathaniel Christopher.

I first ran across Nathaniel years ago on YouTube, when he posted a video response to one of Kali's vlogs about his own horrible treatment trying to get his deceased father's adoption records.

Over the past three years, Nathaniel has posted a series of vlogs on his legal battles between Alabama and Georgia. Even though Nathan's father was born in an equal access state, he was adopted in Georgia, resulting in a complicated back-and-forth red tape, fork-over-the-money journey between the two jurisdictions.

September, 2007 Nathan in Alabama

December, 2008 Georgia: Let me have my father's damn adoption records, now!

July, 2010 Adoption records unsealed after nearly 70 years!

Genealogy is a popular hobby. For the nonadopted. Genealogy is seen as a fun pastime. For the nonadopted. In fact, Genealogy is soooo popular that over 1 million real kids worldwide are forking over anywhere from $13 to $30 per month at Ancestry.com to stay up way too late stalking dead people.

But when we want to do it, it's seen as pathological.

Unfortunately that same bias is passed on to our kids too through the magic of adoption. They should feel content to trace their adoptive family tree, and not wonder about their own family history. Some children of adoptees are saddled with the same conflicting loyalties we are between their adoptive grandparents and their own curiosity or need for truth.

But some real kids just won't shut the fuck up, earning them the esteemed title of Bastard Spawn in the League of Adoptee Superfriends.

Congratulations Nathaniel, and thank you for being so ungrateful.

Monday is "Contact Chairman Oliver Day" for Adoptee Rights

2010-08-16T06:51:00.002-04:00

Via Pennsylvania Adoptee Rights News Blog. Please repost freely.

Monday is "Contact Chairman Oliver Day" for Adoptee Rights

Call/email/mail Pennsylvania House of Representatives Health and Human Services, Chairman Oliver, on Monday please! This is of vital importance that everyone who can contact him does.

Why? We need HB 1978 to get a hearing in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Health and Human Services Committee. HB 1978 is a 100% clean access bill. If it becomes law, as-is, it will streamline Vital Services in PA. Adult Adoptees will be able to walk into Vital Statistics just like everyone else and get their Original Birth Certificate with no restrictions.

Your email/call/letter shouldn't take more than a two sentences. Tell him you support HB 1978 and tell him to give it a hearing!

-------Contact Info-----------------

Hon. Frank Louis Oliver (Chairman)
34E East Wing
PO Box 202195
Harrisburg, PA 17120-2195
Phone: (717) 787-3480
Fax: (717) 783-0684
foliver@pahouse.net

Do you live in Philadelphia County? YOU are HIS constituent. Let him know that!

-------More Info-----------------

Read the bill

check us out at http://www.adopteerightspa.org/

An Emotional Response to Graphic Violence

2010-08-14T20:50:00.005-04:00

As Chief Grand Free Web Services Thingy Finder Person for the Adoptee Rights Demonstration (I used to be just Chief Free Web Services Thingy Finder Person but I gave myself a title upgrade this year), part of my volunteer duties involves finding free web services thingies. For the protest, you know, in case you couldn't tell.

Last year for Philly, we wanted to put together a slideshow promo, and came up with the DENIED video that was easier than stealing identities from children. The idea behind the DENIED video was to get people to put forth the faces of normal, every day adults who through no self-selected behavior on their part, are denied equal treatment under law. The DENIED stamp was ugly and scaring, yet effective.

Let’s look back!

After the video, some mothers wanted their faces stamped too, something that could be used to show both solidarity as well as make a statement against something that was imposed on them without their consent. Some ideas were batted around. My personal favorite, the digital erasing of mother’s faces, was voted out in favor of a stamp that followed the same theme - simply stamping CONFIDENTIAL.

Over the past two protests I’ve stamped face

after face

after face.

While the actual act of stamping is quite easy, the emotional effect isn’t as straight forward.

Obscuring someone’s image with a glaring red stamp can be draining when done mindfully of the great malice aforethought.

Because is it not malice, pure malicious maliciousness in all it’s glory, to impose confidentiality on someone without their permission, desire or consent, and then use that same person to justify and blame sealed records on? What could be more malicious than telling another adult human being that they are not entitled to their own identity, rationalize their identity theft by the possible reproductive choices of future women, willfully and while all the time making quite the profit?

If that’s not malice, I don’t know what the fuck is.

Don’t ever doubt that the sealed and stolen identities of the DENIED, or the unwanted CONFIDENTIALITY inflicted on American mothers, is nothing less than a graphic act of political violence.

The audacity, arrogance and presumptuousness of those who oppose restoring access and then turn and hide behind the skirts of the same women they profited off of when they were paid a legal fee to seal their children’s identities is mind-boggling.

Frankly, it makes me quite cranky.

I’m actually writing this blog post halfway through the stamping of a mother I adore, and obscuring her face made me break down and cry. The adoptee images make me angry, but the ones from the mothers eat at me. Especially when they send me pictures of themselves before they got pregnant. I see young women about to be exploited and used by a system run by those with full knowledge of what they were about to do to them.

It’s a long road to the San Antonio protest, and the wrapping up of Louisville will take weeks if not months. While the administrivia takes place in the background, internet memes like the DENIED photos keep the protest alive in the ever-brief attention span of the web.

Take a peek or two or three at the DENIED album over on Facebook, and if you’d like your photo included please send a picture to AdopteeRightsCoalition@gmail.com.

Also, while doing an export from the old fan page to the new one, some images got lost. If your photo isn’t included, just give a yell. As my solemnly sworn responsibility to do free web services thingies, I’d never deny you the chance to be DENIED.

Support Adoptee Films

2010-08-13T13:33:00.000-04:00

I'm burdened with writer's block recently.

I've tried a number of times to write a post asking you to please consider two adoptee film projects, but I just can't get the words out.

Thankfully, the National Council for Adoption came to my rescue, with a fundraising letter template that is very easy to use. After all friends, the NCFA is no stranger to knowing how to raise the big bucks.

So here goes:

Dear Friend of Adoptees,

At ULB, I believe equal access to original birth certificates is everyone's birthright, yet there are those who actually oppose adoptees and and try to shame us for our belief in equality. In fact, the anti-adoptee industry is frantically fund-raising overtime to counter our mission to end discrimination.

What can you do to stop this negativity and anti-adoptee bias?

You can make an urgent gift right now of any amount to support adoptees trying to promote the truth through film-making. Adoptees are frequently the subject of films, yet our voices continue to remain unheard. Please support these adoptee filmmakers help spread the truth.

You can STOP the discrimination and anti-adoptee efforts: DONATE NOW to help support adoptee voices in film-making.

With sincere thanks for your support,

Ungrateful Little Bastard,
Legend in my Own Mind

If the attempts of the NCFA to raise more money have pissed you off, don't get mad, get donating!

Two projects that could use your support:

All My Life... Adoptee Rights and Civil Liberties
What if our government kept a sealed record on your identity? Birth records are public information to most of the population, but to a few like myself, are sealed because we are adopted. Currently, I have no legal right to my original birth record, unlike every other person in New York State.

All My Life… “A Working Title” is a documentary that focuses on my own efforts to discover who my biological parents are. Nine years of endless searching has brought me nothing. I have spent thousands of dollars on private investigators, posted up and down the internet, and even approached strangers, all in an effort to find my biological family.

My whole history is contained in a manila folder, thirteen barely legible pages contain everything I know about my parents. When I was a child I would pour over those documents trying to get a picture or a feeling of what I am or who they were. I, like other adoptees, have always felt like something was missing. A piece of me is gone.

This documentary will focus on the stories of adoptees and the efforts to unseal records for all adult adoptees. It will also highlight a portion of our society that people know very little about. The end goal for this film is to raise awareness, update the public health laws and finally help me discover who I am.

All My Life… is the first feature written and directed by Jason Darnieder, and produced by Flower City Media.

~~ and ~~

Sponsor 'For the Life of Me' on Public Television

OPPORTUNITY! You can become a sponsor of For the Life of Me and support its broadcast on public television this fall!

We are trying to raise $6,800 for station placement, outreach, tracking, close captioning and an HD version for broadcast. You'll be listed on the website as one of our premiere sponsors - but more importantly, you'll be supporting the broadcast of the film to help educate communities about why adoption reform is so critical.

You can either pay online (at this link), or you can send a check to:

Jean Strauss/Silver Tandem Productions
2300 Glenna Goodacre Blvd. #4325
Lubbock, TX 79401

Jesuit-trained Lapsed Catholic School Bad Girls Rule

2010-08-10T22:51:00.001-04:00

Growing up Catholic fucking rocks. Going to Catholic Elementary School, that fucking rocks too.

But the crowing jewel of them all, is being taught in a Catholic Elementary School by Jesuits .

Sorry weekend CCD-class kids, but we're all another level entirely above you. (I put that wiki link to CCD there for those of you not lucky enough to grow up Catholic.)

One of the many benefits of being Jesuit trained is you got an edge. Not only do you know the parts of the bible that they made into movies like any other Catholic, you can do some Protestant-type bible verse quoting too.

Which sometimes comes in mighty handy. When the moment strikes to pull out a quote, well, it's like the shining hand of God.

The Lord spoke to me recently, when apropos of nothing*, I was shocked to receive an invitation to none other than the National Council for Adoption's Bow Ties and Pearls Gala Event.

How honored. Me, little old me. And what a mighty bargain, sports fans. Only $300 a pop to celebrate separating families!

Sadly though, I needed to decline. Things are a little tight around here, you know, recession and all. So I RSVP'ed no. But I wanted them to know the Lord was always in my thoughts, so I sent my regrets with a bible verse. I can't think of any better analogy for modern day infant adoption - or the NCFA's treatment of mothers.

Matthew 7:6
Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

Funny... they removed my bible verse from the RSVP page.

I think the Lord just isn't in their hearts.

Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam, bitches.

----

*that is a total lie, it was totally apropos of something, but I'll tell it in Penance (again wiki-linked, for you non-Catholic school heretics)

Sweetness

2010-08-09T11:47:00.001-04:00

I will never get to writing about the Louisville Adoptee Rights Demonstration, but that's cool because so many other people already have.

A picture speaks a thousand words though, so this is what I have:

Adoptees

Mothers of adoption loss

Adoptive families

Partners, families and friends

Christians Atheists

Liberals Conservatives

Anti Adoption Love Adoption

And everything in between.

For one week, just focused on one thing.

With so many grown children, I am a master manipulator

2010-08-09T00:00:00.000-04:00

I could just ask you nicely to sign the new Pennsylvania Adoptee Rights petition, that sends an email to the primary sponsor of a naughty, naughty bill. I could just say, even if you're not in Pennsylvania, would you please sign?

But that wouldn’t be any fun.

Behold my awesome powers of guilt tripping:

Do you really care about adoptees the way you say you do, if you won’t take 2 minutes to send an important email?

http://bit.ly/9OLsZx

How can you be my friend on Facebook, if Farmville is more important to you than I am?

http://bit.ly/9OLsZx

If you don’t sign this, I’ll feel worthless

http://bit.ly/9OLsZx

Sign it or web 1.0 kitteh dies

http://bit.ly/9OLsZx

Remember that time you asked me for that favor? And I did it?

http://bit.ly/9OLsZx

There are worse things you can do than not signing this, I guess.

http://bit.ly/9OLsZx

I know who cares by their names.

http://bit.ly/9OLsZx

It’s no big deal, really, just the most important legislation there is to me.

http://bit.ly/9OLsZx

Your lack of action concerns me, what did I do to make you hate me?

http://bit.ly/9OLsZx

Your kid was born in PA, right? It’s such a shame so few people care about her.

http://bit.ly/9OLsZx

Not signing makes Baby Jesus cry.

http://bit.ly/9OLsZx

Petitions by Change.org|Start a Petition »

Pennsylvania Adoptee Rights URGENT ACTION NEEDED--Help us Defeat HB 1968

2010-08-07T09:46:00.002-04:00

Reposting via PA Adoptee Rights News Blog. Please repost freely. And please help.

URGENT ACTION NEEDED--Help us Defeat HB 1968

Dear Advocates,

As you may have known, there were two bills in the Health and Human Services Committee that seek to change the portion of adoption law that governs an Adult Adoptee's access to identifying information.

HB 1968 is the BAD bill. HB 1978 is the GOOD, equal rights, bill.

Unfortunately, despite all of our outpouring of support for HB 1978, it is still sitting in the HHS Committee. HB 1968, on the other hand, has made its way out of committee and is now before the PA House of Representatives for consideration.

It is of utmost importance that HB 1968 be defeated. HB 1968 not only does not change the current law much at all; it actually makes it worse. Worse even yet, should HB 1968 pass, we worry that legislators (1) will believe that the law is improved when it isn't and (2) won't want to re-address this issue and portion of law, and will leave HB 1978 to die in committee.

We cannot let the law get worse with HB 1968. We cannot let HB 1978 die.

We have created a call-to-action made available HERE.

In the call-to-action you will find:

(1) the text to the bill

(2) bill sponsors to contact

(3) a guide letter to assist those who are new to contacting legislators in drafting letters and emails.

(4) ways to help PAR and defeat HB 1968

(5) our Position Statement of Opposition to HB 1968 to give you an overview on the bill and why we oppose it.

For more information, please see
http://www.adopteerightspa.org/

Slideshow of images from the Louisville Adoptee Rights weekend

2010-08-05T10:01:00.000-04:00

Reposting via AdopteeRights.net

Here’s our slideshow!

Please visit YouTube to view the video at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z8ZzvayL4U

The same old request applies!

1.) Give it a thumbs up

2.) Save it to your favorites

3.) Leave a comment

Thank you!

I just love this Itty Bitty Bastid

2010-08-02T07:45:00.000-04:00

Adoptees Fight for Access to Original Birth Certificates
Monday, August 02, 2010

There are between six and eight million adopted people in the U.S., and the vast majority of them will never have access to their original birth certificates. All information on their birth parents is sealed. For decades, several advocacy groups have been trying to change this, claiming that humans have a right to own their own histories.

Today, original birth certificates are widely or entirely available to adult adoptees in nine states (including in Kansas and Alaska, where they were never sealed). In about a dozen other states, some adoptees can get access to their birth certificates if they were born before a certain date. Additionally, lawmakers in at least eleven states are currently considering the issue.

But there are opponents from groups as diverse as the ACLU, New Jersey Board Association, New Jersey Right to Life, and Catholic Charities who are fighting to keep original birth certificates sealed. Among their arguments: that opening records would violate the privacy of birth mothers; and that without anonymous adoption available, more women will choose to have abortions.

Tom Snyder chairs the family law section of the New Jersey State Bar Association. Over the past several years, he's testified before the New Jersey Senate subcommittees and Assembly subcommittees, lobbying against the New Jersey Adoptee Rights Bill, which would open records sealed decades ago.

Diane Crossfield is an adult adoptee from Kentucky who's been trying to access her original birth certificate for over twelve years. She's also one of the of the founders of the Adoptee Rights Coalition, which fights on behalf of adoptees, birth mothers, and adoptive parents who believe that original birth certificate records should not be sealed.

We talk with both of them about the impacts opening original birth certificates records could have on adoptees and those who are touched by adoption.

Please visit and leave a comment. 6:49AM is an ungodly time to be up and on the radio.

http://www.thetakeaway.org/2010/aug/02/adoptee-access-original-birth-certificates/

Good legislators get candy

2010-07-23T00:18:00.002-04:00

Even bad legislators, they get candy too.

Anyone who comes to our booth, we'll sweeten 'em up.

See you in Louisville, I'm outta here.

And all I knew was you

2010-07-16T18:27:00.002-04:00

She's a lot like me.

It's girly-girl girls weekend at the beach condo.

They drink a little too much, laugh a little too loud, and stay up way too late.

She takes the girls to concerts this weekend. It doesn't matter that the "girls" are all in their late 30's and early 40's, it's still a girl power kind of thing.

This year they're seeing The Moody Blues. 5th row center. Damn.

She loves doing this for them. I know how she feels. I remember the Warped Tour years, and how it felt to be the cool parent. I wouldn't mind still doing it, it just doesn't get any better than taking a group of your family to a concert.

This is an annual event. No boys allowed. All the girly girls in the family go.

Except me.

I get to watch via Facebook.

Honestly, it's hard to believe I'm related to these people. After all this time, they still don't know to edit their privacy settings?

Jackson Adams of the Illinois Times is one cool dude

2010-07-15T09:02:00.001-04:00

Now just look what he's gone and done:

Birth records opened, but not enough

Adoptees criticize new law for protecting anonymity of birth parents

Michelle Edmunds knows the problems that adoptees can face gaining access to their birth certificates. She was born in Illinois and currently lives in Toronto and wanted to retrieve her birth certificate after her mother died. When she attempted to access the document, she was told that she would need to prove her mother’s death with a death certificate in order to receive her birth certificate. However, she was unable to gain access to the death certificate without proving that she was her mother’s daughter, something she could only do with her own birth certificate.

Go on along now, check out his article, please....

And if you're on Twitter, a RT would make you cool too.

Sit Up, Shut Up, and Suck It Up

2010-07-11T11:28:00.000-04:00

A must read review of "Wo Ai Ni Mommy".

By the end of this raw "journey", the adoptive parents (at least temporarily) got exactly what they wanted, and the adoption system intended...an Americanized "daughter" who has completely shut herself off emotionally through disenfranchised (disallowed) grief.

Head on over now.

The endless question

2010-06-29T23:23:00.000-04:00

For once, asked by someone who really wants an answer.

Yahoo Answers is truly the home of the brave, and you gotta wade through the muck and the mire. But every now and then, cool people like this who really want to learn, they make my day.

Adoptees, what did your parents do wrong?

Up next on listener-supported radio, two straight white dudes discuss growing up African American lesbian

2010-06-29T07:20:00.000-04:00

Fellow listeners, lend an ear, and then perhaps spare a moment to ask WHYY two individuals, neither mother nor adoptee, were chosen to discuss adoptee equality and the myth of "birthmother confidentiality".

Adoption and Open Birth Records

Monday, June 21st, 2010

There is a bill before the New Jersey assembly that would give adult adoptees access to their birth records. While adoptees argue that they have a right to this information, others say that the privacy rights of the birth parents should be protected. This hour, we'll debate this issue and look at the growing trend toward openness in adoptions. Our guests are University of Pennsylvania law professor Anita Allen and the executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, Adam Pertman.

LAST CALL FOR HOTEL RESERVATIONS!

2010-06-26T08:32:00.000-04:00

Reposting from AdopteeRights.net. If you don't make your reservations by Tuesday, you'll be forced to sleep with me. And I snore.

The Hampton Inn Louisville is sold out for the week of the NCSL Convention!

There are still rooms available in our group block, but the end date to make your reservation is Tuesday, June 29th. After this date, you will not be able to get a room at the hotel.

For details on our discounted rate group block, visit

http://adopteerights.net/nulliusfilius/?page_id=177

Go visit Claud please

2010-06-17T08:23:00.000-04:00

Free CDs for Adoptee Rights

Please vote for ISRR at Chase Community Giving

2010-06-16T07:32:00.001-04:00

Seriously. Nothing makes me crankier than seeing adoption agencies with more votes than the great-granddaddy of the adoption community.

Just in case you're new to adoptionville and not aware, The International Soundex Reunion Registry (ISRR) is the world's oldest and most successful free mutual consent registry. ISRR is a non-profit mutual consent registry dedicated to reuniting adult family members separated by adoption, divorce, or other dislocation. It is a 501(c)3 tax exempt non-profit reuniting families since 1975 and supported by individual contributions.

Chase Bank is giving away $5,000,000 to local charities:

One charity will receive $250k
4 runners-up will receive $100k
195 others will receive $20k

Please take a moment to vote for Soundex, spam your friends and family. And you can grab this nifty badge while you're at it:

Just in time for adoption camp!

2010-06-10T14:41:00.003-04:00

Send your adoptling away for the summer with the doll that reflects everything you want in her!

AdoptShoppe's "Shoe String Babies" adorable multicultural dolls are missing the one item that causes you the most grief from your adoptee - her mouth.

Sweet little Amanda can't ask questions about her adoption, and neither will your child after receiving this precious reminder of all she needs to be grateful for.

Order now - supplies are limited, as is your patience.

PA Call to Action HB 1978

2010-06-01T07:58:00.000-04:00

________________________________________

**FORWARD FREELY**

________________________________________

A Pennsylvania Adoptee Rights Call to Action

End Adult Adoptee Inequality in Pennsylvania

Promote Adoptee Rights in PA, Help PROMOTE HB 1978

HB 1978 is a bill pending in the House of Representatives Health and Human Services Committee. It impacts the portion of law governing the right of Adult Adoptees to access their Non-Identifying and Identifying information. HB 1978 says that upon reaching adulthood, an Adult Adoptee will have the right to request either one of their birth certificates (the Amended or the Original) under the same law (Vital Statistics Law), for the same price, and by the same process as every other Pennsylvania Citizen. HB 1978 is the Adoptee Equality Bill. Read the bill here.

5 Ways to Take Action and PROMOTE HB 1978 Now!

1. Contact Legislators: Make sure legislators know that HB 1978 needs a hearing and needs to pass un-amended and in its current condition.

a.) Contact your Representative and make sure they know you support this bill.

b.) If your Representative is not already a co-sponsor, please ask them to become a co-sponsor.

c.) Contact the members of the Health and Human Services Committee and tell them that this bill needs a committee hearing and that it must pass the committee hearing un-amended and in its current condition.

Contact information for these Representatives will be provided at the bottom of this document.

2. Brush Up on the Issue: It is vital to approach a legislator prepared in order to keep our bills clean, on topic, and from addressing other issues not related to Adoptee Rights. Adoptee Rights is about the Basic Human Right to identity and the Civil Right to equal treatment under the law. We lay out Adoptee Rights arguments, the rebuttals to common misconceptions, and provide links to documents, court cases and research to help you explain this important cause. Check out our education page found here.

3. Follow us on Facebook: Do you have a Facebook page? “Like” our page, found at http://facebook.com/adopteesrightspa. Invite everyone on your friends list to “like” our page too. It doesn’t matter if they do not live in PA or if they are not directly impacted by adoption. Anyone who is interested in or a friend of Adoptee Rights can “like” our page and by doing so, show legislators the interest that there is in our cause.

4. Join Our Mailing List: Facebook is one way to follow us but we also have a mailing list which is a great way to get urgent calls to action right in your email inbox. Have your name counted as a member of our organization by joining our mailing list at our Google Group page found here: http://groups.google.com/group/AdopteeRightsPA.

Legislator Contact Information

To find your legislator, please visit the PA General Assembly website and enter in your ZIP code in the “Find Members” search box in the upper right-hand corner. For more information on each legislator in the House of Representatives, please visit our spreadsheet.

House of Representatives Health and Human Services Committee:

(Majority)	(Minority)
Hon. Frank Louis Oliver (Chairman) 34E East Wing PO Box 202195 Harrisburg, PA 17120-2195 (717) 787-3480 Fax: (717) 783-0684 foliver@pahouse.net	Hon. Matthew E. Baker (Chairman) 108 Ryan Office Building PO Box 202068 Harrisburg, PA 17120-2068 (717) 772-5371 Fax: (717) 705-1835 mbaker@pahousegop.com
Hon. Tim Seip (Secretary) 115B East Wing PO Box 202125 Harrisburg, PA 17120-2125 (717) 772-5771 Fax: (717) 780-4759 Tseip@pahouse.net	Hon. Seth M. Grove (Secretary) 52-A East Wing PO Box 202196 Harrisburg, PA 17120-2196 (717) 783-2655 Sgrove@pahousegop.com
Hon. John Myers 305 Irvis Office Building PO Box 202201 Harrisburg, PA 17120-2201 (717) 787-3181 Fax: (717) 772-4038 jmyers@pahouse.net	Hon. Karen D. Beyer B14 Main Capitol Building PO Box 202131 Harrisburg, PA 17120-2131 (717) 783-1673 Fax: (717) 787-9463 kbeyer@pahousegop.com
Hon. Eddie Day Pashinski 27A East Wing PO Box 202121 Harrisburg, PA 17120-2121 (717) 783-0686 Fax: (717) 772-2284 Epashinski@pahouse.net	Hon. Bryan Cutler 147A East Wing PO Box 202100 Harrisburg, PA 17120-2100 (717) 783-6424 Fax: (717) 772-9859 bcutler@pahousegop.com
Hon. Ronald G. Waters 328 Irvis Office Building PO Box 202191 Harrisburg, PA 17120-2191 (717) 772-9850 Fax: (717) 783-1516 rwaters@pahouse.net	Hon. Mauree Gingrich 430 Irvis Office Building PO Box 202101 Harrisburg, PA 17120-2101 (717) 783-1815 Fax: (717) 705-2569 mgingric@pahousegop.com
Hon. Jake Wheatley 311 Irvis Office Building PO Box 202019 Harrisburg, PA 17120-2019 (717) 783-3783 Fax: (717) 780-4753 jwheatley@pahouse.net	Hon. Katie True 7 East Wing PO Box 202041 Harrisburg, PA 17120-2041 (717) 705-7161 Fax: (717) 705-1946 ktrue@pashousegop.com
Hon. Louise Williams Bishop 326 Main Capitol Building PO Box 202192 Harrisburg, PA 17120-2192 (717) 783-2192 Fax: (717) 787-2960 lwbishop@pahouse.net	Hon. Kerry A. Benninghoff 41B East Wing PO Box 202171 Harrisburg, PA 17120-2171 (717) 783-1918 Fax: (717) 260-6528 kbenning@pahousegop.com
Hon. Vanessa Lowery Brown 330 Irvis Office Building PO Box 202190 Harrisburg, PA 17120-2190 (717) 783-3822 Fax: (717) 772-2384 Vbrown@pahouse.net	Hon. Gene DiGirolamo 49 East Wing PO Box 202018 Harrisburg, PA 17120-2018 (717) 783-7319 Fax: (717) 772-2414 gdigirol@pahousegop.com
Hon. Mark B. Cohen 128 Main Capitol Building PO Box 202202 Harrisburg, PA 17120-2202 (717) 787-4117 Fax: (717) 787-6650 Mcohen@pahouse.net	Hon. Nicholas A. Micozzie 105 Ryan Office Building PO Box 202163 Harrisburg, PA 17120-2163 (717) 783-8808 Fax: (717) 783-0688 nmicozzie@pahousegop.com
Hon. Paul J. Drucker 323 Irvis Office Building PO Box 202157 Harrisburg, PA 17120-2157 (717) 705-2003 Fax: (717) 772-2943 Pdrucker@pahouse.net	Hon. Douglas G. Reichley 5 East Wing PO Box 202134 Harrisburg, PA 17120-2134 (717) 787-1000 Fax: (717) 705-7012 dreichle@pahousegop.com
Hon. Thaddeus Kirkland 320 Irvis Office Building PO Box 202159 Harrisburg, PA 17120-2159 (717) 787-5881 Fax: (717) 787-9074 tkirkland@pahouse.net	Hon. Katharine M. Watson B16 Main Capitol Building PO Box 202144 Harrisburg, PA 17120-2144 (717) 787-5452 Fax: (717) 783-8934 kwatson@pahousegop.com
Hon. Kathy Manderino 125 East Wing PO Box 202194 Harrisburg, PA 17120-2194 (717) 787-1254 Fax: (717) 780-4770 Kmanderino@pahouse.net
Hon. Barbara McIlvaine Smith 121A East Wing PO Box 202156 Harrisburg, PA 17120-2156 (717) 705-1922 Fax: (717) 780-4778 BSmith@pahouse.net
Hon. Tony J. Payton Jr. 308 Irvis Office Building PO Box 202179 Harrisburg, PA 17120-2179 (717) 787-1354 Fax: (717) 780-4789 Tpayton@pahouse.net
Hon. Ken Smith 28B East Wing PO Box 202112 Harrisburg, PA 17120-2112 (717) 783-1359 Fax: (717) 780-4757 Ksmith@pahouse.net

Prepared by Pennsylvania Adoptee Rights Advocates, , amanda.woolston@gmail.com, June 2010

PAR Advocates promotes openness and truthfulness in adoption practice and the right of Adult Adoptees to access their Original Birth Certificates without condition.

It's adorable to be a brood mare

2010-05-27T11:53:00.001-04:00

Banal, stupid and insipid people -- they are everywhere.

No place is this more apparent than Facebook.

And when the banal, stupid and insipid get together, they make fan pages.

A lovely new one getting attention is "Birth Mom Missions", where the debate between those who are just turning cartwheels with joy over giving away their babies and those who feel a little less gleeful about the whole thing is heating up.

But really, just how much can you debate with a mother who lists this little nugget as a shining moment of adoption bliss:

"And your (sic) gonna love this one....my daughter was adopted into a fam with a little boy already...he called me "the baby maker" and he wanted to see if I could make him another one too. I thought it was adorable...cause it was. In the non-politically correct world of a child, it was just as he said it was. He got a sister he always wanted, that was all that mattered to him. And I am glad."

I will never, ever, ever blog again

2010-05-16T09:19:00.000-04:00

Nah, I lie. I always lie. I can't help it.

I just wrote that because in every single blog post I write something along the lines of oh I so hope to get back to blogging soon! and then never do. I mean it's been what, two months since my last post!?

There's so much going on, and I don't even have the energy to blog about it. Just a lot of loss, and the loss has been very loss-y, more loss for any human bastid to endure, really.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that sitting in front of my monitor is a chore for me now. I used to adore what I did for a living, and even though I was in my office many days 12, 13, 14 hours, I loved it so much I had tons of energy. Now, once I'm done with what I need to do on the computer, I just can't stand to sit here any longer. The thought of blogging just makes me grimace, and that causes wrinkles.

So I'm hoping that since I kept posting about how I'd blog soon and never did, perhaps blogging that I'd never ever ever ever ever ever ever blog again would kick my ass.

Oh - that and the fact that I wanted to direct the attention of whatever readers see this to Michelle's blog, because she has a book review I wanted you to read:

Book Review: Trace A. DeMeyer - One Small Sacrifice: Lost Children of the Indian Adoption Projects

Please go check it out, and then please go purchase the book. And if when you do purchase it, don't be like me and think, "This is an important book so I want to have undivided time to read it", because life won't cooperate with you. Make the time to finish it, like I'm going to do today. I have time because you know, I'm never blogging again.

So remember

2010-03-14T16:24:00.000-04:00

a few months ago when I was all oh-boo-hoo-hoo I never want to leave Long Island I love it here oh-boo-hoo-hoo

Lovely Island Living

I take it back.

Hope everyone else is staying dry.

Next Long Island Adoptee Meetup - Saturday - March 27th

2010-03-10T05:30:00.000-05:00

If you're on the Island, c'mon down.

Click here to check out
The Long Island Adoptees Meetup Group!

Chase Chenowith to Produce "The Hidden Heiress"

2010-03-06T12:15:00.004-05:00

Via EInsiders.com

Chase Chenowith to Produce "The Hidden Heiress"
Award-winning Producer Terry Chase Chenowith (Undertaking Betty, Shortcut to Happiness and Beautiful Dreamer), under his Back Fence Productions banner, has signed on to produce the film version of the book “THE HIDDEN HEIRESS” written by Ellen Miller and Terri Scaletta based on Miller’s life.

The script, to be written by award-winning playwright and screenwriter, Elaine Romero, is based on Miller’s incredible story of being stolen at birth and given to an adoptive family. As a young adult, she is told that her birthmother was the mistress of a rich, powerful man and that Miller’s bloodline extends back to the wealthy elite of America and Hollywood. Upon hearing fantastic stories of her past, Miller begins a 40-year quest for answers--only to be met by lies, deceit and threats everywhere she looks.

“’The Hidden Heiress' is an incredible read" exclaims Chenowith. “Ellen and Terri take us on a wild ride of self-discovery and intrigue.Elaine Romero is a gifted writer, as well, and I can’t wait to make this film.”

Please head over to EInsiders.com and leave a comment

Going Home

2010-02-28T23:48:00.017-05:00

I know it seems like this blog has turned into !! All Adoption Videos !! All The Time !! lately, but honestly it's just because there are so many films to write about. Also, it's lazy blogging. Embedding a YouTube clip is easy. And I'm busy, dammit!

So, here's the latest, a film I've written about before and finally got a chance to see today. I had very much wanted to see it when it played at the Rhode Island International Film Festival last August, but I was still recuperating from the Philly protest.

Also be forewarned, I suck at film reviews. Actually I don't even review them. I just totally personalize films to my own life. If you want a serious review of this film, head on over to Sang-Shil Kim's place -- she's got a great one posted and a good discussion going on in comments too. This blog post, it's going to jump all over the place and be shamelessly self-referential. Although I have to say when I came home tonight and pulled out the notes I had scribbled down in the movie theater, many of the points I wrote were items she had noted too. I had forgotten her review when I was there, and it was kinda cool to see many items had the same impact on me when I went back to read hers tonight.

The film, which seriously needs more attention in adoptionville, is

Going Home by Third Cat Productions

Directed by Jason Hoffman.

Produced by Mikyung Kim

Lazy blogging trailer spot here:

Equally lazy cut and past synopsis follows:

A 21 year-old Korean adoptee, Jason Hoffmann, was raised Jewish in New York City. This documentary about family, love, and bloodlines exposes the challenges and triumphs of locating Jason's roots and birth family in Korea.

As a child, Jason barely expressed any interest in his Korean heritage. But as he grew into a young adult, he became more curious. Jason summons up the courage to initiate contact with his birth mother, and without knowing whether face-to-face meetings are even possible, he takes a chance and travels to Seoul.

Jason can only hope to meet his birth mother, father and his 23 year old sister. According to documents from the adoption agency, neither his father or sister even know that he exists. With the documentary's producer/his girlfriend, Jason undertakes a life-changing journey in a foreign culture full of uncertainties and surprises to discover the meaning of family.

This is a really really important film for a number of reasons, one being the ages of the director and the producer -- 21. Yeah, 21. This is an incredibly hardcore serious tear your heart out production done by people who, when I was their age, damn, I was a hot mess. I found myself during the entire film doing a compare and contrast of my own adoption journey (or lack thereof) at the same age.

Like this ---

Age 20: De-fog. Get a call from someone at Adoption Forum of PA (now defunct) telling me to get my ass in gear because soon I may not be able to get my birth certificate. Action taken: nothing.

Age 21: Finally decide to get my ass in gear and get my birth certificate. Discover that haha joke's on me, now I can't get it because the records sealed. Oops. Action taken: Re-fog for 4 years.

I just kept wondering how many years of grief and aggravation I could have spared myself if I had been a little more with-it, a little more motivated, a little less lazy.

But anyway.

Seeing a real adoption film in a real movie theater was a first for me. There's nary an adoption documentary I haven't seen yet, but so far every one has either been in the privacy of my home or in the presence of other adoptees in one of their homes. Seeing a film like this on the big screen is an entirely different experience -- the darkness of the theater, the hypnotizing effect of the big screen, and -- WTF - the reaction of other moviegoers.

Yeah, the reaction.

I must confess, it irritated me. OK granted the theater did not seem to have a large population of we shiny special chosen ones in attendance, so the nonadopted experience and take on things is obviously going to be different than an all-adoptee audience, but there were times I found myself mightily agast at what people were laughing at. I felt the scenes where Jason was struggling with language to be almost unbearable to watch, and yet these got laughs from the audience.

Erg. Not cool.

Also the opening and closing scenes were a nursery with infants. Disassociate in 3... 2.... 1. Scenes like these I find horribly triggering. A sea of babies in an orphanage represents to me despair, hopelessness, economic injustice and a sea of tears, yet this got a uniformed "awwww" from the attendees. Yikes. There were other really emotionally fragile parts during the film that got laughs from the audience, which seriously made me doubt deeply the empathy of the American public, or at least the New York film festival-attending population. Thankfully there were a few other adoptees in the audience I was able to speak with briefly after the film who noted as well how uncomfortable the laughing made them.

The film has been shown so far at a number of festivals, but where it really needs attention is a round of adoption conference circuits. Barb Lee's "Adopted" has been shown at all of them, and it would be very interesting to do a back to back with "Going Home" and "Adopted". Now, I'll preface the next part by saying it's completely not fair to take tiny snips of someone's appearance in an adoption documentary and do a complete judgment on them.

But I'll do it anyway 'cause I'm shallow like that. For karma payback, check out my fat ass on either one of documentaries filmed last summer in Philly and judge away.

As I was saying, I think it would be great to compare these two, especially the reactions and responses on the part of the adoptive parents portrayed in the film. I very much appreciated something Sang-Shil wrote, where Jason's adoptive father took the time to actually ASK him what he wanted their role to be in all of this. Also something I found to be very gentle was during the scene where Jason learns his original mother's name, there's a brief glimpse of his adoptive mother watching him for his reaction, as opposed to the tensed-shoulders, locked-jaw, bug-eyed insecurity or outright dismissal that other adoptees have had to endure at the mercy of their adoptive parents when discussing adoption. Case in point.

It's no secret I've had a real fondness for this film, going back to when it was in production. The trailer on YouTube was one of the first adoption videos I came across when I started collecting them and I was just knocked over at the idea of someone so young - my own son's age! - traveling to Korea on an adoption search. I mean, I was well into middle age when I finally got up enough guts to go home to just Philly, for crying out loud -- the idea of an overseas search was just too emotionally exhausting for me. And also, for you adoption bloggers who've been around for a bit, there's this picture from the Korean Quarterly in Spring 2009. When I saw that picture, right away I thought: Julia.

Above all, what I loved best about this film is something I'm struggling with getting the right words down about, but it boils down to a unity even in disagreement, and the commonality of the going home experience in all our diversity as adoptees. And by diverse, I'm not only speaking of the difference between domestic and transracial/international adoptions, but the view of adoption itself. If you read over this here old blog, and compare it to the blog at Third Cat Productions, what's apparent (at least to me) are two extremely different views on adoption. Jason has been quoted as saying he wanted to create a film that would be a "celebration of adoption".... whereas, oh friends, this blog is anything but.

And yet.

There was nothing in this film I didn't relate to. Take away the added loss of the language barrier, the journey in Korea was just about step for step my own experiences in Philadelphia. Definitely I cried just as much as he did. I left my own prayers and written wishes for my mother. I wondered if anyone had prayed for me. I wondered if any other prayer candles were burning for someone else's faceless mother. I cried in Philadelphia, and I cried in the movie theater this afternoon because it made me think of Philadelphia.

While his trip resulted in a reunion, what meant the most to me was the portrayal of that elusive ghost land of the original home. Reunited or not, that brief time when adoptees can consciously walk in the place where we know we are from and we know who we are -- that fragile moment when search is over but reunion has not yet happened -- is a sacred space that isn't captured in many adoption books and films. This one does.

A few final production notes on items I appreciated. The music is absolutely perfect. The film jumps forwards and backwards in time and location at moments, which is something I find particularly appealing in a film about an adoptee, as our own timeline is so fluid. Those of us who lack a coherent birth story, whose lives often appear to begin at our moment of adoption rather than birth, live in many places and times at once.

I also appreciated on a number of different levels that the actual moment of reunion was a blackout. If Jason's mother had appeared on the film, I know the only item I would have been focusing on would have been immediately searching for any physical resemblances as opposed to really being present with her words and tone. Being in the dark allowed me to connect with her in an intimate way that if I had actually seen her face at that moment, I don't believe I would have been able to.

You really want to see this. You want to keep an eye on the blog or the fan page or the mailing list, and buy a copy when it comes out on DVD.

I don't see this film as a celebration of adoption. The breakup of a family is tragedy personified, and I view nothing to be as emotionally violent as separating a loving mother from her newborn. I saw pure grief, I heard bottomless loss in his mother's voice, I saw an older sister who was filled with a bemused love she couldn't understand and didn't even feel entitled to (when she first meets him she says something along the lines of, "I shouldn't be crying but I am"). Also, hopeless romantic that I am, I saw a very beautiful love story. I do know how many of us are denied a connected partner during our most emotionally vulnerable time. When Jason's first mother says to him that she's glad he has a girlfriend the audience laughed, but I didn't. I heard what she was saying, at least I heard what I as a mother would have felt. She wasn't glad he had a girlfriend there, she was glad he had Mikyung.

But still that's the thing I loved so much about this. While as an audience we all bring our own viewpoints into whatever documentary we see on whatever subject, I could take away an entirely different view on what the director originally intended, and still experience a film I connected with. I didn't see it as a celebration of adoption. I saw it as a celebration of an adoptee.

The Overbrook Brothers

2010-02-26T14:46:00.001-05:00

So... you know how you reach that critical mass with adoption, and you think, "Damn. I've just reached a critical mass with adoption. Golly, I'd sure like to watch a light-hearted comedy that has absolutely nothing to do with adoption. Say there, I wonder what new films are on-demand this month?"

And you know, every time you've reached critical adoption capacity, and you just want to watch something funny, for chrissakes, chances are near perfect whatever you pick will be entirely adoption related.

I was far too critical last night to order it, but once my mass reduces, I'm going to watch this. Anyone see it yet?

It actually looks funny.

Official site: The Overbook Brothers

This is interesting:

Here's a snip from an interview with one of the writers....

"The first seed of it all came from when [co-writer] Jason Foxworth and I were driving through the desert in Palm Springs and talking about our families. We decided we should do a family-type story, and I had an idea that came from something that happened to me when I was 4 years old: My brother had convinced me that I was adopted. I was crying, and I remember my mom was trying to console me, but my dad was across the room laughing. He thought it was funny, but, I mean, I was traumatized by the whole thing. So Jason and I thought, well, what if we took that idea, this dynamic, but made the brothers as being in a state of complete arrested development in their 30s? And then we went off and did a short ['Momma's Boy'] based on that."

Added to that was the fact that Bryant's girlfriend had been searching for her biological parents in real life for years, a quest that, as Bryant recalls, ended up becoming "a pretty frustrating experience."

I always find it fascinating when real kids talk about being traumatized by the idea of adoption.... but we're actually not supposed to be. We're emotionally crippled, bitter, angry trolls and should just get over it.

Partners of Adoptees

2010-02-11T11:45:00.002-05:00

Sooo.... almost a month without a post.

Wow. Time flies when you're having fun.

Anyway, here's a brief update before I get to the purpose of posting. Me - nothing yet, although I've had some interesting interviews and I'm loving the transitional services professional counseling program thingy that I got as a termination benefit. As an added bonus it appears I got some type of "don't hate us for dumping you, we're giving you the red carpet treatment" package that some of my fellow unemployeds don't seem to have. Now doesn't that make me feel so special? But it's working, because after my first resume makeover, I immediately started getting callbacks.

The thing about being unemployed is, damn it's hard work. I was talking with a very good friend (and keep this very good friend phrase in mind, because she features highly in upcoming paragraphs and the title of this blog post. Stay tuned.) about this, as she went through a period of unemployment herself a number of years ago. Just sending out four resumes in a day is, like, almost a full day's work, by the time I'm finished ~~outright lieing~~ ~~tweaking my resume~~ ~~exaggerating my accomplishments~~ matching my impressive skill set to the job specifications.

And it's brutal out there, I tell you. One of my fellow unemployeds was saying he just had his 13th interview with the same company, and they are getting ready to schedule the 14th. No lie. The fact that they need 14 interviews to make a decision shows how badly organized this company is and could really use a project manager to, say, streamline their hiring process at a minimum, perhaps?

In somewhat better news, Dr. Ungrateful has left the ranks of the unemployed and begins work March 1st on his maiden voyage into uncharted territory for him - a college professor appointment. Wish him luck although he doesn't need it because he's brilliant and all that, but it is a new career path for him so he's feeling all vulnerable and shit although I'm not supposed to be able to tell that.

But, but, but, Theresa, I hear you saying, why is this only "somewhat better news"? I'll tell you, constant reader, it's because this position is in a fucking other state. And not even one that touches New York. And not even one that touches a state that touches New York. And not even one that touches a state that touches a state that touches New York either. So, with the added expense of maintaining two households, flights to visit each other are going to be few and far between. Now he's still looking and will continue to look for a contract in New York for when this appointment ends so he will be coming back, but that doesn't improve my mood one bit.

See, the thing about bastids like me is, we just can't stand it when partners leave us for any reason whatsoever. Now, if I have to leave, like traveling for work during my last job, or say, spending a week in Louisville or Philadelphia for an adoptee rights demonstration, well, that's OK. But not the other way around. Hypocritical? Yes but so the fuck what? When the first love of your life abandons you in a hospital nursery, you're allowed a certain leeway in regards to a somewhat, shall we say, overreaction and over sensitivity to being left.

So.

Stony faced silence and slight dissociation during any talk of relocation? Check

Sudden unavailability to help with any type of packing? Check.

Too emotional to help pick out an apartment? Check.

Imagining the same disaster scenarios from when he left for his family reunion in 2007? Check.

Now he's taking it all in stride because he's all empathetic and cool like that, but I know that being married to an adoptee or being the partner of an adoptee can sometimes be drag for real kids who never knew what it was like to be left by the one person who is supposed to love you above everything else. And I'd be lieing if I said we haven't had our own tough times with this.

Remember this blog? I always wonder what happened to her. I think about her sometimes; she seemed like a really nice person.

And look at this nice person over at Yahoo Answers. She finds her fiance's mother but can't understand why he won't bring her to the reunion.

Real kid partners have nothing to prepare them for the way adoption can overtake a relationship. They probably never even thought anything about adoption, and if it came up it was in the pretense of adoption was all sunshine and rainbows and oh, maybe it will be a little sad but you can always go on TV and have a reunion and everybody lives happily ever after.

TV reunions don't show when your mother rejects you, or keeps you a secret, or writes you a letter saying what she sent all "her grandkids" for xmas, and your kid didn't even get a card from her. TV reunions don't show the fact that an adoptee may even get a reunion, isn't a secret, and mom considers your kids her grandkids too, but the adoptee is still treated like shit by the state they were born in, and can't get their birth certificate. TV reunions don't show that adoption can really suck the life out of a person and push a relationship into low priority.

This brings me back to that very good friend I mentioned a few paragraphs ago. She's a cool real kid I met at the Philadelphia Adoptee Rights Demonstration who is in the ranks of the adoption collateral damage known as married to an adoptee. And she's awesome and amazing. I've been around long enough to hear stories of partners of adoptees who can be real selfish douchebags when it comes to a de-fogged adoptee's sudden preoccupation with all things adoption, but, on the other hand, I've also seen partners who really step up and are wonderful. She's all that and then some. She's front and center when it comes to adoptee rights and when she sees a need for something, she doesn't wait for someone else to do it.

So, seeing that there wasn't any type of online support for anyone who was married to an adoptee, or the partner of an adoptee, she made her own group. It's brand spanking new and she's still setting it up, but I'd be quite grateful if you could spread the word about it and share the link to the group around in all the usual places

Partners of Adoptees

I hope to be blogging again on a somewhat regular basis or a reasonable facsimile thereof sometime soon. Hold a good though, but I must go now. I've wasted enough time blogging this morning, and Dr. Ungrateful wants me to look at pictures of his new apartment, but I've suddenly found a million things around the house that need my attention.....

I'm Legit by Zara Phillips, featuring DMC

2010-01-18T09:29:00.003-05:00

You know the drill -- head on over to YouTube to favorite, comment, and rate.

A Simple Life

2009-12-26T10:25:00.000-05:00

OK so I tried to do that password-protect blogger post thingy, but I couldn't get the line breaks to work so I had just one big chunk of text. And I hate that. So I threw it over here instead. Hit me up at any of the familiar places if you want the password. Alternately, if you know how to do that password-protect blogger post thingy and still get multiple paragraphs to display properly, lemme know.

In other news, I had briefly considered playing hooky from XMas to stay home and start Joan's book Forbidden Family, but then I actually did get a sore throat and fever. So I spent XMas reading, drinking tons of tea, and watching horror movies. It was blissful.

Cheer up, holiday-hating bastids. We got two down and only one left before the trifecta of terror otherwise known as Thanksgiving/XMas/New Years is over and we can breathe a sigh of relief. Me personally, I always have a mid-blip in mid-January for the Feast of the Inaccurate Conception, but still once January 2nd rolls around, I know I've successfully survived another one.

Hey, speaking of January 2nd, just a quick reminder that if you're up north, I really hope you'll drop by OBCforME's little shindig they've got going in Portland for the anniversary of Maine adoptee rights. I really wanted to go, but you know, I still have that whole unemployed thing going on. Bloody economy.

Sunshine the Movie

2009-12-21T19:44:00.004-05:00

And even more adoption on TV...

Coming this spring on PBS's INDEPENDENT LENS:

An unplanned pregnancy for an unplanned girl sets off SUNSHINE, a playful, yet ultimately stirring self-portrait of an adopted woman driven to search for answers through reconnection with her biological mother. Young, pregnant, single and unprepared, the daughter/director struggles with the incredible ironies of the family—that history somehow repeated itself—as she struggles to raise her own daughter and understand the plight of her biological mother, a small town Texas mayors daughter who gave birth to her secretly, in a home for unwed mothers.

Mother and daughter wrestle with tough questions and raw emotions over a fading social landscape that nevertheless continues to haunt them. Woven together from over 10 years of super 8 and video home movies, intimate family interviews, shimmering dance sequences and stylized reenactments, SUNSHINE offers a refreshingly rare glimpse on the current day transformations taking place within our most sacred of institutions, family.

www.sunshinethemovie.com

But wait! There's more!

2009-12-16T21:27:00.002-05:00

As if, between The Locator and Find My Family and last week's 'Lost Children' on 20/20, you haven't had enough adoption on TV, check out this snip of adoptodrama in today's NY Post about a new show on Investigation Discovery premiering tomorrow night - "The Will - Family Secrets Revealed":

First up: the battle over the estate left by 73-year-old Kitty Tipton-Oakes, widow of a famous jazz musician.

In 2006, Kitty, who suffered from dementia, died without a will, leaving an estate worth 300 Gs, which was to be sorted out among three missing adopted sons (two of whom hadn't spoken to her in 25 years), after paying fees to a guardian and a lawyer who happened to also represent a paranoid schizophrenic patient who may have been Kitty's only actual birth child who no one knew about.

Read the rest at the NY Post

I remember reading about this story in the news last year.

You so know I'll be watching...

Upcoming TV shows of interest

2009-12-11T00:35:00.001-05:00

Besides all the attention 'Find My Family' on ABC is getting, there are other shows highlighting adoption this week you may be interested in.

Carla Moquin will be appearing on the Dr. Phil show tomorrow. From the Dr. Phil website:

What would you do if someone said you no longer had the right to see your child? Dr. Phil's guests say they feel helpless and hopeless because they've been shut out of their children's lives and are facing lengthy court battles to get their kids back. Carla says she placed her daughter for what she thought was going to be an open adoption. It's been six years, and she says the adoptive parents reneged on their promise and won't let her communicate with the child. Legal analyst Lisa Bloom and an adoption attorney weigh in on the case. Then, John says he was looking forward to raising his baby with his childhood girlfriend, but when he got to the hospital to visit his daughter, he never got to meet her and nine months later still hasn't. Learn about the law that is keeping him from being a dad. And, a woman paid more than $20,000 and was given an ultrasound of the baby she was supposed to adopt, but motherhood didn't happen as planned. Find out how not to get scammed and the precautions to take when adopting a child.

And on 48 Hours -

CBS News will present, "The Lost Children," a "48 Hours" special, on Saturday, Dec. 12 at 10 p.m. ET/PT - the clmination of a two-year investigation by "48 Hours" into one of the largest foreign adoption scams in U.S. history.

Anchored by "48 Hours" correspondent Maureen Maher, who herself was adopted, "The Lost Children" profiles three families - Patti Sawyer, Mike and Kari Nyberg, and Elizabeth and Gary Muenzler - who adopted children from the South Pacific island of Samoa through the Utah-based Focus On Children adoption agency, only to face a heartbreaking decision years later.

"There exists a common goal for me as an adoptee and as a journalist, which is to find the truth,” says Maher. "I know from my own personal experience the challenge adopted children face in learning where they came from and determining their own identity."

Also just a note, this weekend (hopefully) this blog will temporarily go offline for a long overdue template upgrade. I'm seriously tired of the drowned girl.

Invitation to a free half day adoption film festival for Maine's 1st Anniversary

2009-12-08T12:39:00.001-05:00

Expanding a bit on a previous post....

Host:          OBC for ME

Location: The Maine Studios
                     235 Presumpscot Street
                     Portland, ME 04103

When:        Saturday, January 2, 2010 at 12:00 Noon – 6:30 PM
                      Snow Date will be Sunday, January 3, 2010. Same time.

RSVP:        To Cathy Robishaw at tmc3910@yahoo. com

Come celebrate one year of Original Birth Certificates for Maine! We have lots to celebrate! Over 700 people have applied to get Original Birth Certificates, allowed in the great state of Maine by the passing of LD 1084 in 2007. We have come so far since January 2, 2009, when Original Birth Certificates were once again accessible to all Maine-born citizens!

We will have a welcome reception at Noon, with documentary films showing throughout the afternoon.

This is a free event, though donations will be accepted.

Our Schedule:

Noon - Welcome Reception
12:30pm - Showing of "The Triumvirate", by Jean Strauss
1:00pm - Showing of "Vital Records", by Jean Strauss
1:30pm - Showing of "Adoptee Rights: Philadelphia 2009", by Scott Hancock

Intermission and Light Fare

3:00pm - Maine debut of "Roots: Unknown", by Zara Phillips
3:45pm - Showing of Reunion Stories from Maine 2009
5:00pm - Maine debut of "For the Life of Me", by Jean Strauss

Hope to see you there!!

Off and Running - Screening again in NYC Jan-Feb 2010

2009-12-05T23:27:00.001-05:00

I missed this when it was playing at the Tribeca Film Festival, and was really happy to get an email about it today. I really really want to see this one --- If anyone in the NYC area is up for a movie date, send me an email. It will be at the IFC Center January 29 - February 4, 2010. If you're out of the NYC area, check the distributor's website for other cities and dates.

Here's the film description:

With white Jewish lesbians for parents and two adopted brothers — one mixed-race and one Korean—Brooklyn teen Avery grew up in a unique and loving Jewish household. But when her curiosity about her African-American roots grows, she decides to contact her birth mother. This choice propels Avery into her own complicated exploration of race, identity, and family that threatens to distance her from the parents she’s always known. She begins staying away from home, starts skipping school, and risks losing her shot at the college track career she had always dreamed of. But when Avery decides to pick up the pieces of her life and make sense of her identity, the results are inspiring. OFF AND RUNNING follows Avery to the brink of adulthood, exploring the strength of family bonds and the lengths people must go to become themselves.

The trailer....

... and the official site:

http://www.offandrunningthefilm.com/index.html

Adoption Month Blatherings

2009-11-11T13:09:00.004-05:00

Well, well, well.

Life has certainly been quite inconsiderate of the fact that this is National Adoption Awareness Month, and that I had a host of things I wished to do in celebration of all inappropriately touched by adoption.

Where do I begin?

You may remember that both Dr. Ungrateful and I have found ourselves unwilling participants in the LOLfest known as teh economy is teh suck, adding the two of us to the ever-growing pool of over educated and/or over qualified middle-aged professionals watching TV in the middle of the afternoon instead of being gainfully employed.

I'm actually still (resentfully) working at this point however that is about to come to a crashing halt soon. My original end date was October 1st, but I was able to wrangle a stay of execution to next Wednesday. If an internal job offer comes through after the umpteen million interviews (ok actually 14) I've been on over the past few months I get to live, but I'm not hopeful. We've had a massive *cough*cough* "workforce reduction" (i.e., hemorrhaging jobs to India and Brazil) so considering the fact that there's someone equally qualified on the other side of the world who is more than happy to do my job for a lot less money, I'm screwed.

Our beloved house continues to sit on the market in a sea of foreclosures and short sales; ditto for our beloved plot of land down south that we had intended to retire to one day, so there's not much belovedness to go around right now.

To add insult to injury, my adoptive mother had a heart attack late Halloween night, landing her in cardiac ICU. She's out of danger right now but given her unwillingness to follow doctor's orders, I'm expecting a repeat performance any time now.

So. Adding adoption news to digg - totally out the window. Tweeting about adoption -- totally out the window. RegDay -- totally out the window. Re-doing this old blog template that I am seriously tired of -- totally out the window. Adoption conference in NJ -- totally out the window.

How rude.

However there are little projects going on here and there behind the scenes. You know me, never happy unless I have a techie project or two or three to (mis)manage. I'm testing out a new app on Facebook later today that will either be successful beyond my wildest expectations, or a epic failure of proportions heretofore unreported in the history of all time (it's always extremes with me). There' are other little things going on too, so if you feel like giving a hand and you've got either Google Spreadsheet or MS Excel experience, drop me a line. Even better, if you can create a functional Yahoo Pipe or scrape an API, I'll be your slave for real.

I'm hoping to get back on Twitter and Digg very soon, especially since my Adoption2.0 idol, the one, the only, the fantabulistic new media maven of all things new media Claud actually called me, yes me, little old me, a "community trust agent". Flattered is an understatement. Seriously, I could die tomorrow a happy woman, my life's work completed.

That's the nicest thing anyone's ever called an old nerd like me.

Do you think they're making a new feature cartoon?

2009-10-25T17:35:00.000-04:00

VISITOR ANALYSIS
Referring Link	http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ungrateful little bastard&aq=0&oq=ungrateful l&aqi=g3g-m2
Host Name	proxy-ce4.disney.com

Country	United States
Region	California
City	Burbank
ISP	Disney Worldwide Services Inc

If so, I demand Fran Drescher do my voice.

Adoptees with need for medical history

2009-10-23T09:24:00.000-04:00

Reposting via Ann Wilmer, please share and repost

A reporter for a national publication is interested in writing a story about the problems adoptees encounter when they have a medical need to know. If you have personal experience of this situation, contact me, please.

Ann can be contacted at wilmer@dmv.com

Nurse your hangover with OBCforME

2009-10-22T09:46:00.003-04:00

Why yes, my hangover does last 2 days, thank you very much. I have absolutely no alcohol tolerance. Anyway...

Mark your calendars!

Maine Celebrates One Year of Original Birth Certificates!

Come to Maine, celebrate with us! We have reached a milestone, our one year mark since original birth certificates were made available to adult adoptees here in Maine.

We will have lots of activities planned for this day - updates on the schedule of events will be posted soon!

Date:	Saturday, January 2, 2010
Time:	9:00am - 9:00pm
Location:	The Maine Film Studios
Street:	235 Presumpscot Street
City/Town:	Portland, ME

Facebook RSVP: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=200446990464&ref=mf

Link to OBCforME: http://www.obcforme.org/

Wow

2009-10-17T22:26:00.002-04:00

Via AdultAdoptees

Check this out

The right to obtain a copy of one’s own birth certificate is routinely exercised by all citizens, unless you were adopted. Although parent-child relationships are supposed to be fundamental and constitutionally protected, children’s relationships with their parents, grandparents, siblings and other family members are routinely and permanently severed, first, by the inadvertent effect of the unrepresented birthparent(s)’ signature on surrender documents and, second, by a court’s judgment of adoption. The child has no guardian ad litem, attorney or other qualified person to represent and protect his or her interests and the adoption statute does not require it.

Due process in adoption? Hardly

The 15th Annual RegDay is November 14, 2009

2009-10-07T10:21:00.000-04:00

Please repost freely

==============================================

The 15th Annual RegDay is November 14, 2009

What is RegDay?

Adoption Registration Day (RegDay) is an annual one day event to increase public awareness of the International Soundex Reunion Registry; a free humanitarian service better known as ISRR. ISRR is a non-profit mutual consent registry established in 1975 dedicated to reuniting adult family members separated by adoption, divorce, foster care, or other dislocation.

But RegDay is so much more than that. RegDay is a day where members of the adoption triad (adoptees, adoptive parents and birthparents) set up tables in public locations and meet face to face other members of the triad and the public in general, sharing their stories and information. It’s a day to encourage those touched by adoption, and let them know they are not alone.

RegDay is a day to meet others in the triad and form a search and/or support group in your local area, or to welcome them into a group that already exists.

Remember when you first started being involved in adoption issues, wasn’t it important, or just nice, to meet in person others who had been there or were going through the same thing.

The internet is a great search and support resource, but so much of that personal contact is missing. RegDay gives us an opportunity to get that back.

RegDay is also a day to tell someone about that special adoption related book that helped you so much. It’s a day to provide resources from internet links to national organizations. It’s also a day to provide information about adoption reform that is still needed in so many states, and a way to connect with others who also see that need.

RegDay can be a social event, hanging out with members of your support group at the same time providing a valuable service, or becoming friends with other volunteers that you just met.

The friendships you build on RegDay can last a lifetime…. Volunteer Now!!

To learn more about RegDay go to http://www.regday.org. Sites are currently being secured in several states, but more are still needed.

If you can coordinate a site in your area, or would like to volunteer to help at an existing site, join the Yahoo Mailing Group for RegDay Site Coordinators and volunteers at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/regday/ or send a message at http://www.myspace.com/regday

It is easy to do RegDay!

Thank you,

Petra B. Wynbrandt (RegDay National Coordinator 2005-2009)

email: regdaynationalcoordinator@gmail.com

October is the douchiest of months

2009-10-04T10:55:00.004-04:00

So here's my nagging, begging, pleading, self indulgent birthday wish.

So serious here. If there's even one post on this blog you've ever liked, I'm begging you on this one, honestly.

The bold text below, please highlight it and copy it:

I support an adult adoptee's right to their own original birth certificate, without restrictions, conditions or limitations.

Then click this link, and paste it into the comment box, fill in the rest of the fields and send 'er on it's way to the Chairman of the Pennsylvania Task Force on Adoption Law.

That's all, I'm so damn easy to please, really.

Now if you want to personalize it a bit, I'd love that more. If you want to actually send a snail mail letter I'd be your loyal slave, truth.

If you personalize it, send a snail mail letter and just so happen to actually live in Pennsylvania's 12th District, forget it, I'm yours for life.

Really, please.

It's been a while since I've posted about the draconian, degrading and downright douchy Pennsylvania system for getting your birth certificate, so older readers please indulge me while I dredge up some ingratitude from the archives.

From 2007:

Let's take a little peek at the rules here:

Q: What happens if a biological parent files a consent form after the Division of Vital Records processes a request?

A: If consent is received at a later date, the identifying information will not be sent to the adoptee. Therefore, an adoptee may wish to request periodically to determine if a consent form has been filed.

Sounds mundane, right? It's not, it's anything but.

If you're an adoptee registering with the State.... well, that in itself is wrong. Adoptees are not allowed to register. Only natural parents. Adoptees are invited to send $10 to the state to see if their parents have registered. They'll cash your check either way.

But remember - YOU are not registering. You are paying the state a fee to have a data processing clerk with access to YOUR personal information and the personal information on your parents pull up your birth certificate record in the computer, and see if there's a field flagged saying mom or dad even knows about this non publicized registry.

Even better, this means, if Vital Records gets your form on a Tuesday, cashes your check, peeks in their computer, sends you off a Sorry! letter, and then on Wednesday gets a registration form from your mom or dad - they will NOT notify you.

Oh - by the way. Got a relationship with your family of origin? Want them to fill out a mommy-may-I permission slip for you? Rotsa ruck. Check out the line in bold italics below from this page.

Q: How can a biological parent register identifying information?

A: A biological parent whose child was born in Pennsylvania may file a Biological Parent Registration Identification Form with the Department of Health. Please click here to download the form. Forms may also be requested by calling the Division of Vital Records at 1-877-PA-HEALTH

Try clicking that 'click here' link, sports fans.

Yeah, they know that link is broken. It's been on their to-do list to fix it. Since 2006, I think.

So do an old Pennsylvania Orphan a favor and send that note. And if you're on Facebook and have a Pennsylvania connection, a hard-working Facebook and Twitter friend pulled an all-nighter creating a little page for people with PA on their mind. She's a bi-local like me, birth certificate tied up in one state and working for change in another. So show her some support and join up on her page. That would make me happy too.

Pennsylvania Adoptee Rights on Facebook

Required Reading: “Sorry, Mrs. Smith” — Looking Beyond The Story

2009-10-03T20:49:00.000-04:00

Seriously, go here now.

“Sorry, Mrs. Smith” — Looking Beyond The Story

Sad addendum to Linda Joy's story

2009-10-03T15:01:00.000-04:00

Commenter Ex-in-the-City noted on the previous post that unfortunately Linda Joy died of leukemia shortly after her second birthday.

Life reported on this in their their April 23, 1951 issue.

8 months later Life reported 'Boy takes Linda Joy's place'

I have no words.

Where's Linda Joy today?

2009-10-01T15:22:00.001-04:00

Everyone who has read Anne Fessler's "The Girls Who Went Away" will remember the description of Life Magazine's 1951 cover story on the joys of adoption

Now that Google Books has indexed Life's archives, you can read it online.

Pretty bizarro.

I wonder what Linda Joy thinks about this now?

I wonder if Paul ever searched

2009-09-26T11:15:00.001-04:00

Via

And then, I wonder if he found.

I wonder if he had any friends to support him. I wonder if they said things that hurt or if they helped.

Or I wonder if he didn't tell anyone what he found, if he kept it hidden as protection from what people would say to him.

People say stupid shit to us. What Paul would have found could have opened up a whole sewage processing plant of stupid. Seriously, other than, "Are you alright?", what could you say?

I wonder if he regretted searching.

I don't think I would have regretted. No matter what, the knowing outweighs everything. But then again, I wouldn't know, would I?

I wonder if he knows she's gone.

I wonder if he's OK.

You can't make this stuff up

2009-09-24T11:23:00.000-04:00

Really, now.

Glad to know there's one site on the web where you can get all your human and animal adoption needs covered

Digging Adoption

2009-09-23T13:45:00.003-04:00

This is a reworking of a note I wrote over at Facebook. After I posted it I thought, oh what the hell, I'll add it to ULB too.

A Note About My Notes

The adoption news stories you see on my profile come from an automatic RSS feed from http://adoptionnewsfeed.blogspot.com, which itself is generated from adoption news stories submitted to digg.com. (And thank you Claud for teaching me how to connect all this)

If you're not familiar with digg, what an incredible site it is, and the importance of having a story go popular, you may want to read here before going any further. The info is a little dated, but it still gives a really good overview.

http://www.pronetadvertising.com/articles/beginners-guide-to-digg.html

Since 2007, I've submitted over 1,500 news articles to digg dealing with adoption, corruption, reunion, legislation, reproductive technologies, identity rights, and highlighting the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of kids in foster care that age out each year with few if any resources, all while Americans spend billions of dollars each year adopting newborns and supposed orphans from overseas.

This is what the average American untouched by adoption believes:

There are countless newborns available for adoption in America. There are tons of women who want nothing to do with their babies and who will gladly turn them over for adoption. Overseas countries are full of Dickensian squalid orphanages packed to the rafters with wailing abandoned newborns. Searching adoptees are creepy stalkers who pound on the doors of their cowering birthmothers, and any mother who lost a child to adoption was most likely a drug addict, an abuser, a slut or a combination thereof. Oh, and my best friend's cousin's hairdresser was adopted and is perfectly happy with it.

When I started, I was lucky if any of the news stories got one or two votes (aka diggs). Many of the comments on some of the articles reflected those views in the paragraph above. There were even comments along the lines of it's not that bad if an infant is kidnapped from a poor country and adopted by rich Americans, because of that better life mythology.

Recently, I've been incredibly lucky with a few popular stories (stories that got 100+ votes), and in addition I am beyond blessed to have a few digg friends I adore -- with no connection to adoption whatsoever -- who regularly digg my submissions.

I believe that to have any effective change, there needs to be education and awareness spread to those outside our adoption circles. I've seen a noticeably shift in the collective thinking of comments as well. While there will always be trolls who post easily ignorable comments, many of the comments on the news stories are thoughtful, contemplative and show a positive shift in basic assumptions and misconceptions regarding adoption.

Because digg remains such a vital site to get the best of the news, having these stories out there reaches people far outside our circles.

So when you see a story and you think it's important, please consider giving it a digg. You can connect digg with your Facebook account to make it easier for you. There's a brief instruction guide on how to do this here

http://mashable.com/2009/05/06/digg-facebook-connect/

Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you're submitting newspaper articles to digg, please be sure I know your digg username so I can add your submissions to my reader and digg/blog you too.

And if you're a non-adoptee digg friend, I appreciate you more than you'll ever know. I don't know which one of you is making these recent stories go popular, but I love you for it. Thank you.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go digg my friend's submissions. My day is empty and without meaning if I haven't dugg at least one amazingly bad fail or an image of a prospective adoptive father of the future.

Gary Nisbet and Randy Joubert on the TODAY show this Morning

2009-09-22T12:12:00.002-04:00

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Update -

Oh it gets even better - check this out

Long-lost brothers find another sister
Sibling of reunited Maine family sees them on TODAY, TV reunion planned

Link for you diggers: http://digg.com/d315FRX

And for you Twitter-addicts, she's live-tweeting it now --> http://twitter.com/mskat

Thar's gold in them thar ovaries!

2009-09-21T17:50:00.000-04:00

Strip-mining pregnant women for fresh-off-the-placenta babies has never been more profitable!

This is one recession-proof industry here folks!

Many thanks go to Niels at PPL. Go check out the comfy living bartering in bastards has made for a select few in adoption:

Executive compensations at adoption agencies

Third Annual Demons of Adoption Awards

2009-09-17T23:20:00.001-04:00

Update: Press Release via PRLog is available here:
http://www.prlog.org/10347087-pound-pup-legacy-nominates-demons-in-adoption.html

*************************************************************
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
*************************************************************

Each year Pound Pup Legacy presents the Demons of Adoption Award to raise a voice against adoption propaganda and the self congratulatory practices of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute's annual Angels in Adoption AwardsTM

Until October 30 you will have the opportunity to vote for the recipient of this year's award.

The nominees are:

Adoptions First for offering of a free birth mothers package;
Athanasios Kollias aka Teo for the involvement in various Guatemalan child trafficking cases;
Barnardos for promoting the removal of children and have them adopted as the solution to family breakdown;
Bethany Christian Services for using coercive tactics obtaining infants for their customers;
Deborra Lee-Furness for pushing laxer regulations in inter-country adoption;
Harry and Bertha Holt for starting the placement of "special needs children" who are truly not adoptable, into the homes of already huge families;
Independent Adoption Center for plugging their business on WE tv's Adoption Diaries, making them the non-denominational Bethany;
Joint Council on International Children's Services for supporting temporary movement of foreign children to America because such trial-basis "exchange" programs "help" the adoption process;
LDS Family Services for using coercive tactics in obtaining infants for adoption and for not respecting paternal rights;
Scott and Karen Banks for child trafficking, coercive adoption practices and the abandonment of their adopted children;
The Dutch Ministry of Justice for preventing research into corrupt adoption practices in China, because of diplomatic and business relations with that country;
The Malawi Government for allowing Madonna to adopt Mercy James;

You can cast your vote by following this link.[http://poundpuplegacy.org/node/37652

Bring Peri Home

2009-09-15T06:14:00.000-04:00

Via Joy

Carla Moquin's website and blog.

It's a long read, but please take some time to visit.

Fear and Loathing in Tennessee

2009-09-13T18:22:00.000-04:00

Check this out - My Identity Was A Government Secret

Identifying information at time of adoption?

2009-08-31T15:15:00.004-04:00

Was identifying information on your original name or the name of your first parents made available to your adoptive parents, or made available to you by a third party such as the lawyer who handled your adoption? This happened occasionally in private adoptions.

If so, please consider notifying Pam Hasegawa, who is attempting to collect numbers on how often this happened.

Editing to add: Also, if you are an adoptive parent in a closed adoption who received identifying information, please consider participating as well.

Please provide to her:

Date of birth:
Date of adoption (if known):

State where adoption took place:

Any details you'd like to add:

Email to: pamhasegawa@gmail.com

Thanks!

One of the most perplexing google searches I've seen yet that brought someone to this blog

2009-08-30T00:02:00.003-04:00

you ungrateful bastard i gave birth to your mother and your father

Ponder that one for a moment.

From an SEO standpoint however, I'm happy to report that in google keyword ranking of the phrase you ungrateful bastard i gave birth to your mother and your father, ULB is #1.

An algorithmic accomplishment, truly.

Shotgun Adoption

2009-08-27T20:58:00.001-04:00

Crossposting from the Adoption News Blog, because it's that important. Give a digg, please? And share? Thanks.

thenation.com — Christian agencies lavish support services on pregnant women--if they give up their babies.

read more

Trailer for 'Roots: Unknown' up on YouTube

2009-08-23T17:07:00.003-04:00

Please rate, add to favorites and leave a comment - thanks!

ROOTS: UNKNOWN is an Award-winning 30 Min. documentary on the lifelong impact of Adoption. Directed and Produced by author, singer/songwriter Zara Phillips (www.zarahphillips.com) this film focuses on the Adult Adoptee. Interviews include Adoptees, their spouses and children and features soundtrack written and performed by Zara. Copies of this DVD are available for purchase, please contact Zara at her web site, www.zarahphillips.com

Please help 'A Search for Survivors'

2009-08-22T08:46:00.006-04:00

Yet again, A Search for Survivors has been threatened with suspension.

After a period of silence, two more posts appeared today, along with a call for help. Please take a moment to look over the site, and if you believe voices like this should not be silenced, take a moment to write.

Having started my career in customer support, I know from experience email-based support is often extremely overwhelmed. Just one or two lines, or just a brief paragraph should be enough.

Please send an email to tosreports@wordpress.com

Put this in the subject line:
[WordPress #352210]: 493@childtorture.wordpress.com

Thank you.

Update 08/29/09 - The site is now permanently hosted at Project DoD. For details and the new link, please visit below and update any bookmarks or reader feeds:

http://stopchildtorture.org/

Philadelphia Adoptee Rights Demonstration video

2009-08-16T08:08:00.003-04:00

Via Scott Hancock:

Direct link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKL196_coqY

PS Please remember that video adds 50 pounds. Horrible, isn't it? It's true, it's a proven fact. I swear. That 'video adds 10 pounds' lie you hear all the time, that's bullshit. It's 50 pounds. End of story; scout's honor. It also adds 20 years. And changes your hair color. Any images you see of me in this film, just know I'm actually 50 pounds lighter. And 20 years younger. Oh, and I'm a blond and have a kick-ass tan. Honest. Would I lie to you?

Shadows of the Family Tree

2009-08-16T07:30:00.003-04:00

Via AmyAdoptee:

I have had friends suggest that I write a book. I have taken that step. I have written one about my experiences with adoption, my search ideas, and my tips for activism. In the appendices of the book are groups and organizations that have the same goals and offer support for all positions in the adoption plane. I also have the current laws as of today. When each state is updated or changed, I will make the necessary changes to the book.

Please visit Amy to read more.

Photos needed for Origins-USA Video!

2009-08-12T17:18:00.000-04:00

Thanks to the generous support of video donors, and in-kind donation from Producer Sara Aderhold, production of Origins-USA's important video about adoption loss and the movement for mothers' rights and keeping families together is now underway.

This professionally produced video will feature mothers telling their stories of surrender, loss, and reunion, and will also be packed with facts and statistics from credible sources like the United Nations. It will also include PHOTOS. Rather than spending money purchasing stock photos, Origins-USA would like to use donated photos from real mothers who lost children to adoption.

Please help by sending your scanned or digital copies of the following photos from moms who lost children to adoption:

- Photos of yourself when you were pregnant

- Photos of maternity home or other place where you lived while pregnant

- Photos of you and your baby pre-surrender

- Family photos, dating photos, and other photos from around the time period of your pregnancy and surrender

- Reunion photos

- Photos from marches, protests, support group meetings, and other empowering photos of mothers taking action

If you give permission, Origins-USA will also add the photo to its photo collection for future re-designs of the website, brochures, and other materials.

Please email your photos to info@origins-usa.org with the following information:

Name:

Address:

Phone:

I give permission for Origins-USA to use the attached photo(s) for (check all that apply):

___ Educational video being produced by Sara Aderhold

___ Website

___Brochures, fliers, other materials

Please pass this message on to others you know who may be interested.

Thanks,

The Origins-USA team

The Mystery of #4709 - Who Am I?

2009-08-05T09:44:00.005-04:00

Reposting via Jane Jeong Trenka on Facebook

From the YouTube description:

This program on false and missing adoption records aired in South Korea June 13, 2009 on SBS. This program was circulated on the internet by Truth and Reconciliation for the Adoption Community of Korea (TRACK) with the permission of SBS. For more on TRACKs activities, please visit www.adoptionjustice.com

To share your experience accessing your adoption records, please go to Korean Adoptees for Fair Records Access (KAFRA)

Playlist of all six videos:

Please also visit: The documentary for you

It's a conspiracy

2009-08-01T10:43:00.007-04:00

I am convinced.

I am absolutely certain that members of my family have been infiltrated by anti-adoptee rights forces in an effort to dissuade me from volunteering with or attending the next Adoptee Rights Demonstration.

My evidence -

Exhibit A: The Laundry
There was no dirty laundry in this house before I left for Philadelphia on July 19th. How then, when I returned on the 24th did seven, yes seven, count them - seven - huge hampers of dirty clothes, towels, sheets appear in the laundry room? During my time in Philly, did the members of my family honestly need to wear two or three different items of clothing per day? Why the need to wear so many outfits? What events were they attending in my absence that required such a drastic turnover of outerwear?

They've all been interrogated separately, yet no satisfactory answer has been given as to the mountain of laundry, nor their seeming amnesia on how to operate a standard Kenmore washing machine and dryer.

Exhibit B: The Dishes
Similar to the lack of dirty laundry at my exit, the sink as well was clear of dirty dishes. Apparently there must have been heavily attended dinner parties every single night I was in Philadelphia, as there was not a single clean dish, cup, knife, fork or spoon to be found in the house upon my return. Not only were all dishes in the kitchen dirty, the dishes and silverware that had already been packed and boxed for our impending move had been retrieved from their storage container in the garage, smeared with some sort of industrial strength food products, and finally layered heavily with shellac to ensure their non-wash-ability upon my return from Philly.

Again, no satisfactory answer has been given to questions such as, "What the hell is this?", "Who the hell unpacked these dishes?", or even "What the hell is smeared all over this soup tureen that we have never once used the entire 10 years we've been in this house?"

Exhibit C: The Animals
Lest anyone think I am picking unnecessarily on my family -- of grown adults mind you -- allow me to add an even more sinister component to the anti-adoptee rights forces that have crept into my house during my absence. I believe my innocent pets to have been manipulated and used as hapless pawns.

The cats seem to have evolved opposable thumbs during my week away, allowing them to transport large quantities of litter far away from the litterbox and series of strategically placed handy-dandy PETCO X-Large Washable Litterbox Mats with adorable paw-print designs. How did kitty litter make it 14 feet from the basement to the bathroom down the hall, a bathroom that has never had a litterbox present in it at any time during my stay in this house? The cats remain mute on the topic.

Similarly, I am expected to believe that somehow the dog has developed a taste for furniture, as this german shepherd who has never once chewed anything but toys since he's been a puppy, apparently has been able to eat half the base off an antique 1739 secretary desk that was brought over from Antiqua by my in-law's ancestors.

Standing separate, these three items would be a minor annoyance at best. All combined together they point to an undeniable plot to prevent me from volunteering or attending ever again.

Sucks for them, it won't stop me.

As sad as I am that I missed the New Orleans Adoptee Rights Demonstration (note: once again because of a member of my family 'just happened' to get into a car accident last June.. That required me to drive him to a zillion doctor appointments for the next few months. Coincidence? Now, I think not.) nothing, nothing, nothing would have kept me from going to Philly. There were rumors and dark clouds on the employment horizon last March when I received my bonus from my ever so soon to be outsourced beloved job, so I'm glad I set aside that bonus money into a CD so it would be available.

It was extraordinary to meet up with people who I hadn't seen in such a long time, and meet for the first time friends who prior to this had been online only. And the pictures holy crap have there been boatloads of pictures. Sadly though, once again there is not a single picture of me to be found anywhere on the internet, as that fat bitch from the Kingston Regday was jumping into every shot again, she's so irritating.

I had heard last year about how many legislators had absolutely no idea that original birth certificates were sealed from adopted adults, but it wasn't until I was actually there and in the thick of it that I could experience this for myself.

But what balanced my dismay was the opposite of that - the number of legislators who said they had just heard about this, because one of their constituents had sent them a postcard, letter or email mentioning this and the demonstration. Over the past few months I'd heard from so many people who had for the first time sent a letter, sent a postcard, or sent the email from the Change.org petition. A lot of people who, before getting involved in the demonstration, had no idea who their assembly-person or senator even was. And a lot of people who are taking a first time interest in their local government, not only for adoptee rights but for a lot of issues that effect them.

Just a few years ago, that was me. I'd write if someone told me to write but mostly to just copy and paste a pre-defined letter because I was so afraid of saying 'the wrong thing'. But I'm happy about my volunteer work, if nothing it's introduced me to the people who represent me in Albany and despite the recent squabbles in the capitol, many of them I'm extremely proud of. (Note I've said many and not all, but that's another rant for another time.)

But mostly I'm just so happy for the people who wrote for the first time and continue to write. The people who get so pumped up and excited to get a response from their Senator. It's a hell of a lot harder to write about adoptee rights than it is to send off a letter about a recycling bill. After a lifetime of invalidation over the simplest of expressions about the fact you aren't entitled to your own identity, to send that letter for the first time is a big deal to many people. It means shrugging off the be grateful you weren't aborted and the aren't you lucky to be chosen and didn't you have so much of a better life. It means believing you have a right to that piece of paper everyone takes for granted without conditions or exceptions or exclusions.

And that's a big deal to me.

But now I must return. Not only do I still have laundry to catch up on, both my work and my personal inboxes overfloweth and I've yet to get caught up there. Which makes me think perhaps my place of employment has been infiltrated as well.... My online time most likely will continue to be limited as I prepare for my impending move and change of employment, so to those emails in my inbox I'm not ignoring you, seriously. Blame my family. I know I do.

But say, there's going to be a party in Louisville next July. Sure hope you can swing by. I know I'll be there.

Current move status:

2009-07-27T13:14:00.002-04:00

Ohio - Out

North Carolina in the running....

Waiting impatiently for an update.

Sometimes Julia's blog lights up in my reader

2009-07-26T12:08:00.003-04:00

like just now.

and for a split second, I forget.

and then I remember, and I cry.

I miss her.

At least I wasn't f*cking adopted, bitch!

2009-07-10T16:36:00.006-04:00

Saw this little gem over at Twitter, posted by Jessenia about a little bit of adoption truth that happened on Real World Cancun.

Now, don't even try to read the accompanying article at gawker.com, because it's all but unreadable.

And actually don't even try to watch the video, because with all the bleeps, it's entirely incoherent.

With the exception of the last bombshell thrown out at the end of the fight:

At least I wasn't fucking adopted, bitch!

I don't know anything about this show. I haven't watched Real World since about Season 2 or so. I heard there were three adoptees this season which made me curious, but I just never got around to actually watching it on demand.

Anyway, I wasn't surprised or shocked by this. I had that bitchy line thrown at me growing up.

It's actually quite honest, to tell the truth. While it's ugly to hear and hurts like hell, I've always held this thought is deep inside the psyche of many a real kid.

If someone's so unlovable their own mother gave them away, that makes them fair game. So it's easy for a real kid who is lost for words to use someone's bastard status against them as a weapon.

I don't know the name of young woman who had that lovely but familiar line thrown at her, Emily I think it might be, but my eyes bled from reading through the article in the link above so I can't be sure.

But Emily, or whatever your name is, sorry sister.

It sucks to hear that line.

There was quite the bruhaha over that Orphan movie and it's one "It must be hard to love an adopted child" line.

Wonder if there will be the same type of stink over this one?

I'd love to be wrong, but somehow I doubt it. That adoptee from Real World unfortunately happens to be an adult, and that's a little long in the tooth for the general adoption-loving public.

Share the same place for a minute or two

2009-07-03T15:11:00.006-04:00

This has been in my head a lot:

A pervasive sense of rootlessness has been a constant in my life. With July bringing the Adoptee Rights Demonstration in the place I was made, combined with this lovely outsourced/budget-cut economy driving us out of New York, the word 'home' has me decidedly more maudlin than usual.

I remember the day we moved to Chicago, the summer before I started 7th grade. My best girlfriend was there sobbing hysterically as we hugged goodbye. But I didn't cry; I was too devastated to show any emotion at all. There was only one thought in my head at the time: "How will I ever be able to find her, so far away?"

Moving became a way of life after that. Just as I'd get settled, the world would turn upside down, and once again I'd lose everything that was familiar to me. Five high schools in four years really does a number on a kid.

I've lived in Long Island longer than I have any other place since first moving away from Pennsylvania all those years ago. While I never felt rooted, I felt in place and I felt a sense of connectedness (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) in my husband's extremely large and loving family who live so close by.

I have a sense of real mourning as we get ready to put this house I adore on the market. (Combined with a sense of real pissed-off-edness at the fact we may be forced to do a short sale due to hopelessly falling house prices. What the fuckity fuckity fuck?)

But mostly I have a lot of sorrow and loss. I do adore it here. And no offense Ohio, but you'd have to work hard to convince me you have anything that can come close to this:

Moving reminds me very, very much of adoption. Through no decision of my own, I lost my first home, my first family, my first identity when I was adopted. And here a lifetime away I'm losing everything I've worked hard to build, again through no decision of my own. Hope is evil but I keep holding out for a last minute miracle that can keep us here. But until then, I've got Philly plans to finalize, and it's summer here in paradise. It's finally stopped raining, my work day is done, and I'm heading for the beach.

The National Council for Adoption: Mothers, Money, Marketing, and Madness

2009-06-26T08:51:00.001-04:00

You have read this, right?

If not, please do.

Even if you have, it's worth reading again.

The National Council for Adoption: Mothers, Money, Marketing, and Madness

Inhuman Benefits

2009-06-18T09:19:00.002-04:00

So anyway on Facebook this morning, I was wondering about that dude in "Journey of the Adopted Self" who took that six months sick leave because he found search so threatening.

Just where did this guy work? Is there some adoptee-owned company out there that offers this as standard in their benefit package? If so, can I get a job there?

My search is done but frankly, I just find adoption so threatening, I really could use some time off from work too.

I'm just saying.

New postcards available to print and send!

2009-06-11T08:49:00.000-04:00

A hardworking volunteer for the rally has made some postcards you can print and send to your state representatives. You can find these on the 'Help Spread The Word' page.

These postcards are formatted to work with Avery Postcards products 3263, 3377, 3381, 5689, 8383, 8387, 8577, or any cardstock paper. Postcards are available in PDF or Word format. Go check them out and while you're there, review all the other ways you can help spread the word and raise awareness for the demonstration!

On genetics

2009-06-07T09:30:00.002-04:00

Dear Mom,

I've now seen pictures of

-- my brother

-- my sister

-- you

After careful consideration and hours of searching for even the slightest resemblance, I've come to the conclusion I definitely must take after my father.

Whoever he is.

I should never have sent you those pictures of me.

Love,
Whatever my name is

Holt unscathed despite suffering of thousands

2009-06-07T08:48:00.000-04:00

The title says it all.

Go here

I'm nagging you

2009-05-26T12:51:00.001-04:00

But Jeff asks much nicer

Please call or write on our behalf

Hope Anne Catricala

2009-05-21T08:45:00.001-04:00

Catricala, Hope Anne COHOES Hope Anne Catricala, native of Watervliet, died Tuesday, May 19, 2009 at the age of 60 in her home in Cohoes after a long battle with cancer.

She was the daughter of the late Fredrick Russell and Helen Duchene, and of her late adoptive parents, Vincent James Sr. and Eleanor G. (Cramer) Catricala. Survived by brother, John Catricala; sister, Eleanor (Catricala) Lampkin; stepbrother, Ralph Duddley; stepsister, Theresa Birch; and several nieces and nephews.

Other close family and friends include Clement and Alice Turgeon, Donna Turgeon, Ben, Nancy, Benjamin and Leah Fronczek, Matthew and Hannah Watermann and family, Ellen and Tom Sage, Mary Gemma, and Dawn Cary.

Hope was a member of Holy Trinity Parish, Cohoes, where she was a member of the Ladies of Saint Anne Society, a RCIA team member, a Eucharist minister, usher, and team member of the Liturgical Planning group.

Hope's life consisted of working as a life guard at the Watervliet City Pool, various clerk jobs, the NYS Museum and the NYS Transportation Department.

She was the president of the NENY Lupus Foundation in Albany, original founder of the Adoptee Political Action Coalition (APAC) and the NY Statewide Adoption Reform (NYSAR), and a member of the New York Adoption group. She fought for 17 years to pass legislation of the Bill of Adoptee Rights before both the Assembly and the Senate in Albany, N.Y.

She was a lover of animals and spent time volunteering at the Mohawk Hudson Animal Shelter. She was the recipient of the J.C. Penny Golden Rule Award and the Lupus Foundation of America Fleur-de-lis Award for her outstanding service to the community.

Special thanks to Dr. Duncan Savage, Dr. Nina Wu, the Community Hospice of Rensselaer and any of my angels: Ellen, Mary Ann, Hannah, Joan, Kathy, and Phyllis.

Calling hours will be held Friday from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Catricala Funeral Home Inc., 1597 Rte. 9, Clifton Park with a funeral Mass Saturday at 9 a.m. in the Holy Trinity Parish Church, Vliet Blvd, Cohoes. Burial will take place in St. Joseph's Cemetery in Waterford.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Holy Trinity Parish, 122 Vliet Blvd., Cohoes, NY 12047; the NENY Lupus Foundation, 790 Watervliet Shaker Rd., Latham, NY 12110; and the Mohawk & Hudson River Humane Society, 3 Oakland Ave., Menands, NY 12204.

Little things mean a lot

2009-04-26T05:32:00.005-04:00

What's the very first question asked when applying for a birth certificate?

Those little reminders that you are not equal, you are not entitled to the same treatment as other Americans.

You're different.

RegDay November 14, 2009 VOLUNTEER TODAY!!!

2009-04-24T21:45:00.002-04:00

Adoption_NYC is looking for RegDay volunteers!

Site Coordinator: ADOPTION_NYC IS LOOKING FOR VOLUNTEERS FOR THE UPCOMING RegDay November 14, 2009 in New York City:

The main purpose for RegDay is to increase public awareness of the International Soundex Reunion Registry or ISRR. Volunteers pass out flyers, hand out ISRR forms, answer questions, including media related and need to be able to do so calmly under pressure.

To Volunteer, send them a message on Myspace at

http://www.myspace.com/adoption_nyc

Please include:

NAME
CURRENT LOCATION
EMAIL/MYSPACE
NUMBER HOURS AVALIABLE (between 8am and 10pm)

Movies on YouTube

2009-04-24T19:38:00.005-04:00

YouTube has started streaming full length movies, among them....

Love Inventory

After the loss of his parents, filmmaker David Fisher feared that his tightly knit family was growing apart. Born and raised in Israel, the Fisher siblings—three brothers, one sister—were grappling with common concerns of families everywhere: divorce, child-raising, job pressures, emotional problems. Bittersweet, honest and touchingly funny, LOVE INVENTORY chronicles Fisher’s attempt to solve a personal mystery—uniting his troubled family in the process.

As Fisher and his siblings sift through family papers after the death of their father, a long-buried secret rises to the surface. For years, their mother had mentioned that her first children had been twins, a boy and a girl, but that the girl had disappeared shortly after birth. The Fishers knew they had an older brother who had died after only a few months, but were uncertain what to make of the stories about the missing twin. Did she die in infancy as well, and if so, where was she buried? Or could she even still be alive, unknowingly living in the same city? What would she look like—and what happened to her?

Watch online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id1MYmdYjGo

Film homepage: http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/loveinventory/

Daughter from Danang

A heartbreaking documentary that upsets your expectations of happily-ever-afters, Daughter from Danang is a riveting emotional drama of longing, identity, and the personal legacy of war. To all outward appearances, Heidi is the proverbial “all-American girl”, hailing from small town Pulaski, Tenn. But her birth name was Mai Thi Hiep. Born in Danang, Vietnam in 1968, she’s the mixed-race daughter of an American serviceman and a Vietnamese woman. Fearing for her daughter’s safety at the war’s end, Hiep’s mother sent her to the U.S. on “Operation Babylift”, a Ford administration plan to relocate orphans and mixed-race children to the U.S. for adoption before they fell victim to a frighteningly uncertain future in Vietnam after the Americans pulled out. Mother and daughter would know nothing about each other for 22 years.

Now, as if by a miracle, they are reunited in Danang. But what seems like the cue for a happy ending is anything but. Heidi and her Vietnamese relatives find themselves caught in a confusing clash of cultures and at the mercy of conflicting emotions that will change their lives forever. Through intimate and sometimes excruciating moments, Daughter from Danang profoundly shows how wide the chasms of cultural difference and how deep the wounds of war can run--even within one family.

Watch online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ueTwnMb8dI

Film homepage: http://www.daughterfromdanang.com/

An excellent review of this film is at Ethnically Incorrect

ICWA Help Needed

2009-04-19T10:02:00.003-04:00

I have very little knowledge of the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1977 but I know other people do.

Can someone please, please help this blogger - this is really important.

This law was made for a number of reasons, but the one that is of most importance to me is that my records can supposedly be opened due to genetic and medical reasons. It is a federal law. In my case I am not so much interested in finding my natural parents but rather looking for medical history and acknowledgment from the tribe so that I can apply for grant money so I can show that we can get the Prograf. Without that, there will be no transplant. Anybody know any adoption law? We're stumped.

The post is at http://beaux24.blogspot.com/2009/04/where-do-we-go-from-here.html

Thanks.

PS - Also even though I think it's twitter-attention-whorish to ask for RT's, if you're on Twitter if you could please RT this one I'd appreciate it. This is someone's health here.

Wherein I fall a little deeper in love with fellow adoptee Louis Spector:

2009-04-17T10:16:00.002-04:00

I mean, check this out:

Louis Spector's memoir: 'The Gingerbread House at La Collina Drive: My Life Caged Behind Phil Spector's Wall Of Sound'. Louis and twin brother Gary were bought as a surprise Christmas present for Phil’s wife Ronnie when they were five.

read more | digg story

Is that a great title, or what?

I am so looking forward to this book.

To the person who found this blog a little after midnight by searching google for 'i hate being adopted pls help'

2009-04-16T21:12:00.001-04:00

I know.

Here:

http://www.AdultAdoptees.org

I hope you come back and see this.

By the way, I do too.

Questions Unasked

2009-04-12T18:45:00.002-04:00

Dear Mom,

When people ask you how many children you have, or if you have any grandchildren, do you pause before you lie?

Love,
(whatever my name is)

Singing, and Rapping, for Their Rights as Adoptees

2009-04-11T10:22:00.001-04:00

Two musicians have written and recorded a song they hope will revive a bill that would open private adoption records. The song, by Darryl McDaniels and Zara H. Phillips, is called “I’m Legit,” and it mixes the rap of Mr. McDaniels — also known as DMC of the pioneering hip-hop group Run-DMC — with the rock of Ms. Phillips in support of legislation that would give adult adoptees access to their original birth records. Similar legislation is being considered in nine other states.

read more | digg story

Letter Writing Campaign Weekend!

2009-04-10T14:14:00.001-04:00

It’s Letter Writing Campaign Weekend!

Please go here:

http://adopteerightsphilly.blogspot.com/2008/12/letter-writing-campaign.html

for a sample letter.

Write your letters and send them Monday April 13th. This marks the beginning of the 100 days to the Demonstration!

Send this out to everyone you know! Blog it, email it, Facebook it! Everyone you know should be writing a letter to their legislators, urging them to introduce legislation in their states that allows unhampered access to original birth certificates to all adult adoptees.

Please take part in this very very important step on the road to Philly!

'I'm Legit' - DMC & Zara Phillips

2009-04-08T09:38:00.002-04:00

The song 'I'm Legit' has been written to raise awareness about the situation of closed birth records in the U.S. What I mean is the lack of rights that an adult adopted person has to have access to their own original birth certificate.

Both Darryl and I are adopted.I was adopted in the U.K where the records were opened in 1976,which meant that I could gain access to my original birth certificate and find out my birthmother's name.

Darryl does not have that right in fact their are only eight states that allow access, including Alabama, Alaska, Delaware, Kansas, New Hampshire, Oregon, Tennessee and, most recently, Maine. In New Jersey people have been trying for 29 years to change the law. Adopted people who just want to know their birth name find out family history,medical history

read more and digg story

Please be sure to add Zara as a friend, and leave a comment!

DMC: My Adoption Story

2009-04-03T08:10:00.000-04:00

If you didn't get a chance to watch it on VH1, or if you want to see it again, here you go!

read more | digg story

There's nothing here.

2009-04-01T09:52:00.003-04:00

I'm so neglectful. I don't have time to be adopted all the time right now.

Work has me running.

Any free time I have, I'm spending it here. And here. And here.

But mostly here.

You're going there, right? Because I just don't have time for you here, but I've got time there.

So go here.

Hey go here too.

See you there.

I got to get back to work.

The word of the day is

2009-03-26T18:15:00.002-04:00

DEMORALIZED

Being (for now) employed while people you admire and respect get kicked to the curb sucks.

Please do not tell me how lucky I am to have survived today still employed, because I don't feel lucky.

I feel survivor's guilt, and I feel terrified.

It's got to get better soon, right?

Welcome visitors from Shakesville and Disqus

2009-03-18T13:11:00.007-04:00

If you're coming here from the comments in this fantastic article, (and thank you, whoever linked me) welcome.

If you've never heard about adoptee rights before, here's a little info for you.

Adult adoptees in most states are denied access to their own birth certificates.

If you want your birth certificate, all you need to is go online or visit your local vital records off and pay a small fee. No one asks you why you want it, how ridiculous would that be?

If you're an adoptee who lives in a restricted access state, it becomes a little more complicated. You need to petition a court and offer yourself up to the luck gods that you have a judge in your county seat who views you as an adult. Sometimes you need to subject yourself to court-mandated counseling to prove you're emotionally stable enough to have this forbidden piece of paper. Some places you need to hire a lawyer, other places you can petition yourself. Sometimes you need the permission of your adoptive parents, no matter how old you are.

Always, it costs a lot more than a Vital Records copying fee. Me, I've spent thousands so far. With nary a birth certificate to show for it.

And always, always, always, are you told, unasked, to be grateful you weren't aborted.

Be grateful you weren't thrown in a dumpster.

You do know who your real parents are, right, the ones who raised you?

So that's a little what this site is about.

Thanks for dropping by, I'm glad you're here. Check out the links on both sides, there's good stuff and good people there.

By the way, on your way out the door, we're having a little party in Philadelphia this July.

Because we think the system sucks.

You're more than welcome to come. We the illegitimate know how to throw one hell of a shindig, and we don't discriminate against the non-adopted.

And we'd love it if you'd join us.

So check us out:

Philadelphia Adoptee Rights Demonstration

Please digg and share - this is important.

2009-03-18T12:58:00.000-04:00

Thanks

If we're going to have a seemingly neverending discussion about the sorrow and remorse caused by abortion, then it is about g-d time that we hear from birth mothers too.

read more | digg story

Submitted to digg by MTHS

Join the Philadelphia Adoptee Rights Demonstration on The Adoption Show

2009-03-15T09:44:00.002-04:00

THE ADOPTION SHOW
Voices Ending the Myth

A new segment
Sunday March 15, 2009
9:00 pm (est)
www.theadoptionshow.com

Is it against the law for you to possess your own birth certificate?

All people, adopted or not, have a right to access government records about their own lives. That’s why there will be an Adoptee Rights Demonstration in Philadelphia, PA, at 11 AM on July 21, 2009. This demonstration will coincide with the opening day of the Legislative Summit of the National Conference of State Legislators.

Join Michelle, Theresa, Cathy, Joy, Jimm and Dianne on The Adoption Show for an update on the Philadelphia Adoptee Rights Demonstration.

For information about the demonstration and to donate toward the Adoptee Rights Demonstration, go here:

http://adopteerightsphilly.blogspot.com/
http://www.adopteerights.net
________________________________________

Contact The Adoption Show

Michelle Edmunds
Host, Producer
michelle@theadoptionshow.com

Thaddeus Pedro
Recording Producer
thaddeus@theadoptionshow.com

Also: If you have Twitter - can you please post this as a status:

RT @ARDPhilly Join the Philadelphia Adoptee Rights Demonstration on The Adoption Show Sun 9PM EST http://tr.im/ho27

I didn't hear Miss Kitty

2009-03-14T21:49:00.004-04:00

But Joy says she was on the radio too. I think I wasn't paying attention. I was so nervous my hands were shaking and my knees were a-knocking. They actually still are.

Yeah we did teh interwebnets radio with the ever so professional Michelle Edmunds and the incredibly skilled and quite handsome if I say so myself Thad Pedro producing.

I had to take multiple restroom breaks because I had a sore throat again today and drank way too much tea to try not to sound like I was doing a bad Demi Moore impersonation. She's not planning on adopting, by the way, did you hear that? The National Inquirer said her young man ain't stayin' home as much as she'd like, and there's nothing better for a troubled relationship than another woman's baby. But she says they're full of crap.

Anyway, The Adoption Show. You know I'll do the usual formal announcement but this is the fun one, the behind the scenes one, the real dirt one.

Here's the real deal on The Adoption Show:

It's a boatload of fun.

Oh wow, to talk about adoption, adoption, adoption, adoption, with great people and great pets, even if I did zone out when Miss Kitty was talking. My animals weren't on the show, but they did listen and provide feedback. My cats said I sounded like nails on a chalkboard wielded by a crack addict, and my dog said I sounded angelic, but he's really in adopto-fog so I take the words of my cats over his. They have no adoption gratitude whatsoever and could care less that I rescued them from the shelter.

We talked about the Protest and we talked about Philly and we talked about New Orleans and we gave all sorts of shouts outs and dedications to all sorts of beautiful people - but guess who we missed!? Only the two most important people behind the Show - Michelle and Thad themselves!

So here's a dedication to Michelle and Thad - sending out very special adoptee Run-D.M.C with Radio Station

Radio Station - Run-D.M.C.

Over at Facebook...

2009-03-14T11:30:00.003-04:00

....there's something undeniably beautiful going on.

Finally.

A family album, where we all look alike.

Ungrateful Little Bastard

So this Italian dude on the shores of Babylon

I'd never star on the show "Hoarders", but

"I've always been into things from China"

There can be only one

Traumatic for real kid to witness tossed adoptee, adoptee just fine

Save $$$ and pay CASH to purchase a baby!

Better Off, Better Smile

This is Not a Legal Record

Monday is "Contact Chairman Oliver Day" for Adoptee Rights

An Emotional Response to Graphic Violence

Support Adoptee Films

Jesuit-trained Lapsed Catholic School Bad Girls Rule

Sweetness

With so many grown children, I am a master manipulator

Pennsylvania Adoptee Rights **URGENT ACTION NEEDED--Help us Defeat HB 1968**

**URGENT ACTION NEEDED--Help us Defeat HB 1968**

Slideshow of images from the Louisville Adoptee Rights weekend

I just love this Itty Bitty Bastid

Good legislators get candy

And all I knew was you

Jackson Adams of the Illinois Times is one cool dude

Birth records opened, but not enough

Adoptees criticize new law for protecting anonymity of birth parents

Sit Up, Shut Up, and Suck It Up

The endless question

Adoptees, what did your parents do wrong?

Up next on listener-supported radio, two straight white dudes discuss growing up African American lesbian

LAST CALL FOR HOTEL RESERVATIONS!

Go visit Claud please

Please vote for ISRR at Chase Community Giving

Just in time for adoption camp!

PA Call to Action HB 1978

It's adorable to be a brood mare

I will never, ever, ever blog again

So remember

Next Long Island Adoptee Meetup - Saturday - March 27th

Chase Chenowith to Produce "The Hidden Heiress"

Chase Chenowith to Produce "The Hidden Heiress"

Going Home

The Overbrook Brothers

Partners of Adoptees

I'm Legit by Zara Phillips, featuring DMC

A Simple Life

Sunshine the Movie

But wait! There's more!

Upcoming TV shows of interest

Invitation to a free half day adoption film festival for Maine's 1st Anniversary

Off and Running - Screening again in NYC Jan-Feb 2010

Adoption Month Blatherings

Do you think they're making a new feature cartoon?

Adoptees with need for medical history

Nurse your hangover with OBCforME

Maine Celebrates One Year of Original Birth Certificates!

Come to Maine, celebrate with us! We have reached a milestone, our one year mark since original birth certificates were made available to adult adoptees here in Maine.

We will have lots of activities planned for this day - updates on the schedule of events will be posted soon!

Facebook RSVP: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=200446990464&ref=mf

Wow

The 15th Annual RegDay is November 14, 2009

October is the douchiest of months

Required Reading: “Sorry, Mrs. Smith” — Looking Beyond The Story

“Sorry, Mrs. Smith” — Looking Beyond The Story

Sad addendum to Linda Joy's story

Where's Linda Joy today?

I wonder if Paul ever searched

You can't make this stuff up

Digging Adoption

Gary Nisbet and Randy Joubert on the TODAY show this Morning

Thar's gold in them thar ovaries!

Executive compensations at adoption agencies

Third Annual Demons of Adoption Awards

Bring Peri Home

Fear and Loathing in Tennessee

Identifying information at time of adoption?

One of the most perplexing google searches I've seen yet that brought someone to this blog

Shotgun Adoption

Trailer for 'Roots: Unknown' up on YouTube

Please help 'A Search for Survivors'

Philadelphia Adoptee Rights Demonstration video

Shadows of the Family Tree

Pennsylvania Adoptee Rights URGENT ACTION NEEDED--Help us Defeat HB 1968

URGENT ACTION NEEDED--Help us Defeat HB 1968