The very first time I stumbled into your blog I immediately thought, damn, I don’t know what’s ‘back there’, but she has some kind of direct experience with this (the Escher-like ‘rationales’ of adoption that is), she ‘gets it.’

Yup, I came THIS close to making the ‘maze of twisty passages’ analogy myself, but it conflicted a bit with the Escher image I was working with. But yeah, great minds think alike or something.

Count me yet another Doctor Who Fan bastard (Tom Bakker, nautrally. Thank/blame WOSU.)

I also thought your words from your post-

“…the adoption industry has turned me into a vocal advocate for adoptee rights. It’s ironic that if the records weren’t sealed, there wouldn’t be people like me publicly questioning the adoption industry’s more dubious practice”

Goes well alongside your comment-

“Where do we find the strength? We find it because we have no choice. Our anger is the only birthright we have, at least in places like Illinois and Ohio.”

Both of which very deeply mirror my own experience.

This blog would simply not exist were it not for the filthy nexis of industry-State collusion and what it does to us daily.

There is more dripping down the adoption sewer pipes hour by hour than I could ever possibly blog. Once one begins to ‘pay attention’ there’s a virtually never ending stream of raw fodder for posts that belong here.

That said, the CI systems, and direct experiences with them need to rise above the noise level and gain the attention they deserve.

They are one of the most corrupt, money grubbing, answering to no one hellholes ever fashioned; a particularly effective methodology of control for us and cash cow for those in the racket. Just anther way they get us ‘coming and going’. Adoption, a system we never entered by actions on our own part, and never consented to.

More to the point, we were at an age when we were too young to protect our own interests. The State, as then supposedly ‘acting on our behalf’ abdicated its duty to some of it’s most vulnerable citizens, obliterating or at minimum confiscating our authentic history, and replacing it with what are in so many cases easily proven to be lies. Then they ‘get us on the back end’ by leaving us no recourse other than to be forced into chutes like their CI systems in vain attempts to regain the very documentation every other citizen takes for granted.

They get away with it because ultimately who the hell is going to stop them? Certainly not leggies (many of who are adopters, or otherwise involved in adoption themselves.)

Nothing you don’t know already.

I thought your circumstances (which yes, I got wrong in my blog entry, thank you for correcting me) were also a really good example of how we end up having to deal with the complexity of the interstate complexities of our records disaster.

Again, I can’t thank you enough for writing that all out.

I spoke with another adoptee who was adopted from the same agency ten years later. ALL OF HER INFORMATION FROM THE AGENCY WAS A LIE. I have had search angels look at my stuff and its the same issue. They all think its hogwash. I am at my wits end with my own search but I will help others search.

One slight correction to your blog. I am actually an Illinois resident. I was born here, sent off a week later with my adoptive family who lived in Ohio, then I returned to Illinois to attend college and have been here ever since. So I am a constituent of the lawmakers who are debating HB 4623, that steaming platter of excrement disguised as “help” for adoptees.

Now, Ohio’s HB 7 – I’m no longer an Ohio constituent, so they could care less what I have to say about it. Even if I didn’t want to live in Illinois, I would have a vested interest in staying here because otherwise, as you noted, I would have zero say in the laws that directly affect my access to my original birth certificate. Since Ohio has my adoption file firmly sealed away, I have no influence over legislation that could grant me access to it. I am certainly not the only adoptee adopted across state lines, or who no longer lives in the state where my records are impounded.

And there is no effing way “most” Illinois adoptees have their birth parent names. That is another smokescreen to disguise the fact that Illinois’ post-adoption services are ineffective at best and tragic at worst.

Love your Escher reference. Goes nicely with my motto, “What Would The Doctor Do?” because an episode of Doctor Who was based on the Escher sketch you mentioned. The “solutions” offered adoptees are truly a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. No up, no down, no left, no right – just take the pittance we deign to offer you and go away like a good little bastard. I’m fortunate that the Doctor taught me long ago to stand up against the injustices of the universe.

Adoptees (and the rest of the world) have been societally lobotomized into thinking bastards’ very existence is shameful. If there is only one thing people take away from my experience, it’s this:

Do not trust confidential intermediary programs.

They do not exist to help you.

They exist as an excuse to deny true records access, and to make even more money from adoption.

No human being should be treated in this manner simply for having been adopted – something none of us had any control over.

Also be sure to write Illinois legislators and tell them why the adoption community opposes HB 4623. The extended deadline for the bill is today (Friday, May 23); we don’t know when the vote may occur as the sponsors have done their best to keep everyone in the dark.

http://73adoptee.blogspot.com/2008/04/write-now-oppose-illinois-hb-4623.html

And thank you, Baby Love Child, and all those out there who are also writing about your experiences. Sadly, these experiences are all too typical for those of us who live with adoption every day. Where do we find the strength? We find it because we have no choice. Our anger is the only birthright we have, at least in places like Illinois and Ohio.