Sunday, September 30, 2007

Looking for - Read on!

I came here to write about my new search and to update my last blog and I will in just a minute.

I sat here, reflecting on what I'd just read about Iowa records being forever sealed and it just torqued me off. I wanted to title this blog "How to stay a child forever" and then thought better of it. But the truth is, adoptees (in most states) are considered children forever. The adoption laws were written as though they would never grow up and become adults, with certain guaranteed rights that most of us take forgranted. We know who we are and where we came from. We can put together our medical history and our ancestral history. We can easily get a passport because we can produce a birth certificate - something few adoptees can do.

Sealed...something we do to food to keep it safe to eat...not something we do to a person's identity. Amended birth certificates - sounds like something that should come with a Cabbage Patch Doll - not real, just take it, use it, and don't ask what appened before it was issued...like pre-adoption moments never existed.

If I'm frustrated, imagine how the adoptee feels!!! Ok, on to updates:

Joanne (see last blog in August) and her family have been reuinted with one of the two sisters...Rose Marie is still missing as of this post and Andy's time is running out. If anyone knows a woman named Rose Marie, from Canada, please read the blog and get the details. You just might be the one to grant a dying man his last wish. And folks, if you think this isn't all that important, try hugging a tombstone. Many have done it and it's just not the same as holding a real live person and being able to say "I love you" one time.

My new search is for Jeff's birth family members. He was born on July 30, 1961, 07/30/1961, 07/30/61, 07-30-1961, 7-30-61 (just trying to keep the web crawlers happy) at Iowa Lutheran Hospital in Des Moines, IA. He was raised in a suburb of Kansas City, Kansas called Prairie Village and now lives in NY.

Like most adoptees, he knows very little. His mother, dark hair and eyes, was 16 and in high school. His father was tall and also in high school. The physician, Dr. Robert Hoffman, is deceased. His nurse/wife, Margaret, claims to have destroyed all the doctor's records upon his death.

I came to know Jeff when I reunited his adopted step sister (my niece) with her birthmom, my sister-in-law. My neice was named Donna at birth, hence my screen name lovesdonna2 - her name isn't Donna anymore but that's really of no moment. They had their first face to face in NYC a week or so ago and that's where my sister-in-law met Jeff.

One more quick update: Cherie (born Natalie Ann) on 02/21/1958 in Albany, NY at Brady Hospital is still looking for her birth mother and twin brothers. Her birth mother was orphaned at age 16, moved from Iowa to Albany to live with her brother.

If anything rings a bell with you or strikes a chord, please contact me.
Peace to you and those you love,
Aunt Patty