Family Medical History - How Much Do YOU Know?

November is National Adoption Awareness Month. Also during this month our US Surgeon General tells us to sit down with our families during our Thanksgiving dinner and discuss what diseases run in our families. For families with with biological children this is terrific. But for those families with adopted adults sitting at the table, it does no good to have this discussion, because we do not carry the genetics of our adoptive parents.

There are reasons for our States to start thinking about giving adult adoptees access to their original birth certificates. Stop and think about what the first thing a doctor asks when you go to him. What is your medical history. In fact you have to fill out the form, and for adoptees it is almost always the same. I can't answer this because I am adopted.

What this means for the general public, is that every time an adoptee goes to a doctor, and they cannot figure out what is wrong, then the doctor has to perfom test after test after test on that person. The end result for the general public and why they SHOULD care is that your insurance rates go up, for all the testing we have to under go.

If our States would only grant adult adoptees access to their original birth certificates, we might be able to find out our updated medical information. We actually might be able to find someone who has our genetic makeup and be able to go to the doctor and tell them that diabetes or heart disease or Schizophrenia or MS, or any other disease actually runs in our family.

Oh, but I keep forgetting there are those of you who are naysayers to giving an adult adoptee access to that one document which states information regarding their own true birth. And if I remember right it is because you have some belief that the women who gave birth to those children all those years ago were promised confidentiality. And even if that woman wanted access, all of you should have the right to say they can't have contact with one another all these years later.

Well, even if they were promised this supposed confidentiality, and it were to go before the courts in North Carolina, it wouldn't be able to be upheld. That is because the relinquised childs records are NOT sealed upon the RELINQUISHMENT. They are ONLY sealed if the child is ADOPTED. And currently and even in the past, I hate to say it but there was NO way anyone could tell a woman her child would assuredly be adopted. Are you getting the flavor of what I am saying?

I really hated having to have to go through all of those test every time I went to the doctor, but everytime I got through it, I would have a good laugh at the expense of the naysayers, and think about their insurance rates going up, even though mine would also go up.

What can you do during the rest of this month, or next month or even the first one in the new year? Well, there is currently a movie out regarding the impact of sealed records on older adoptees. It is called "Adopted: For the Life of Me". (Trailer can be seen on Youtube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el7FQEDtb-M)

Our organization is here to show this movie to any group who would like to see it. There is no charge. Donations to our organization are welcome.

We will come to your church, home, meeting hall, you just tell us where. We have our own equipment, all you need is a blank wall.

We ensure you this movie will stir emotions in you that you didn't know were there.

Contact us through our home link if you are interested or know someone who may be intererested in seeing this documentary.

Full Day of Adoption Movies - Evening of Music

One week from tomorrow, on October 23, the NC Coalition for Adoption Reform will host an ALL day event, at the NC University of Chapel Hill Chapman Hall Room 125 - starting with registration at 8:30am.

This event celebrates the implementation of HB1463 - Confidential Intermediary - Expand Access bill passage and implementation on October 1, 2010
This new bill allows "Biological Siblings and 1/2 siblings of adult adoptees, adult fmily members of deceased adoptees and adult family members of a deceased biological parent to have access to the CI program services upon the consent of the parties, and allows an agency to act as a CI to obtain a copy of a death certificate of the person who is a subject of a search and deliver it to the person requesting the services.

At 9:00am, you will be able to view the movie Loggerheads - Inspired by true events, Loggerheads tells the story of an adoption "triad" - birthmother, child, and adoptive parents - each in three interwoven stories in the days leading up to Mother's Day weekend, and each in one of the three distinctive geographical regions of North Carolina - mountains, Piedmont and costal plain.
After the movie, Diana Ricketts, the birthmother whom Bonnie Hunt portrays in Tim Kirkman's movie will be on hand to answer questions. Tim will Skype in after the movie.

At 11:30am, viewers will see Roots: Unknown by Zara Phillips - A 30 minute documentary examining the lifelong impact of adoption. This movie focuses on the emotional influence adoption has on the adoptee and their families.

At 1:30pm, we will show Unlocking the Heart of Adoption by Sheila Ganz - This movie chronicles the filmaker's journey as a birthmother interwoven with diverse personal stories of adoptees, birthparents and adoptive parents in both same rase and transracial adoptions. These stories span 70 years. Sheila will join the audience for questions following the movie via Skype.

At 3:15, For the Life of Me - by Jean Strauss will be shown. What would it be like to never know who you were when you were born? For the Life of Me follows Dave as he embarks on a journey to find his birthmother. Along with the heartwarming stories of Joe and a half dozen other adopted citizens, Dave's saga illuminates the impact secrets can have over an entire lifetime. With its unexpected and moving conclusion, For the Life of Me is one of those films that will stay with you long after you witness it.
Jean will join us via Skype after this movies.

During the day you will have an opportunity to purchase some very unique photograps from the album Adoption Roots: Lost and Found done by Katrina Ketring. Her photos tell a story of Adoption from Birth, Separation, Feelings of Loss in Adoption, Lost Roots, the Search for roots and reunion. Her photography shows : How it feels to loose your Roots, the hole in adoption, the longing for our roots. Who am I? Who do I look like? What is my story, my heritage, my past, my roots? Was I wanted, was I loved?
Katrina is a reunited adoptee (17 years). We will be auctioning off three of her photos in 8x10 during the event.

Starting at 7:00 pm that evening, you will be entertained by Jo Gore and Bo Lankenau. Jo is a local girl, who sings Rock and Roll with Acoustic Soul.

At 7:30pm, Mary Gauthier [Go-Shay] and Tania Elizabeth will entertain with songs from Mary's new album called "The Foundling". The album has soncs such as: Mama Here, Mama Gone, Blood is Blood and The Orphan King.

The cost of this event is:
Full Day - $25.00
Movies Only $10.00
Music Only $15.00
(Sorry - No Credit Cards or checks at registration)

We hope you will come and join us for what will assuredly be a terrific day of entertainment.
Please contact Roberta MacDonald at nccar@mindspring.com if you would like to RSVP for this event.

Upcoming Adoption Events - October & November

Well, it is that time of the year. The NC Coalition for Adoption Reform (NCCAR) is in it's 'educational' mode. We ususally do this all in the month of November, but this year it will start in October and go through November.

An email was sent out asking members to please renew their membership with NCCAR, even if we will not be doing any legislation for the next year or so. Educating the masses takes money and a lot of it. Please go to our website and to the registration page to find out how to renew or become a new member if you are just finding out about us.

October 9 - Transracial Adoption Support Group of Raleigh. We will be doing an adoption panel for over 20 adoptive parents. We have an Adoptive mother and her daughter who are in a very open adoption. We have a bi-racial birthmother who has just reunited with her daughter. We also have a Korean adoptee who will be joining us via Google Chat & video. Then there are two other adoptees also one found by her birthmother, and another who is no longer in reuinon with her birthmother.

October 14 - We will be showing the documentary on Adam Pertman to the Durham County DSS. We will also be doing some neat adoption exercises with the social workers, to try and help them 'GET IT'.

October 23 - BIG EVENT - This will be an ALL DAY event. Four adoption movies during the day, and then a big evening of music. Opening will be Jo Gore and the Alternatives from 7:00 - 7:30pm and then Mary Gauthier [Go-Shay] and Tania Elizabeth will perform. Mary is an adult adoptee, and will be singing from her new album "The Foundling". This event is $25.00 for the whole day, $10.00 for just the movies, and $15.00 for just the Music.
This is an RSVP event, so please go to our website and see how you can RSVP for this.

November 1 - NCCAR will start out showing Jean Strauss's - For the Life of Me to the DSS workers in Rowan County. Later that evening I will be showing 2 Niteline documentaries to the Davidson County DSS and Foster Parents. We have adoption related exercises which are done at most of our film viewings.

November 2 - NCCAR members will start out in Lincoln County showing two different documentaries one on foster care, then that night I will be in Polk County NC to show Foster Parents - Foster Care: Calling All Angels. Adoption exercises will be done with these group also

November 4 - Starts out in Onslow County showing to one of our favorite groups from last year, showing them 'For The Life of Me', and then showing the same movie to our other favorite group from last year Pitt County DSS. We will be doing some of our adoption exercises at each of these viewings.

November 5 - Has members of NCCAR in Mecklenburg County showing them the two Nightline Documentaries and our adoption related exercises.

November 7 - Triangle Adoption Support Group will see For the Life of Me - from 2:30 - 4:30 pm

November 9 - Adoption Triad Dialogue Support Group in Greensboro will be seeing For the Life of Me.

November 15 - NCCAR members will be back on the road to Gates County DSS to show them 'For the Life of Me' and doing adoption related exercises.

We still have a couple of Foster Parent groups which we may also be showing to during November.

As you can see we do a lot of traveling with our education, so if you feel so inclined, please go to our website and see how you can help us out with our costs. Our October 23 event is going to cost us quite a bit of our reserved cash.

If you know of any group you would like for us to come and educate about adoption, please contact us. We do this during anytime of the year, but National Adoption Awareness Month - November is always a great time to do it in. Please do not hesitate to contact us, and we will try to set up a time to accomodate you and your group.

A New Updated Confidential Intermediary Program

On October 1, 2010 North Carolina will implement a new phase to the Confidential Intermediary Program. The newlaw will now allow adult adoptees 18 years and older (no longer 21)to utilize the program. Full and half siblings will be able to utilize the program to search for an adoptee. Other family members of a deceased biological parent will be able to use the program. This new update will also allow anyone who searches to and finds a grave at the end of their search to be able to request a copy of the death certificate from the agency who performed the search.

We currently do not know if the agencies will uphold the last part for parties retroactively or not. It may be worth you trying to go back to the agency and requesting the death certificate.

In light of this, we would like to hear from those of you in North Carolina who have successfully or not so successfully utilized the program as it currently is.

Which agency did you use? Can you let us know how much they charged? Was this reasonable to you? Did the birthparent / adoptee want contact? If you are the adoptee, and the birthparent did not want contact, did the agency try to obtain updated medical information on your behalf? Any other information you would be willing to share with us would be most helpful.

Please keep us updated on your reunion if you have had one.

Change is in the Wind - For Those Who Fight For It

Change is right around the corner, but only if those associated with adoption really want that change.

You are the ones who vote the legislators in Raleigh into their positions. So they are suppose to listen to you as their constituents. However if you never write or call them they do cannot read your mind as to what you want them to vote favorably for.

When I go out to adoptionforums.com, under search and reunion, I see all of these people who want to find some loved one. The NC Coalition is trying to get that for those people in allowing them to be able to utilize the confidential intermediary program.

But the organization cannot do it alone. It does need everyone who happens upon this blog to help by writing to their legislator today.

We have bill HB 1463 Expand Access Confidential Intermediary passed through the House, but now it is back in the Senate JII committee, because members of the NC Family Policy Council are working the legislators, and telling them if they make this new change women will abort their children instead of giving them up for adoption.

This agency clearly does not know the law, just as many of our legislators do not understand that records are only SEALED upon the FINALIZATION OF ADOPTION, so you can NEVER legally promise a birthmother confidentiality. Her child may NEVER be adopted.

Plus, our legislators continue to spend our tax dollars, in the attempt of telling which adult can talk or contact another adult. Does this happen in any other aspect of life other than adoption? No, it doesn't, and shouldn't for adoptees and birthparents or adoptees and siblings or adoptees and other blood related family members. All adoption did was substitute one blood related family for one which is not blood related.

We cannot make the much needed changes without YOU those who are associated through adoption, or friends and family who are NOT associated with adoption in contacting your legislators.

If you read this blog and would like to assist, please contact us at nccar@mindspring.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

NC Family Policy Council - Rebuttal to Anonymous for Life

Any Birth parent who has relinquished a child/children with the expectation that these children would be adopted need to be made aware that some relinquished children are never adopted; therefore their original birth certificates will NEVER be sealed by the State.

In a standard relinquishment, signed at minimum amount of hours/days following the birth of the child, the birth parent according to DSS-1804:

7. That I understand that when the adoption is final, all of my rights and duties with respect to the minor will be extinguished and all other aspects of my legal relationship with the minor child will be terminated;

9. That I hereby waive notice of any proceeding for adoption;

And last of all:
15 That I understand unless revoked in accordance with G.S. 48-3-706 or #13 above, my Relinquishment is final and irrevocable except under the circumstances set forth in G.S. 48-3-707.


When prospective adoptive parents take a child home, the clock starts ticking for the 7 Day period required by NC law before the adoption may be finalized in court.

Until that court hearing, neither adoption records nor the original birth certificate is sealed.

If a relinquished child goes into foster care or an institution, or dies before an adoption is finalized, the original birth certificate will not be sealed.

It stands to reason that once the relinquishment is signed, the birth parent is "as if dead," because regardless of what happens to the child, she's signed away her right to be notified.

Thus, any alleged "promise of confidentiality" is meaningless. In signing the document that she hoped would assure her child of an adoptive placement, she became persona non grata (a person who for some reason is not wanted or welcome).

Given these facts, how can any relinquishing parent be assured of "confidentiality"?

Anonymous for Life??? Should Adoption Be?

We are in a new year, and the short Legislative Session. During the last session, HB1463 - Expand Access / Confidential Intermediary passed in the House 114 - 0 with 2 no votes. It was placed on the Senate calendar for May 19, 2010.

Since then, the NC Family Policy Council, has been spreading propaganda that if this bill is passed, and birthmothers are not able to keep their secret to the grave, then birthmothers will have no other recourse but to abort their children. How silly can they be?

What part of 'you can't promise a birthmother confidentiality' - LEGALLY does the NC Family Policy Council not understand?

I will repeat myself for their benefit one more time. Adoption Records are NOT sealed UNTIL the FINALIZATION OF ADOPTION.... NOT UPON RELINQUISHMENT!!!!

If a woman relinquishes her child for adoption, and that child is NEVER adopted, then there will be NO SEALING of the ORIGINAL Birth Certitificate.... When the child becomes an adult and requests a birth certificate they WILL get their original birth certificate with the birthmother's name ON IT!!!!

Even Foster Children receive copies of their OBC in their LIFEBOOKS!!

What this new bill will do is to allow siblings, 1/2 siblings, and other family members of a DECEASED birthparent to utilize the Confidential Intermediary program which went into effect in 2008. This bill also unfortunately has a type of VETO in it that if the birthmother does not want access, then these folks will be denied access to the CI program.

The NCFPC states the Violations are: "The CI program only requires one party in order for a search to be initiated and a non-consenting person to be contacted about an adoption. "

****This is done by an adoption agency, not by any of the people involved in the adoption. (And personally, I would have to state when they talk about "non-consenting" how much consent does an adoptee have into their adoption? - NONE)****

There is more contact today through the internet person to person, then through the CI program. Would they rather people find on their own and contact the 'unsuspecting' birthmother themselves?

As far as their statement that women will choose abortion over adoption, I would challenge the NCFPC to show proof. After all, there have been 6 states to open up access to original birth certificates to adult adoptees since 2000, and in each of those states, the abortion rate is lower than the national rate is. You can see this for yourself on the American Adoption Congress website at: http://americanadoptioncongress.org/reform_adoption_data.php

In their concluding statement, they state:
"A decree of adopiton effects a complete substitution of families for all LEGAL purposes after the entry of the decree". BINGO..... NOT BEFORE

"A decree of adoption severs the relationship of parent and child between the individual adopted and that individual's biological or previous adoptive parents... the former parents are divested of ALL RIGHTS with respect to the adoptee.

I have to rest my case with this, as I have been saying all along. A birthmother has NO RIGHTS after the adoption, but they keep saying they do????????

"It is not right for the state to change a law under which closed adoptions have historically taken place. Such adoptions are based on the assured anonymity of parents' identities, and HB 1463 would increase the opportunity for those difficult decisions to be violated."

Are we still living in the 1940's? That is what they would have us think. Laws change everyday. That is the purpose of our legisalture, to see that when an obsolete law such as Chapter 48 needs revision, that it is revised. The number of women who do NOT want contact with the children they gave birth to, is overwelmingly in the minority. You can see this in the states who have granted access. (http://americanadoptioncongress.org/pdf/or_al_nh_me_contact_stats.pdf)


Why should our legislature be establishing and keeping laws on what 'strangers' can and cannot talk with one another? That after all is what birthparents and adoptees are....STRANGERS when they meet.

It is clearly because they want to control the confidentiality of the ADOPTIVE parents. However, with this bill, THEY do not have a say, as we are talking all about ADULTS. There are no CHILDREN involved in this bill.

Last but not least, within the Chapter 48 Statute, in the Intent, it states: "to protect the privacy of the parties to the adoption,... " It does not state from who or what. But let it be known that there is a big difference between PRIVACY and CONFIDENTIALITY.
As citizens we are ALL promised some degrees of PRIVACY.

Right to Privacy:
Sealed records proponents claim that birth parents have a right to remain anonymous from their offspring and often articulate this claim as stemming from a constitutional "right to privacy." However, the courts have generally determined that the federal constitutional right to privacy means protection of individuals from government intrusion. A number of states have explicit right to privacy provisions in their constitutions that may provide greater protections than those provided under the federal constitution.

However a Tennessee judge put it very succintley regarding birthmother CONFIDENTIALITY....

"There simply has never been an absolute guarantee or even a reasonable expectation by the birth parent or any other party that adoption records were permanently sealed. In fact, reviewing the history of adoption statutes in this state reveals just the opposite."

WHY does this apply to NC also? Because laws change. Chapter 48 has been changed many times, and will be so in the future. After all, adoption records were only sealed in the 1930's in NC. The Original Birth Certificate was not sealed until 1945. So between the 1930's and 1945, adoptees could obtain a copy of their original birth certificate. So who's rights were being protected?


Please if you believe it is unfair for ADULTS to be REGULATED by our legislators, and that the NCFPC is way out of line in their assumptions and propoganda, then write your legislator TODAY and let him know that the people associated with adoption, should NOT be treated any differently then anyone else.

Let them know they should NOT be wasting YOUR TAX dollars on deciding who can and cannot talk with one another.

Please go to the NC Coalition for Adoption Reform website for more information regarding this.