Adoptees shouldn't have to resort to DNA testing to find their biological families, Connecticut adoptee tells lawmakers

Editor's note: This is one in an ongoing series of posts spotlighting support for our continued effort to provide adult adoptees born in Connecticut access to their original birth certificates. The testimony featured in this series was submitted to the state Legislature earlier this year in support of proposed legislation that would have restored the right of adult adoptees adopted before Oct. 1, 1983, to access their original birth certificate. (Post-1983 adoptees had this right restored in 2014.) The letters are published with the authors' permission. Sign up for our newsletter at www.accessconnecticut.org if you want to help us end discrimination against adoptees.

Good day,
I am encouraged that a public hearing on Senate Bill 977 will be happening this week. I am an adult adoptee who was fortunate to have been adopted at age 6 months by two wonderful people who provided me with a loving, stable, and happy home. These two people were my parents in every sense of the word and I feel blessed to have had them.

With that being said, I have always had a natural curiosity about my birth parents but as I get older (I am now 50 years old) I especially want to know my medical history. It is my human and civil right to have access to this information and it is too important in my life and for that of my children who presently have no maternal health history beyond me. As the saying goes, knowledge is power and if I had access to my medical history, I would be in a position to better manage the decisions I make regarding my health.

I wholeheartedly encourage you to support this important Bill which will allow me and thousand of others to have access to information that every other ordinary person in Connecticut has and takes for granted every day. In speaking with friends and family, I have every reason to believe that there is widespread support for passage of this bill.

Sincerely,

Diane Augustus

UPDATE: Since I wrote this letter, I have found my birthmother. To make a long story short, I took a DNA test which resulted in a second cousin match. It only took me about 72 hours of some digging but I was able to get an email address and she wrote back right away. She was thrilled and we are meeting soon along with two half-sisters. Needless to say, it is all very overwhelming but I am most fortunate that it she is happy (as is her family) about my existence. She also gave me my birth father's name and has given me as much medical history as she knows. I am overjoyed to be able to say that for the first time in my life, I am able to make educated decisions about my health that I wasn't able to do before.

Fortunately, I did not have to expose her identity to this 2nd cousin match but I can certainly see why that is a real concern and one of the many reasons why it is so important that adoptees get the right to their original birth certificate. Through these DNA tests, people are finding their birth parents but in a very roundabout way. It would have been more private for her and I if had my birth certificate with her name on it as it would not have risked other biological relatives finding out through DNA testing. However, I was very careful and felt the need to protect her identity along the way. She did the right thing back in 1966 and I did not want to penalize her or risk the relationship she has with her family. Through the email, I was able to contact her directly without anyone else knowing. That way she was able to speak with her family about it on her own terms. She told me my adoption was never a secret with her family but it had been many years since it was discussed.

Even though I now have my own information I would still like the law to stop discriminating against adoptees. I was truly very fortunate that finding my birth mother only took me a few days. There are people who have taken DNA tests who have been searching for birth parents for many years without success. Thankfully, my birth mother is still alive and in good enough health to be able to give me the health information I wanted. With OBC access, precious months and years can be saved before that generation of birth parents passes away or develops memory issues. I am, therefore, still very much in support of this effort.