Time is of the essence for adoption reform in CT, adoptee says

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.

To Whom It May Concern:

I was born and adopted in Connecticut in 1964. I would have had access to my original birth certificate at age 18, but this right was taken away in the mid 1970’s when the law was changed. Upon becoming a parent myself, and after helping my father care for my mother with Alzheimer’s, I became very interested in finding out my medical and birth family history. My parents had told me the basic story that was later expanded upon by non-identifying information from my adoption agency. My birth father had been killed in a car accident before I was born. He was a senior in college at the time and he and my birth mother were planning to be married after he graduated. Once marriage was no longer an option my birth mother decided to place me for adoption and return to college herself. Her parents and brother knew and were supportive of her, but my birth father’s family never knew of the pregnancy.

Although I initiated a search through my adoption agency in 2010, they were never able to make direct contact and get a reply from my birth mother as to whether or not she wanted contact or to provide any updated medical information. The social worker from the agency could not have been kinder, but the process was frustrating as she hit dead ends and then came so close. We think she received the information, but could not be sure. Unless you are adopted you cannot know the strange feeling of hearing filtered stories about your own past and all of the individuals involved. You hang on threads of information imagining the reality behind them. Then I watched and waited as the Connecticut legislature passed an access law in 2015 that left me out.

We live in an era of modern genetic science and greater access to information, so I decided to take another route. This past November I solved the entire mystery of my past through DNA testing and research on the Internet. I had a genetic match with an uncle on one of the DNA websites who turned out to be my birth father’s younger brother. Once I had a last name, I searched for the car accident that killed my birth father and found his full name, his college, as well as his hometown. A few 3rd cousin matches on another DNA website yielded extensive family trees for his family.

And then with further online research I found the name of my birth mother and what appeared to be a current address, all within 5 hours of seeing the match and all before messaging my new genetic uncle through the DNA website.

The news of my existence was quite a surprise for him, but we have been having a wonderful correspondence for several months now and he has been sharing stories and photographs with me. Because the DNA match was on my birth father’s side, my birth mother had no idea that my birth father’s siblings and I knew everything. I had asked my new uncle for discretion since I had not yet been in contact with her. I quickly sent a letter to what I believed was a current address, letting her know that I was corresponding with my birth father’s family. I have yet to hear back and I completely understand if she decides she does not want contact, but I wanted her to be aware of the circumstances. The fact that the access laws for original birth certificates have not kept up with the access to DNA science creates highly unpredictable situations with potentially sensitive information. If my birth mother had known the timing of when I would learn her identity she could have been more prepared for this occurrence. Because the law was changed in the 1970’s she was no longer prepared.

I had a wonderful upbringing and my adoptive parents will always be my parents to me, but having access to birth family information is crucial to adoptees wanting to learn about their past. The opportunity to meet genetic relatives that are still living, the importance of medical histories, and the basic human and civil right of every person to know his or her biological origins cannot be dismissed. Sadly my birth father’s parents passed away never knowing that their eldest son, who they had lost at age 22, had a child. Had I been given my original birth certificate after age 18, as was my original right, I might have been able to meet them. I’ve often wondered if this would have provided some solace for the loss they had to endure. My birth father’s mother would even have been able to meet my son before she died.

I urge you to pass legislation that opens birth certificates to those born before 1983. Given the availability of DNA testing and the age of this group of adoptees, it is not a matter that can wait any longer. Thank you for your thoughtful consideration of this issue.

Sincerely,

Mandana MacPherson

Freeport, ME