"It’s not as simple as an ‘open and shut’ case."
By Laurel E. Anderson - as first published in the Kourier Standard in two parts on April 15/05 & April 29/05
Writer’s note: I must say that since this piece was first published, I have been overwhelmed and surprised by the comments, interest and emotions that this very personal story has brought out in readers, both strangers and those who know me but not my story. To them I say thank you and to those still struggling with the issues, including birth parents, siblings and adoptees; I wish you peace and fulfillment in your lives
There’s been a lot in the media these past few weeks concerning the announcement to make adoption records more accessible to adoptees and birth parents. Obviously this is an issue that touches a lot of people base on the number of letters to the editor that have been published in different papers around the province and it’s amazing to read all of the different perspectives on this issue both from birth parents and adoptees. And after reading a few of them, it’s obvious that this is not a clear-cut problem with an easy solution.
This is an issue close to me as I have been personally touched and affected by past legislation regarding this issue. As someone who lost both parents at a young age and actually lost my mother three times: through marriage breakup, foster care and ultimately, her death, I have strong feelings about sealed adoption records. And while I concede that no two cases are exactly alike, I struggle with the issue that all cases have to follow the same rules and deal with the same closed door or sealed records policy no matter what their issue is, sometimes even if cases of life and death. You see, many adoptees are not looking for a new family, they are looking for DNA, a medical history, an answer to a current family illness or birth defect and in some cases, if it works out, perhaps some sort of relationship. In my case, my motivator was that I wanted my brother and I to know that each other existed and to meet and see what happened from there.
I acknowledge that every story is different and that there is no easy answer when dealing with such a sensitive issue and with this is mind I offer my personal story and perspective on an issue currently in the news. I was seven when my mother passed away and my father would die three months later and finding out several years later that I had two brothers that I had never met as not only overwhelming but left me with few resources to draw from to find my birth siblings. Luck and timing played into finding one of my brothers when my grandmother decided that I should probably meet my younger brother that the entire family knew about, except for me. I was sixteen–years- old when I met him with the help of family members and without any government intervention and we maintain a relationship to this day.
But there was another brother. A brother I only found out about by accident, shortly before my maternal grandmother passed away and what information I was given was very limited. I had a birth name and that was it. A birth name that was changed: no year of birth, no official birth certificate-nothing until I unearthed a treasure. I stumbled upon what parent finder groups often refer to as evidence, proof and even validation that the person does exist as denial is big in this ‘industry.’ The shame and secrecy a lot of these ‘unwed’ mothers were forced to deal with was scaring and denial, often a form of survival.
In my grandmother’s things I found a picture of an infant boy with a name scrawled on the back. It was his name and this smiling face would haunt me for six years until a rocky road, full of anger and frustrated tears, would eventually lead to my union with my other brother and with little help from the government or the Adoption Disclosure Registry (ADR) I might add.
When I was searching for my brother I had no rights as a birth sibling. It seemed, even fewer rights than a birth mother, which in my case was extremely frustrating as our mother had been deceased for almost twenty-five years when I started my search. She died young, in her twenty-fourth year, leaving behind three siblings who at one time and for a long time, knew nothing of each other’s existence. I felt that finding this other brother and uniting the three of us, even if at the least we were all aware of each other’s existence, would celebrate our mother’s short life here.
My first stop on the journey was to the Catholic Children’s Aid Society (CCAS) where I was able to request information about my brothers and myself (it was during this request that I realized that I too had spent some time in their care, independently from my brothers). Back then the wait for non-identifying information was not as long as it is now and within eight weeks I was staring at a large manila envelope that I thought would hold the key to my brother’s identity. But it didn’t. It was non-identifying and said things like ‘baby boy weighed this much’ and ‘baby boy healthy with apgar score of 9.’ I wasn’t sure how I would use this information in my search but it was better than nothing and I held onto it tight like it was the final piece of a puzzle. There was also a bit of information about the adoptive parents but again, not enough to go straight to the yellow pages to look them up.
At this point I still wasn’t worried. I had been told about the ADR and thought it would be a simple case of some paperwork and a bit of a wait. Boy was I way off! After calling and having the forms sent to me, I learned that the ADR worked like this: fill out your forms, send them in and if your brother also fills out forms and hands them in, we will match you up. Okay, sounded pretty straightforward until I asked how long the wait would be if we were both listed. I was devastated with the answer of seven years. Seven years is a long time. It’s huge! I had personally seen the devastating results of the ‘hurry up and wait’ syndrome when one of my fellow searchers received a call from the registry informing them that It was their turn for a search only to learn a few weeks later that his birth mother had been ill and passed away three years earlier. This was a sharing of biological information and/or reunion that never happened because the line was too long; too much demand and not enough staff at the ADR, compliments of our government. At this time there was only one full-time matcher/searcher and thousands and thousands of requests sitting in the queue and like a lot of problems, this one came down to money.
What could we as a group do? Sure we picketed and groups were formed to march at Queen’s Park and other places but other than rallying a group together with the same cause, the effects on the lawmakers were minimal. This issue just didn’t seem to be a priority for them and as it would cause controversy, there weren’t a lot of public figures willing to stand up and volunteer to be a poster child for opening up adoption records. So, knowing that I could not sit around and wait for the government, I started my own investigation. I would sit for hours staring at the three pages of non-identifying information about my brother, trying to figure out what year he was born so that I could place an ad in the newspaper looking for him. I would look at the picture of him that I had and knew from the writing on the back that he was six weeks old when it was taken and so I tried to guess what time of year he was born based on what he was wearing, when I was born and the year our mother died. Gee, for someone not very strong in math and formulas, I had quite the probability study going in my notebook and as you can imagine, these exercises proved to be frustrating, time consuming and often futile.
At this point I was still fresh in my search and I would soon find out, very naïve, when I decided to just call up the hospital that I thought he was born in and just ask for his records. I was told that they were not allowed to give out this information to anyone, including me. I was crying and very upset and then, very angry. I pleaded with the records technician between sobbing tears and while I’m sure she felt bad, there was nothing she could do. She could lose her job giving out that information although at the time I was willing to take that risk for her! And while deepening my resolve to ‘win’ my fight with the government and all other agencies involved to stop them from keeping this information from me, it was time for another break in this long and emotionally draining experience.
When I was ready to search again I had a renewed sense of energy and urgency. What if my brother was living right in my neighbourhood? What if we had mutual friends……the thoughts continued and I decided that it was time to take a different approach. It was time to do whatever I had to do to find this brother. I truly felt and still feel, that the government gave me no choice. I started to get different ideas about what to do, knowing I had to get creative if I wanted to get any results and although I received much support and some helpful hints from the National Parent Finder’s chapter here in Ottawa, they couldn’t give me what I ultimately needed-a path to my brother. Only I could make this path and so I did.
I established relationships with everyone from the social workers at the Children’s Aid Society to my local MP and while they did try, in their limited capacity to do so, ultimately I was again left to my own devices. I just kept plugging away, calling people, trying to wear them down, to trick them even-into telling me something that I didn’t already know about the case. And finally a break came when I was able to get my brother’s birth date information from the hospital.
Armed with this new information gave me the much needed energy to continue this search into what would be a seventh year, until the call came. I received a call from the CCAS social worker who told me that based on all the information that she had from me and knowing that I was already in the queue at the ADR, she was sure she had a letter on her desk from my birth brother, requesting information about his birth family, specifically asking if he had a sister and asking to be placed on the ADR. We had been flagged by the grace of someone whether it was God or our mother up above and the worker had noticed the similarities between our cases and had flagged us. We were not going to have to wait seven more years for the ADR to match us up. We were matched right then. The butterflies in my stomach were having a party!
After much paper work and release signing, we were given each other’s addresses and I can still remember driving to the courier office to pick up the first letter from my brother. He had couriered it as he was living overseas. This started a flurry of letters and emails back and forth and finally an in person union a few months later in Ottawa. We were both nervous, he sitting on the train on his way and me as I paced the train station waiting. And then he was there and we were shy, happy and a bit teary all at the same time.
What followed were days of sharing, getting to know each other and comparing toes (we both have the same ones which isn’t really a good thing) and I felt a new peace about my mother and my brother. It was an intense and emotional experience, probably even more so for James as he had never met anyone with his DNA. I hadn’t even thought about that. Just like most of you, I had always taken my heritage and family history for granted but for someone like my brother it was a gift and while he had a great life and newer history with his adoptive family, he didn’t know his biology or birth family history until we met.
It is many years later and we still have a relationship. I think what worked for us is that neither one of us had any expectations. I was told by several counselors that many reunions don’t work because one or both parties has too many expectations about the reunion or the other person and this can often get in the way of developing a healthy relationship. James and I were fortunate in that we didn’t’ experience that. He wanted to know if he had any siblings and was not devastated when I told him that our birth mother had died years ago while I felt content that we now knew of each other’s existence and we both agreed that we think it’s what our mom would have wanted.
I don’t know what the overall ‘right’ answer is to this debate about sealed records. I only know about my own experience and those that others have shared with me over the years. What I do know is that the decision affects human lives, not numbers or stats and that these are real people affected positively or negatively by the government’s decision. Ultimately doesn’t everyone have a right to know where he or she came from? I think so. That being said it’s simply not an open and shut case.
Laurel is a freelance writer living in Kanata and a regular contributor to the Kourier Standard.