My Top Three: Difficulty for the Adoptee Search

THIS IS A REPOST FROM 2015

By Trace L Hentz  (Wisconsin adoptee since 1958)

I want the readers to know how difficult it can be to search for a birthparent. If you are an adoptee, you already know!

One: You don't really get much help with the non-identifying information! Most states offer it free. Unless you're a psychic, you'll have no help to find BOTH SIDES of your family. Most of us were given up for adoption because our mother wasn't married. His name won't be in the paperwork, not usually.

Two: At age 18 an adoptee may request a search for birth parent(s) identity and location and a copy of his or her impounded birth certificate.  There are conditions. I paid $75 for a court order and had to wait to see if the judge would release my file. The judge said YES - but he/she could have said NO. AND I already knew and listed my birth parents names and dates of their death. I knew all that information - yes - but I still wanted to read my file. I'M SO GLAD I GOT MY FILE!

Three: Reading about Wisconsin laws where I was adopted, the state would require AN AFFADAVIT - from both birthparents? Really? So they can find and contact my birthparent but not me? They are MY parents. This bureaucracy is completely ridiculous.  Do you think they make it difficult so an adoptee will give up?

They didn't write these laws for adoptees. NO! They wrote them to make it next to impossible for an adoptee to find out anything. 

DNA tests are becoming the norm for an adoptee so we can find relatives FASTER and with much less headache.

(My comments are in parenthesis)

Wisconsin: How the Law Affects Adoptees

• When an adoptee is 18 years old, he/she can request medical and genetic information about his/her birth relatives and non-identifying social history information. 

(What good is that? Little help, very little hope.)

• Upon written notification from a licensed medical provider, the Department of Children and Families or another licensed adoption agency must make every effort to notify an adoptee, 18 years or older, if a birth parent(s) or sibling has developed a genetically transferable disease or condition. 

(Now this would be a very scary situation, a letter or phone call you wouldn't expect. Why wasn't our medical information available to the adoptive parents at the time of birth?)

• Also, at age 18 an adoptee may request a search for birth parent(s) identity and location and a copy of his or her impounded birth certificate. 

(Impounded - really?)

• Identity and location of birth parent(s) will not be disclosed unless an affidavit of consent has been signed by birth parent(s).  If a court has legally determined paternity, or the father's name appears on the impounded birth certificate, affidavits usually will be needed from both birth parents. 

(THEY can find them? What if she remarried and changed her name? What if she doesn't admit who is the father? So many unknowns while the adoptee waits and WAITS!)

• If the birth parent(s) files the necessary affidavits of consent, identity and location of the birth parent(s) and the impounded birth certificate will be released upon request. 

(How long will that take? How much will it cost an adoptee?)

• If affidavits of consent are not on file, a search for the birth parent(s) will be conducted. If located, the birth parent(s) has the option of signing an affidavit of consent to release identifying information. 

(Obviously the state has resources to search for our parents - they have money to do that. Why should either birthparent consent to give me my own information? Why did the state law offer them that option? It's MY information. Why don't they end these archaic laws? The adoption industry makes BILLIONS of dollars. I do know its about making "forever families" and adoptees are simply the commodity. These laws protect the adoption agencies, the state and the adoptive parents.)