Monday, June 28, 1999
assistance to adopted children
Journal Reporter
BELLEVUE — Julie Dennis set up a table in Factoria Mall yesterday, offering information to adopted children who wanted to find their birth parents. She had a lot of takers.
“ They feel unfulfilled,” Dennis said. “There’s something missing in their sense of who they are and where they are from.”
Dennis would know. A few years ago, she set out to find her birth mother and succeeded. The experience got her involved in Bastard Nation, a group lobbying to have adopted children’s records unsealed.
Bastard Nation was one of a number of groups at an Adoption Search Fair at Factoria yesterday. The fair offered tips on how to find one’s birth parents, as well as information on support groups for parents who have given up children for adoption, counseling groups and so on.
Dennis only knew that her mother was 15 years old when she was born in Seattle in 1962. She started her search by going to court and filing a request for “Non-Identifying Information” about her mother. The completeness of that information can vary a great deal from place-to-place and depending on the thoroughness of the person who filled out the original paper work.
Taking what she had, Dennis contacted adoptive rights groups, who guided her to other information. Her search was more difficult than most, because her mother had a common last name. But she found her and gave her a call.
“ She was happy to meet me,” Dennis said. “Was it joyful bonding experience? No. But it was pleasant. I came away with a sense of who I am and where I came from.”
When she began her search, Dennis decided she would have no expectations: Whatever happened is whatever happened. Besides, she has a good relationship with her adoptive parents ” “They are mom and dad and always will be” ” and realized that her identity was far more a result of them than any biological tie to her birth parents.
She and her birth mother found they don’t look alike and, all things considered, have very little in common. But they get along well and now exchange birthday and Christmas cards.
Dennis also found some valuable information about family medical history — neither of her parents have any family history of chronic illness — and about her ethnicity. Her father is a native American, which was a surprise. Although she has dark hair, Dennis never imagined she was part Indian. Among other things, she has very distinctive pale blue eyes.
Heidi Wagner, 17 of Renton, was at the fair there with her adoptive parents Walter and Jewel. The Wagners’ other daughter, Ila, met her birth parents a few years ago and has been in touch with them ever since.
Earlier this year, Heidi decided she wanted to know more about her mother, whom the Wagners met when Heidi was born Aug. 3, 1982. They know her name and the fact she was 17 when Heidi was born, but that’s about all.
“ I don’t know if I would have anything in common with her or not, but I’d like to find out,” Heidi said.
She may have an easy time or hard time finding out, depending on a lot of things, Dennis said. The laws on adoptive records are an odd conglomeration, she said. Among other things, the birth parents are not required to sign anything that constitutes a contractual agreement with the state to keep the records closed, she said. Obtaining the records can be complicated. Some counties insist you file in person, for example.
As a result, Dennis’s group is lobbying to have all records opened.
“ Before I met my mother, she was a faceless abstraction to me,” Dennis said. “That leaves a gap in your life.”
New York Adoptee Rights Coalition
