States: Indiana

I wasn’t given up for adoption, but I’m an adoptee. I was born in Indiana and suffered from many major health issues as I grew up (think Crohn’s Disease for one). In 1991, when I was 36 years old, I petitioned the state to have my adoption records opened medically. That took getting the ‘ok’ from a judge in the city I was born/grew up in and 2 other ‘oks’ from higher ranking officials at the state level.

Yes, things were not easy to get done in the pre internet times, nor are they any better today there from what I have read. I didn’t just fill out the forms the state asked for .. nah, that wouldn’t catch their eye. I sat down and wrote pages and pages of a letter, explaining who I was, why my case was before them and how badly I needed to find out all of my medical issues before they killed me. (Today I’m minus a foot of my small bowel and have beat cervical and thyroid cancer, but their decision to honor my request lead to my still being alive today at a month shy of 66.) I then made personal phone calls (back when it cost a small fortune to call to another state, as I was living down south by then.)

Due to being an adoptee, I had to have someone else get my records that the court appointed, my guardian ad litem, who also was a searcher. While she couldn’t tell them who I was by name, nor could she tell me who my birth family members were, she could refer each of us out to another searcher in Indiana who could gather and share our info independently after my medical info was obtained. That same afternoon my phone rang and this lovely voice said ‘hi, I’m your sister Mary, your older sister on your birth mom’s side’. Next my birth mom called, then my little sis, then my brothers … Mom had 7 of us total. I also gained 5 brothers and sisters from my birth father. I went from an only child to one of 12!

Not all were living, but of the ones that were, I met the majority of my siblings from both. Then I put my DNA on 23andme.com and low and behold we found another missing sister that dad made while cheating on his wife. (Hate to say it that way, but fact is fact.)

Now to end with the answer to the question. In the 50’s they knocked women out cold thinking it made childbirth easier. Not sure, had 3 of my own kids and never had any pain, just a bit of pressure when it was time to give them the heave ho outside of my belly. Anyway, between being knocked out as soon as she hit the hospital and waking up after my birth, I was hidden away. She never saw me again until I found here all those years later.

I saw the fear in her eyes when she asked me who raised me? Her Optometrist. Who adopted me? The Doc and his wife, both whom she knew. Where had I been? I had been in the same neighborhood, same grade school, same jr. high and same high school as my maternal siblings and later in my last year of high school attended another high school my birth dad had. Her eyes softened, tears formed and she thanked God for seeing I was raised by good people she knew personally.

Never stop trying. Never take a simple no as an answer in states that still consider an adoptee a child forever.