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Showing posts from September, 2013

When Your Adoption Reunion Goes Bust (Hold on to the Good)

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I wanted to do a post about "failed" adoption reunions because I hear from many adoptees who are in the same boat as myself. I don't like to view my adoption reunion as a failure. I have had many people (including other adoptees who have not taken the plunge themselves) assume that my reunion was a failure because there were certain outcomes that did not meet my expectations.  I look at my adoption reunion as successful, even though the relationship with my mother could not last. I have no regrets at all about my reunion. I had two decades to think about having a reunion with my mother and deal with all the emotional baggage that comes along with being raised in closed adoption.  At some point, I decided to hell with the outcomes, I was just going for it.  (I got in touch with my inner badass ). On some level I knew that my reunion with my first mother would not be a life-long relationship. Before I flew into Philadelphia, I had carefully prepared a photo album of

Adoption law in the U.S.: The True Villain in the Baby Veronica case

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I don't claim to be a legal expert* -- only one of many millions who have watched this train-wreck of a case come to pass. I'm just another adoptee who has an unknown father out there somewhere in the world.  My father was not considered in my adoption nor was his parentage considered as important to my "case".   My father was neither notified or asked what he thought of my adoption -- according to my adoption agency. I was talking to my husband today about how the Baby Veronica case demonstrates the larger problem of father's rights in this country.  My husband, one of the best men and fathers I know, was treated poorly by crappy divorce laws (like millions of other men) and he responded by doing the right thing (paying child support and driving out of town to visit with his daughter every other weekend for over 10 years).   Like Dusten Brown, my husband's  role and importance in his daughter's life was minimized and marginalized by not only his form