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VIPs: Very Important Posts from July 2012

Very Important PostsAmanda resists the urge to bang her head against a wall when someone tells her, “So go look at your birth certificate!” at Land of Gazillion Adoptees. Think about the nails-on-chalkboard phrase to infertile people, “Just adopt!” and you’ll get a sense why this grated so.

My birth certificate, gee, now why didn’t I think of that?  The problem is, someone else already did and they sealed it away from me.  I have a choice here.  I can reply “oh OK” and change the topic.  Alternatively, I can explain “my adoption and birth records are sealed.”  This option a great deal of the time ensures that the person I’m talking to will immediately transform into an adoption-records-expert and reply “oh, well that’s probably because she doesn’t want to know you.”

Amanda gives a brief history of the sealing of adoption records (hint: it’s not to protect the adopted person) and it is illuminating for anyone involved in adoption.

Oh, and next week is the Adoptee Rights Demonstration in Chicago. Support in any way you can, including making a donation.

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In Loss, we meet again, Other Mother shares how a new loss reveals the hurts of an old loss.

And saying goodbye to him… I wasn’t expecting all the raw emotion that saying goodbye to Ellipses would bring up from the day I left Baby Boy in the arms of a social worker.

I found it poignant how she also addresses feelings of regret.

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Luna re-tells the birth story to her 3 year-old daughter as they drive by the house where Kaye gave birth to Jaye, the daughter Luna and Kaye both claim. With each telling, Luna is able to add more and more details. Luna explains in Evolution of the Story how she handles the inevitable “whys” — and how, through open adoption, she hopes won’t have to handle them solo through the years.

Some day, though, I know she’ll be asking “why” again. Why did Kaye ask us to be her Mama and Dada? Why did we take her home? Why couldn’t Jaye stay at her Grandma’s house where she was born? So many “whys” she may one day wish to know. I’m grateful I won’t have to answer all of those questions alone, that I can turn to Kaye to tell her story too.

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Be on the lookout for what you consider Very Important Posts during the month of August — I’d love to know your nominations for the next edition of VIPs.

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