Adoption Matters (A Reflection on My Mom's Experience)

Another post by Jenn, Susan's daughter. Susan died in April of 2014 from malignant melanoma, eight months after being reunited with her sisters.

This is a picture of my mom and me from some long ago time (the 80s), on a long ago mountaintop, with her arm around me. She loved to ski and mentioned more than once that she would have been a ski instructor were she not a mom living in suburbia. This picture is so old, from so long ago, that I can barely conjure the memories to go along with it. But it matters. The fact that I was there, on that mountain, with my mom's arm around me, matters.

The same could be said about adoption. My mom, born 67 years ago this July 9th, was adopted six months later, leaving behind a 5-year-old sister she wouldn't meet for 63 years. She also left behind a mother, of course, her mother, the one whose heartbeat and voice she first knew, and would never know, save one brief phone call 50 years later in which she told my mom, "I always loved you in my heart." My mom was a secret, though, the fruit of an affair with an older, married man, a "family friend," and therefore could never be known. All she knew of this man, her father, was that he was from Denmark, like her mother, and that he was a pilot. Apparently there was a time when his son and wife were going to adopt my mom, but that never happened. Instead, she was adopted by Betty and Clarence Thomson of Haddonfield, New Jersey, where she joined her older brother, Doug, also adopted through the Children's Home Society of New Jersey. They lived a charmed life, with trips to the beach in the summer, a neighborhood full of friends (one of whom my mom would marry), and lots and lots of love. My mom is gone now, three years (the shock of it beginning to fade), and so are her parents. "No one loves you like your mom," she told me, after losing hers, in April of 2003. How lucky she was to have known a love like that.

But history, even without memory, still matters. There is a truth to my mom's life, one that extends to mine, and to my children's, that begins with how she came to be. Not knowing or being able to know that history, so personal and pertinent, she suffered. She did not die from this, of course. She died from malignant melanoma that presented itself as a tiny spot under the nail of her big toe when she was 47 years old. But the way in which that presentation resembles my mom's experience with adoption itself -- at first, pushed down into the tiniest corner of herself, and then, years later, unleashed with a wildness that could not be contained -- haunts me a bit. Adoption matters. It was a part of who my mom was, and it is a part of who I am. Time passes, but this remains. The truth remains, whether known or not.

Nieto #119 is Found in Argentina: "Es un milagro"

Mario Bravo with Estela de Carlotto, President of the Abuelas 

Yesterday in Argentina, Mario Bravo, 38 years old, met his mother for the first time. Adopted as a baby after he was forcefully taken from his mother, who was 18 years old and being held by the military junta for her political views, he began his search in 2007. "Es un milagro haber encontrado a mi mamá con vida" he said ("It's a miracle to have met my mother alive"). My mom, too, spoke of miracles when telling of how she met her sisters after more than 60 years of separation. In the case of Mario Bravo, though, it is an even more astonishing miracle that his mother survived. Most mothers of the children stolen during Argentina's dirty war (1976-1983) were killed. Only their grandmothers were left to search for them. They have been searching for more than 40 years, and it is their hard work and advocacy that allow "miracles" like this to occur. Because of them, Argentina has a National Commission on the Right to Identity. Even soccer star Lionel Messi has filmed a spot for the Abuelas in which he encourages his fellow Argentinians to seek out their true identities if they have any doubts because "Te estamos buscando" (We're looking for you). "We" are the families searching for their lost children. ("Resolvé tu identidad ahora," Click HERE to watch). Mario Bravo is Nieto #119, the 119th grandchild to have been found and reunited with his biological family because of the efforts of this group. The Abuelas estimate that there are some 300 more to be found. "Lo que pasó es muy feo, What happened is very ugly," Mario Bravo said, "Lo que venga, es linda, What is to come, is beautiful."

It was only a few hours after reading about Mario that a friend of mine shared the following article with me: Canadian Mothers Whose Babies Were Stolen. It's about young single mothers who were told their babies had died when in actuality those babies were stolen from them and placed for adoption (see also: Forced Adoptions, National Post Article). A decade ago, a Canadian woman named Tina Kelly filed a United Nations report claiming just this. She is not some lone outlier, as the articles show. Australia, Spain, Ireland, Guatemala, and yes, the United States. All have had multiple credible stories of babies being taken from their mothers and placed for adoption when they never should have been.

This is not to say that all those who were adopted were stolen, or even that all parents are desperately searching for the children they have lost. Some adoption agencies are ethical, of course, and some children do need homes. My mom, apparently, was one of those children (though her adoption agency, which has maintained "no position" on adoptees' access to their true identities, is not ethical in my book). Still, the fact that such grave violations of human rights DO exist, and are hidden under the guise of adoption, means that perhaps it is time to have our own National Commission on the Right to Identity here in the United States. While I have great sympathy for the adopted person and what she faces as she decides to search for her biological family, I also have sympathy for those mothers and fathers who feel that their children were stolen from them. Perhaps not by a military dictatorship, but stolen just the same.

Thirsting for Truth: What I Wish the NJ Catholic Conference Had Said

This is another post by Jenn, Susan's daughter. Susan, adopted in New Jersey as a 6-month-old in 1950, first searched for her birth mother at the age of 47, when she was diagnosed with Stage II malignant melanoma. After her experience with the adoption agency, which told her that the case was closed after making only one phone call to her mother (standard protocol), she became involved in the fight for adoptee rights. In 2013, Susan was reunited with her two wonderful biological sisters a month after being diagnosed with Stage IV malignant melanoma. They had been searching for her. Finding them was one of the great miracles of her life and brought her peace "deeper than [she] ever thought possible." Susan died eight months later, on April 7, 2014, surrounded by her family. She believed that someday, though perhaps not in her lifetime, there would be justice for adoptees. 

All three of my children were baptized by Father Michael Doyle at Sacred Heart Church in Camden. They were baptized at an altar  that has been visited, through the years, by Mother Theresa, Cesar Chavez, Mairead Corrigan, Martin Sheen, Thich Naht Hahn, and many, many other admirable peacemakers, including Father Michael himself.

My mom and Joseph in July of 2013

Though she was not Catholic, my mom was the one who first brought me to Sacred Heart, years before, because she had heard of the beauty of the service, especially the singing, which she always loved. She was also there for each baptism, standing beside my family on the altar.

I thought of this two weeks ago when I opened The Catholic Star Herald and, to my great dismay, saw the headline: "Birth parents must take action to preserve their privacy." Ironically, it was right below a picture of a family next to a banner that read "Thirsting For Truth." Thirsting for truth, indeed.

Here is what, in a spirit of truth, I wish the article had said: First, the title. "Adopted Adults to Gain Access to Their Original Birth Certificates" sounds good to me. It is a statement of fact informing readers of the law that was signed on May 27th, 2014 (less than two months after my mom's passing). That law goes into effect on January 1st, 2017. In the 13 other states that have already enacted similar laws, thousands upon thousands of adoptees and birth parents (especially birth mothers, from what I have witnessed) have benefitted (For powerful insight into how this law actually helps birth mothers, see Jean Strauss' short film Four Birthmothers: https://vimeo.com/119964199).

"For well over a century, the Catholic Church in New Jersey has provided adoption services." That is true. That can stay. "Throughout all those years, the Church promised to honor the privacy of birth parents and adoptees. That promise of privacy also was assured by law and affirmed by the State Superior Court." This is an outrageous lie. Birth certificates were originally sealed to protect the adoptee from the "shame" of  illegitimacy, a practice that is, thankfully, no longer needed. And birth mothers never really had any rights (see, for example, actress and birth mother Kate Mulgrew's beautiful memoir, Born With Teeth.  Her experience with the Catholic adoption agency where she relinquished her child is one I have heard echoed again and again and again: "Before I left ... there were things to do. I wanted to look [the director of the Catholic Charities adoption agency] in the eye and ask her for mercy, a sliver of mercy, nothing too untoward. I wanted to ask her if my baby was all right ... I wanted a photograph of my baby ... I pleaded, struggling to maintain my composure ... [making no progress, she then goes to speak to the director of the Catholic Home Bureau maternity services, who tells her, "You gave up that right when you relinquished your baby, didn't you?]

Me with Genevieve, now 9, on her baptism day at Sacred Heart.

"Any birth parents who wish to preserve their privacy must submit a Redaction Request Form to the New Jersey Department of Health ... the New Jersey Catholic Conference will be working to alert birth parents ... We need help. We ask everyone to spread the word that birth parents must take action to preserve their privacy. We need to notify family members, friends and neighbors that birth parents could lose their privacy. If you know a person who placed a child in adoption, please tell them that if they do not file a Redaction Request Form, their name and other information could be given to the adoptee." Oh my. Words like "alert" are so alarming! How about: "While those closely involved with adoption recognize that hearing from a relinquished child may, in some cases, be upsetting to a birth parent, they also recognize that all human beings have a right to know their identities. This fundamental right has been upheld by the United Nations, which in Article 8 of its Treaty on the Rights of the Child confirmed that "[1] State Parties undertake to respect the right of the child to preserve his or her identity, including nationality, name and family relations as recognized by law without unlawful interference [and] [2] Where a child is illegally deprived of some or all elements of his or her identity, State Parties shall provide appropriate assistance and protection, with a view to re-establishing speedily his or her identity. Adult adoptees who obtain their original birth certificates are seeking the truth of their own lives, and in thousands of cases they have been able to do this while respecting the privacy of their birth parents. Thus, we need your help. Please let anyone you know that is adopted or that has given up a child for adoption that starting on January 1st, 2017, adoptees in New Jersey will (finally) have access to their original birth certificates. Birth parents can file a "Contact Preference Form" stating whether they would like contact directly from the adoptee, through an intermediary, or not at all (in which case they will be asked to fill out a medical and family history form). In other states where records have been unsealed, thousands upon thousands of adoptees and birth parents have found peace and healing after years of secrecy. More information about this law and what it means for adoptees and birth parents is available at http://www.nj-care.org/. How about that? How about: Because the New Jersey Catholic Conference values truth, mercy, and justice, it stands by this law, despite its former opposition to it.

We are all thirsting for truth. May each one of us some day stand on the altar of those who have given their lives fighting for it and find ourselves worthy. "  And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (John 8:32).

A favorite moment from this summer. My son Joseph with my cousin JT (the son of my mom's biological sister) at a coffee shop in Montreal. Joseph looks just like pictures of JT when he was young. This was the day after the women's World Cup game (vs. Germany), and though we both knew the other was there for the game, our phones weren't working so we weren't able to meet up. We simply ran into each other in this city of millions. You can see how thrilled Joseph is (he loves JT). I know this would have made my mom so happy. 

Reunion in Montreal. Love rejoices in the truth... (Corinthians 13) 

My Nana, My Mom's Mom (The Adoptive Parent and Adoption)

This is another post written by Jenn, Susan's daughter. Susan passed away in April of 2014, eight months after meeting her sisters for the first time.

I have been thinking a lot lately about my grandmother, Grace Elizabeth Bissex Thomson. I called her Nana, which is where my mom got her name when my children were born. My Nana's mom, Josephine Hinchman Bissex (1884-1971), nearly died, back in 1914, bringing my grandmother into this world. She would never have another child, so my grandmother was an only child and an only grandchild. "It was lonely sometimes," she told me, "There is nothing like family."

My grandmother, on the right, in a 1936 picture with her friends.

Her parents loved her well, though, and she was happy. When she was fifteen years old, in 1929, her father (Paul Bissex, 1886-1973) helped build a house for the family on Chestnut Street in Haddonfield. Years later, my best friend and I spent hours upon hours playing in the woods at the end of this street. We both lived only a few blocks away. Sometimes in our games we would come upon the crumbling cement remains of an enormous swimming pool, surrounded by trees, and so reclaimed by the earth that you had to have great imagination to picture its original use. This was Mountwell Pool, created by a dam in 1913, a year before my grandmother's birth (the cement pool was added in 1937 as a public works project, and the whole thing was closed in 1971).  My grandmother spent her childhood days here. Later, as a teenager, she met my grandfather, Clarence Thomson (1911-1984), though everyone called him Tommy. "I still remember how he would run by me on his way to the pool, tap me on the head and say 'Hey shorty,' before jumping in," my grandmother told me several times, "It made me so mad! (my grandmother was especially tall). But he sure was handsome."


They married in 1938. Knowing how important family was to my grandmother, I can only imagine how she suffered as she tried to have a baby for nearly ten years. I am not sure how they came to consider adoption. She never talked about it. She only talked about how much she loved my mother and her brother, and how lucky she was to have them. That was her way. After my grandfather died suddenly, in 1984, my mom took her back to her house from the hospital. She was devastated. Still, she told my mom, "I am just going to go to bed and pretend that never happened." Years later, my mom told me this story and said, "Living that way worked for her, and I admire her for it. But it just never did for me."

But I will get to that later. For now, my grandmother. She taught first grade and was known as a "loving but firm" teacher. From what I have heard, that was her style as a mother, too. She relaxed as

"Window Box, 1995"

she aged. She loved beautiful things - her window box with its trailing vines, a collection of glass bottles in the sun, a view of the water -- and was overly proud of her family. My sister and I still laugh about the time my grandmother was in the hospital after having a stroke and a nurse walked in while my sister, a doctor, was visiting. "Nurse, this is my granddaughter," my grandmother proudly said, introducing Kate, "She's a doctor." When the nurse didn't react, my grandmother literally starting tugging on the lanyard around her neck. "Nurse! Nurse! Nurse! Did you hear me? She's a doctor!" It was embarrassing and heartwarming at the same time.

Nana was in her 80s then, and eventually it was another stroke that forced her to move from her Haddonfield home on Jefferson Avenue, where she and my grandfather had raised my mom and my uncle (and where she always had an oatmeal cookie for me, held in the canister above the refrigerator, when I biked over to visit her as a child). She didn't want to go, but she handled the move with her trademark cheer and stalwart heart. The most I ever heard her complain was, "This growing old isn't for the weak." Then she would laugh.

Nana died in April of 2003, a few months before my oldest daughter, named for her, was conceived.

Grace Elizabeth, named for my Nana, looks a lot like my mom's sister

It was that daughter's picture, slipped into a letter in 2013, that convinced my mom's sister that my mom was for real. "I saw that picture and I knew, I just knew," she said, "She looks just like me."

And that knowing led to some of the sweetest moments of my mom's life, even as she battled for her life. She learned she had a younger sister, too, and then the three of them started corresponding daily, catching up on a lifetime apart. Sixty-five years of separation.

"Selfishly, I wish my mom had kept your mother," my one aunt told me, earlier this year, as we reflected on how it all unfolded. There is such sadness in the years that were lost to secrecy, and how little time they had in the end. "Yet I know that then your mom wouldn't have had the good life she had. She and your dad would never have been married. You wouldn't be here. Your children wouldn't be here. And those are all good things." She paused, "I just wish I had gotten a letter when I turned 18 that I had a sister." We were both silent with this thought.

My grandmother and grandfather on their wedding day. 

All these thoughts, of course, bring me to my grandmother. She often spoke of how she couldn't begin to imagine life without my mom and her brother. Without all of us. She was extremely grateful, and she loved us well. I can hardly imagine an alternate life for her in which my mother and my uncle were not her children, for they belong to her and she belongs to them. It is love that cements that.

Yet when you are adopted, there are also others to whom you belong, and who belong to you, even if you never acknowledge them. When, at age 47, my mother let my grandmother know that she was searching, my grandmother supported her, though I know it was difficult for her (she had once told my mom, "I just like to think that you came right from me"). And I know that if Nana had known of the humiliation my mom had to suffer in searching--then pleading-- for the truth of her life, she would have done everything in her power to help her. If she had known what it would mean to my mom to know her sisters, she would have helped her. She loved her, after all.

Yet she didn't know (perhaps because she didn't want to know, but whatever the reason, she didn't know). There is nothing that can be done about this now, because she has died. My mom has died. Time beats on. Still, those of us who are still living are left to speak for those of us who are not (and those of us who cannot speak up). The stories matter. Right now, both New York and Pennsylvania (and I'm sure others, though those are the states I know of) are fighting to change laws that seal adoptees' birth certificates from them forever. They are not having an easy time of it. Over the years, justification for sealing records have ranged from "It protects the adoptee from the stigma of being born out of wedlock" to "It protects the adoptive parents from interference from the birth mother." The current justification is that "It protects the birth mother."

I've read enough of these arguments and learned enough about adoption over the years to believe none of these. I've learned that there are other, terrible reasons behind sealed records. Sometimes, adoptive parents even side with the opposition (though to be fair, there are also many adoptive parents who support adoptee rights). I imagine those fighting for sealed records are motivated by the same fear my grandmother had; or perhaps it is a desire. "I just want to pretend you came right from me," she told my mom. And my mom loved her, so she listened, and she tried. This hurt her. In the end it may have cost her life, though of course we'll never know for sure.

I know this would have been terribly upsetting to my grandmother. It is tough now even to write it. But I also know that had the laws been different -- had society been different -- my grandmother would have followed suit. She would have done what was right. She was a good person. And perhaps then my mom would have met her sisters in her 20s, and they would have known and loved my grandmother, and she them. I would have grown up knowing my aunts and my cousins, and I would have met my uncle, instead of just hearing about what a wonderful man he was. Perhaps my mom would have learned about the family history for melanoma and been diagnosed sooner, and saved. Perhaps. For now, I'll take a page from my grandmother's book and just make the best of what I have, which is a lot. But for those adoptees still living, and for those future adoptees, there is a better way. I hope all those involved in adoption can overcome their fears, and their pain, to do the right thing and make it happen.

My Nana's parents - Josephine Hinchman Bissex (1884-1971) and Paul Bissex (1886-1973) with my uncle soon after he was adopted. Haddonfield, NJ (1949?).

A postcard from my grandmother to her parents at 312 Chestnut Street in Haddonfield (August, 1937). She was on a cross-country train trip with her friends. It reads, "Just had breakfast at Williams, Arizona. Last night as we went to sleep we were in the flat prairies. This morning we awakened in the mountains. It's beautiful. - Betty"

And Yet It Moves - In Support of HB 162

Another post by Jenn, Susan's daughter. Susan passed away on April 7th, 2014, eight months after being diagnosed with Stage IV melanoma and seven months after being reunited with her two biological sisters. 

My mom, dad, me and family, a month before her diagnosis

And yet it moves. Eppur si muove. These were the rebellious words uttered by Galileo from prison after he was condemned by the Catholic church for continuing to insist that the earth was not the center of the universe, that it moved around the sun. Many intellectuals of the day also condemned him, so attached were they to their own world views. Galileo, a devout Roman Catholic and an intellectual, cared both about his faith and scientific truth, and it is exactly because of this that he could not be silent in the face of what he knew to be true. And yet it moves. 

My mom, an adoptee, passed away in April of 2014. There are two truths about her death, and I cannot be silent about them. First, she died from melanoma, a (censored) disease that not even the most wonderful oncologist in the world, with the highest level of training, was able to stop. She was diagnosed in July, still feeling wonderful, after finding a small lump in her leg. A week later, knowing what lie ahead but still feeling healthy, she awoke one beautiful Saturday morning at the beach to see that two dark, ugly spots of melanoma had now appeared, one on her toe and one on her face. It was confirmation that this (censored) disease was now coursing through her, maliciously and aggressively. It was horrible. Good people fought valiantly on her behalf. My mom fought valiantly. But in the end, it was not enough.  We lost her. 

My mom also perhaps died, and certainly suffered needlessly, because she was an adoptee. She was blocked by the state (in this case New Jersey) from seeing her original birth certificate because of an antiquated law (now changed), and thus she was blocked from her true and complete medical history (the information the adoption agency released to her was flawed, at best).  She was also blocked from being able to communicate directly with her biological family, and thus from knowing two wonderful sisters for the last 16 years of her life. Not knowing that melanoma was present in her biological family likely contributed to her physician missing the melanoma when her symptoms first occurred.  As with all cancers, timely diagnosis and treatment is crucial for survival.  When she looked into going to court to have her birth certificate unsealed, the lawyer with whom she consulted let her know that she had little chance of winning because she "already had cancer." 

Because of this -- because having her original birth certificate sealed from her was perhaps as responsible for her death as the melanoma itself, and certainly responsible for much unneeded suffering -- it is difficult for me to read about the testimony of the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference and the Administrator of Orphans' Court Services against Pennsylvania House Bill 162, which was passed unanimously by the House in October 2013, then stalled in the Senate without a vote prior to the end of the 2014 term. HB 162 would allow adult adoptees access to their original birth certificates. The ACLU also sent a letter opposing the bill, which was equally difficult for me to read. 

In past years Pennsylvania Catholic Charities has testified -- without any facts to support their arguments -- that unsealing birth certificates would lead to more abortions. The facts support the opposite. Abortion rates in states where records have been unsealed have actually decreased slightly. This year, perhaps recognizing this, the Pennsylvania Catholic Charities' testimony centers more around its "concern" for birthparent privacy. As a Catholic, I find this testimony particularly upsetting, and misleading. Many birthparents have testified in support of this law (and Catholic Charities in other states has actually reversed its position and supported similar laws). Birthparents have a right to privacy from prying public eyes, yes, and from harassment. We all do. This law provides for privacy. It just does not allow for secrecy. Adoptees, on the other hand, currently have to share the most intimate details of their life just to possibly get their birth certificates (by going through an intermediary, or petitioning the court). I have one adopted friend who has never searched simply because when she learned everything she had to go through (for the mutual consent registry), she found it all too daunting. There are many adoptees, and birthparents, like her. 

The Administrator for Orphans' Court Services speaks of "profound and grave consequences" for birthparents if this law is passed based on her "many years of experience doing search services." One only need to look at the many states that have already enacted similar legislation -- where there have been no "profound and grave consequences" -- to realize that this is not the case. As a side note, when I searched on Google for this administrator's name, to learn more about her (why would anyone, especially someone involved in adoption and claiming to care deeply about the welfare of all involved, oppose this law?), the first link that appeared was one detailing the fees charged for "Adoption Search Inquiries" ($50 for non-identifying information, $150 if you want more -- and this is only after the court approves your petition). As a non-adoptee, I could get my birth certificate easily for $20. 

And the ACLU? Andy Hoover, ACLU of Pennsylvania legislative director, said in an open letter earlier this month: "HB 162 upends the respect for privacy in adoption procedures. Pennsylvania law already allows adoptees' access to important medical and social information of their biological parents without disrupting the privacy of the birth parents' identifying information." No, it does not. Adoptees are suffering, and yes, even dying, because the current system does not work for them. Many, many adoptees, birthparents, and adoptive parents have testified to this. I lived it with my mom. So let me say it again, emphatically: the current system (registries, mutual consent, etc) does not work. And the law now being considered does allow for birth parent privacy (with the contact preference form). I have not once heard of an adoptee taking out a billboard to reveal to the world the identity of her biological parents. We are talking about a person's right to know his or her true identity. It is a human right, and the ACLU should know that. Instead, they defend sealed records as an extension of a woman's right to reproductive health, equating an adoptee to an abortion. I may not have a law degree, but I can see the glaring fallacies in this argument from afar. 

So shame on you, Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, Orphans' Court Services, and Pennsylvania ACLU. You may talk and talk about the need for sealed records despite mountains of evidence to the contrary -- you may even believe in the sanctity of your cause --  but those who know the truth, who care about life (ALL life) and liberty (ALL liberty) will not be silent. I support them. In time, I believe everyone will.  And yet it moves. Eppur si muove. 

DEAR PENNSYLVANIA FRIENDS, HB 162 WILL BE VOTED ON THIS MONTH OR NEXT. PLEASE, IF YOU CAN, CALL THE MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON CHILDREN AND YOUTH (ESPECIALLY IF IN YOUR DISTRICT - I'VE LISTED LINKS TO OUR AREA BELOW) AND EXPRESS YOUR SUPPORT FOR THE BILL. IF YOU KNEW MY MOM, OR KNOW ME, YOU CAN DO SO IN HER MEMORY. SHE KEPT FIGHTING FOR THIS LAW, EVEN AFTER SHE HAD HER OWN INFORMATION, BECAUSE SHE SO BELIEVED IN ITS IMPORTANCE FOR ALL OTHERS. I BELIEVE IN IT TOO. THANK YOU! -Jenn

Acosta, Leslie (Philadelphia County, District 197)

717-772-2004

Brownlee, Michelle (Philadelphia County, District 195)

717-787-3480

Conklin, Scott, Minority Chair

717-787-9473

DeLissio, Pamela (Philadelphia County -- offices on Ridge Ave!)

717-783-4945

Greiner, Keith

717-783-6422

Hill, Kristin

717-783-8389

Keller, Fred

717-787-3443

Kim, Patty

717-783-9342

Kinsey, Stephen (Philadelphia, 201st District, went to Germantown HS)

717-787-3181

Klunk, Kate

717-787-4790

Lewis, Harry (Chester County)

717-787-1806

Maloney, David (Berks County)

717-260-6161

McCarter, Stephen (Montgomery County)

717-783-1079

Miller, Brett

717-705-7161

Miller, Dan

717-783-1850

Moul, Dan, Vice Chair

717-783-5217

Nesbitt, Tedd

717-783-6438

Parker, David

717-787-3364

Rader, Jack

717-787-7732

Ravenstahl, Adam

717-787-5470

Rozzi, Mark (Berks County)

717-783-3290

Saccone, Rick

717-260-6122

Santarsiero, Steven (Bucks County)

717-787-5475

Santora, James (grew up in Drexel Hill!)

717-783-8808

Stephens, Todd

717-260-6163

Toohil, Tarah

717-260-6136

Watson, Katharine, Chair (Bucks County - went to UPenn)

717-787-5452

April 7th and Daffodils

Today, April 7th, marks one year since we lost my mom, Susan Perry. She was diagnosed with Stage IV melanoma in July of 2013, and a few days later she wrote "Facing a Life-Threatening Illness and Thinking About Adoption" (http://nanadays.blogspot.com/2013/07/facing-life-threatening-illness-and.html -- or click on the post from the menu on the right). I read it and hear her voice. I read it and remember how important this issue is. I hope you find time to read it again today.

The daffodil bulbs that my dad and my four year-old-son Joseph planted on a cold, rainy day in October bloomed for the first time this morning, a little late because of the long winter, but beautiful nonetheless. It seemed like a special, quiet message from my mom as I walked past them this morning. Keep going. Have faith. The spring will come.

For all those working so tirelessly for peace and justice for adoptees -- a cause so close to my mom's heart -- I would say the same. You are like my dad and Joseph working in the cold and the rain, perhaps with a long winter of waiting ahead, but your work will be worth it. The result will be beautiful. Keep planting. Keep waiting. Don't lose the faith. Change -- beautiful change -- is coming. I just know it.

All Souls Day and My Mom

Another post by Jenn, Susan's daughter. Susan passed away in April of 2014 eight months after being diagnosed with Stage IV melanoma and seven months after reuniting with her biological sisters.

This morning, on All Souls Day, a day the Catholic Church has traditionally recognized as one to remember and pray for our loved ones who have died, I cleaned out my dresser and put it out on the curb. Our house was burglarized two weeks ago (You can read about it HERE), and the robbers, in their rush to pull out all the drawers and look for treasures, actually broke them (the dresser was an inexpensive Ikea piece that I bought 12 years ago, when I first got married, so no surprise there, just some annoyance). Among my clothes I found some folded pieces of paper, and I discovered, when I opened them, that they were journal entries from last fall, scribbled just after my mom's diagnosis. I wish I could have kept a journal of every day, of everything that happened and everything that we said to each other from her diagnosis in late July to her death in early April, but even now I know that it was impossible. These scraps of paper are all that I could do. Finding them today, it was enough. Here is the first one, from September 4th, two days before I sent a letter to Carol, her biological sister, and five days before she, Carol, and Joanne, her two sisters, were reunited:

I know I wrote "too" wrong in "Because I asked her to(o)!" That is just a reminder of how crazy last year was, trying to be there for my mom, my own children, and my students. "The whole thing cut me to the core." Yes, it did. 

When my mom's diagnosis was still new, I felt like I couldn't breathe. Sometimes at night I would have to get out of bed and go sit on the front porch to stare at the stars and wonder how we could get out of this. Please, please, please, I would pray. Not my mom. It was during this time that I asked my mom's blessing to write her sister, who didn't know about her (or so we thought). My mom had known about this sister for a few years but hadn't written for many reasons. Her original mother, when my mom had finally found her years before, had told my mom that she was a secret from everyone, even her own daughter, and asked her not to make trouble. My mom was not a trouble maker. Neither was I, really, but the only answer I could discern from all my fervent praying for my mom was Send the letter. It didn't make sense, really, when there were so many other things to be worrying about, but that inner voice, Send the letter, just wouldn't go away. So I sat down late one Thursday night and wrote a letter to my mom's older sister. I tucked in two pictures, one of each of my daughters, to help soften what I imagined would be quite a shock, and included a letter my mom had written herself, several years before, but never sent. I mailed it the next day.

It is strange for me to read "half sister" here, since my mom's older sister, once reunited with her, became a "full sister" in every way, as did her younger sister. 

That weekend, my mom got really sick. My dad called me when I was on the way home from my sister's and asked if I would come over. I did. My mom and I lay in her bed together, the full weight of what she was facing upon us both. We cried a bit, and we laughed, too. Please, please, please, I prayed, Not my mom. I wasn't thinking at all about the letter I had written to her sister. I was thinking about her, and how I wasn't really sure if I could live without her.

This was written two days before talking with my mom's older sister for the first time. "We've been desperately searching for her," my mom's sister told me, when we did talk, explaining that they had found a birth record two weeks before.

Monday was my first day back at school with students, and my first day ever taking Joseph, my then two-year-old, to day care. I had no idea how I was going to get through the day, let alone the week, or the year. And it was at the end of that day, right after I picked up Joseph, that I received the phone call from my mom's older sister (I've written about this day in a previous post -- Click HERE to read). I might as well have had an actual angel come sit down beside me in the car, I felt so comforted. I knew that this was a miracle, and I think that my mom and her sisters did too. They had found each other, despite everything. They had found each other.

The miracle of my mom's reunion with her sisters helped lift my heart, and my mom's heart, at a time when it was needed most. To this day, it helps me keep my faith in a God who is loving and merciful, one who held my mom (and her siblings) in the palm of His hand, and holds her (and them) still. 

My mom was soon speaking with her sisters herself, and they were making the drive down to see her as often as possible. They e-mailed her, too, every single day, with little funny stories, words of encouragement, and words of love. They were my mom's angels. They were mine, too. And I need to hold on to this goodness, this reminder, when I am made crazy by everything else.

Today, on All Souls Day, I did not go to church. I simply couldn't. The Catholic Church has been so adamant in its opposition to allowing adoptees access to their original birth certificates, and so disingenuous in its arguing, that I find it currently impossible to attend, despite the goodness of so many I know who do attend (and usually know nothing about this scandal). Instead, my husband and I ourselves read the story of Mary and Martha mourning the death of their brother Lazarus to our children, and we prayed for the souls of those we have loved. I do not know what we'll do going forward. I can only follow my heart, and my earnest prayers, and do what I believe to be right.

After all of the press about my mom and adoption last year, I have been approached by so many in the adoption triad who have shared their stories with me. I listen very, very carefully. And what I have learned is that most of us would not even survive what birth (original) mothers were made to go through. The very Catholic church that is now using birth mothers as an argument for not allowing adoptees access to their original birth certificates is the one that shamed them (birth mothers) into giving up their children, telling them to "forget about them," in the first place. Women had to pay room and board, and often work, in exchange for their medical care, and then their babies were given away (at a high price) before they ever had a chance to hold them. I cannot begin to imagine the grief.

There is great grief, too, for adoptees, blocked forever from knowing who this mother was. I saw this clearly enough with my own mom, even as she loved and cherished her own adoptive parents. And I know that there is often grief for adoptive parents, before the adoption, as they deal with the excruciating pain of miscarriages and infertility. Please, please, please, we have all prayed at one time, our hearts filled with grief. Sometimes, it feels as if there is no answer. Sometimes, we wonder where God could be. I do too. But I have had it confirmed in my heart, in the deepest seat of my soul, that a God of mercy, and tenderness, and love, and TRUTH, does exist beneath the madness, of which I can still make no sense. In the face of great grief, love and truth are the only answer. Secrecy, shame, and fear are not. Don't you agree, dear Catholic Church? For you are worth so much more to me than an Ikea bedroom dresser, and I would rather not take you to the curb. But if I must choose between Love and Truth and you, I will choose Love and Truth, for that, of course, is God.

My Ikea dresser on the curb

Adoptees' Voices: PA HB162

This is another post by Jenn, Susan's daughter. Susan passed away on April 7th, 2014 after an 8-month battle with melanoma.

"I was fifteen years old when I understood how it is that things break down: people can't imagine someone else's point of view." - Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her autobiography My Beloved World

When Pennsylvania's Senate Committee on Aging and Youth reconvenes this month, they will consider HB162, a law that would allow adult adoptees access to their birth certificates. The measure passed the Assembly unanimously in the spring, but it is unknown whether or not it will have the votes to make it out of this 11-member committee. If it doesn't, more adoptees like my mom will have no access to information about their heritage, including crucial medical information that may save their lives. This, as well as the fact that the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference continues to lobby hard against it, is heartbreaking to me. I cannot fathom how they (leaders of the Catholic Conference, senators considering a "no" vote) don't yet "get it" and can perpetuate such an injustice. I am writing tonight as one more voice pleading for them to "imagine someone else's point of view," that all important bedrock of justice in our country. And, to be fair, I must let them, and all of you, know that I, for years "didn't get it" in the way that I should have. My mom, an adoptee herself, didn't get it until she was 50 years old and had to sit across the desk from someone, an employee of the agency that facilitated her adoption, and hear that she could not be handed the file of her most personal information, a file only mere feet away, because in the one, impersonal phone call the agency made to the birth mother, that mother had been scared and said no.

My mom with my girls in Disney, 2010. 

A few weeks ago, my dad, my sister, my aunt Jo (my mom's sister, reunited with her last September, before my mom's death in April), and my Uncle Doug (my mom's brother, also adopted, raised with my mom) gathered at my dad's shore house in Long Beach Island. There, we read together letters that my mom had exchanged in 2003 with the agency that facilitated her adoption. We all shook our heads together when we read the agency's response to one of her first letters. The agency's letter began, "It is with great compassion that I write this letter,"  and ended "I hope you are able to understand our position." After that, we read my mom's response. Here it is:

In response to your recent letter, I would have to answer no, I do not understand your position in this contemporary age, especially in light of the fact that you still facilitate closed adoptions. From my perspective as a 52-year-old adoptee, closed adoptions make no sense, not in this age when genetic research is transforming medicine and the way we view behavior, practically by the day. 

Your voluntary search program was a good start, but it is not sufficient. In fact, the process makes me feel like a paralyzed infant, because once again, your agency holds all the power, and my interests have been sublimated to these secrecy pacts you have endorsed and apparently continue to endorse. There is no way that I can feel my birth mother was forthcoming with medical information, as your letter strongly suggests, when ______'s exact words to me were: "Even in that area, I felt like she was holding something back."

Why should I, as the adoptee, be asked to honor an agreement that was flawed and didn't consider my best interest in the first place? It is well and good to protect birth mothers from their friends and neighbors, but not from the human beings they bring into the world, and for life. Every person should have the opportunity to explore where he or she has come from. Babies are not commodities -- they grow into adolescents and adults, many who want to know the truth and are unwilling to accept the legal fiction this closed system has forced upon them. 

I would ask you once again to consider how little I am asking for. I never said I desired a reunion, although I wouldn't have turned one down. I want to deliver a letter to my birth mother in my own voice in the hope that it may touch her and allow her to provide a little information. I have promised not to approach her again, and I'm fully prepared to accept the fact that her need for denial is so strong that she may be unable to do this. But shouldn't I have the right to try? In not attempting to facilitate this healing, you have once again made the decision to completely ignore the adoptees' feelings. Can you even begin to imagine how this makes me feel? ...

And then, in her next letter (after she was told there would be no attempt to compromise):

Your unyielding position makes me feel totally violated as a thinking, feeling adult.... Why can't you take the mildest of risks and meet me somewhere in the middle on this issue? I remain totally disgusted by your self-serving, hypocritical stance. And while you may be able to block my ability to heal and thwart my search, fortunately for me, you cannot control my voice. At least that is one power I still possess -- the power of the pen.       Sincerely, Susan T. Perry

I beg of you, any of you who have made your way to this site today, but especially those who live in Pennsylvania, to use the power of your voice to speak up so that no one else has to go through what my mom did. If you have questions and still don't "get it," please ask! I am happy to answer your questions, and I won't yell at you. I will, however, tell you the truth. Once you do get it, write! Below is the contact information for all of the Senators on the Pennsylvania Committee on Aging and Youth. I think they especially need to hear from members of the adoption triad (adoptees, original parents, and adoptive parents). Please pass this on to anyone in Pennsylvania you know.

In addition, I would ask any Catholics to write to the Catholic Conference to let them know you oppose them lobbying against this bill. For me, this is personal. Catholics, if true to their faith, should be worried about protecting the powerless, and supporting this bill would at least allow the adult adoptee some semblance of power over his/her own life.

LINK TO SENATE AGING AND YOUTH COMMITTEE (click for full information on each Senator and snail-mail mailing addresses, if you are so motivated. Just click on the Senator's name on the list to the left -- options for Twitter and Facebook as well!):
http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/cteeInfo/index.cfm?Code=1&CteeBody=S

SENATORS ON THE COMMITTEE AND THEIR E-MAIL ADDRESSES:

Chair, Senator Randy Vulakovich (District 40): (must click on link above and e-mail via form)
Minority Chair, Senator Sean Wiley (District 49): senatorwiley@pasenate.com
Vice Chair, Senator Scott Wagner (District 28): swagner@pasen.gov
Senator Joseph Scarnati III (District 25): jscarnati@pasen.gov
Senator David Argall (District 29): dargall@pasen.gov
Senator Lisa Baker (District 20): lbaker@pasen.gov
Senator Bob Mensch (District 24): (must click on link above and e-mail via form)
Senator Elder Vogel Jr. (District 47): (must click on link above and e-mail via form)
Senator Judith Schwank (District 11): SenatorSchwank@pasenate.com
Senator Michael J. Stack (District 5): stack@pasenate.com
Senator John Yudichak (District 14): yudichak@pasenate.com

Pennsylvania Catholic Conference (click on "Contact" - top right):
http://www.pacatholic.org/
I especially ask all Catholics of good faith to contact them and ask them to stop opposing HB 162. In other states (Ohio specifically), Catholic leaders have REVERSED THEIR POSITION on this bill and supported it as "the right thing to do." Catholics in Pennsylvania could also do the right thing.

Thank you, everyone, for honoring my mom by using your own voice. Thank you for pleading for the rights of others simply because you care about doing what is right.
With a full and hopeful heart, Jenn

Happy Birthday, Mom

Note: This is another blog by Susan's daughter Jenn. Susan passed away on April 7th after an 8-month battle with melanoma.

Today, July 9th, is my mom's birthday. She would have been 64. She always loved having her birthday in July, saying it was perfect for celebrating outside. She also loved that she received so many fun toys (i.e. recreational equipment) because her birthday was in the summer. For the last ten years or so, we celebrated at the beach with a seafood feast prepared by my husband and my sister Kate's husband. My mom, always an enthusiastic and vociferous appreciator of food, would sit at the head of the table and proclaim, after closing her eyes and shaking her head back and forth with a dramatic "Mmmm!", that everything was "Just delicious!"

Happy Birthday, Mom. Thinking of you with love ... 

Last summer, though, with no hint of the tragedy about to befall us, we celebrated in Madrid, where my mom had generously accompanied me to help care for my three children, ages 9, 7, and 2 at the time, so that I could facilitate an exchange program for 30 of my students. We had no obligations with the students on her birthday, though, so we celebrated first in our apartment with a bowl of potato chips, a plate of olives, and a few cold beers (three of her favorite things) that we bought from the corner supermarket right below us. My dad, who came for the last two weeks of the exchange, was taking a run in Parque Retiro, so it was me, my mom, my mom's dear friend Jill (who stayed with us the whole trip, as her grandson was on the exchange), and Grace, Genevieve, and Joseph. With Los Pitufos (the Smurfs) in Spanish as our background, we talked, laughed, and celebrated my mom. 

In the Madrid apartment last July ... my mom (on the right) and her dear friend Jill

Later in the evening we headed to Plaza Santa Ana ("Ah, la Santa Anita," said the taxi driver when I told him our destination, as though she, the plaza, were an old friend of his), where we ate dinner outdoors while Joseph played on the playground right next to us. The picture printed by the Philadelphia Inquirer in their March story, "NJ bill on adoptees' right to birth certificates advances" (Click here for article) is from that night (the bill was signed, albeit with a compromise, by Governor Christie on May 27th of this year). My mom also posted that picture when sharing her diagnosis with the adoption community last year ("Facing a life-threatening illness and thinking about adoption": Click here to read). In the picture Grace, who was close to her Nana all her life (since her very first breath, actually, as my mom was there when she was born) is kissing her cheek. My mom and I are smiling.

As I try to celebrate my mom today, even as I grieve the loss of her, I can't help thinking of birthdays in a more general sense and the special meaning they take on for adoptees. On my birthday I can reflect on the story of the day I was born (it was Easter, 1977, and my mom had eaten too many jelly beans the night before. My three-year old sister Kate was so distraught over my mom leaving her at the chocolate egg hunt with my dad that she scribbled in purple crayon all over her walls). I can picture the house I was brought home to, too -- a twin house on East Park Avenue in Haddonfield, New Jersey where my family lived for the first ten years of my life. When this past winter my mom shared with me, "It's funny how some memories stick ... I can still clearly remember, about a week after I brought you home from the hospital, three-year old Kate marching into the kitchen with her chubby little legs to announce, very seriously, 'Baby's cryin'," I could picture it exactly. Most importantly, I can picture my mom, and my dad. No one ever tried to block me from knowing who they are, because I am not an adoptee.

Before my mom decided to search for her biological/original parents at the age of 47 (her first cancer scare), she did not speak much about adoption at all, but she did tell me once, "I thought about it a lot when I had both you and Kate, when I realized how deeply connected I was to you already. But of course then life was just so busy ... " After she searched and was told by the adoption agency that her biological/original mother wanted no contact, she told me, "I didn't anticipate how much that would hurt. I guess I had a fantasy of a teenage mother who had loved me deeply giving me up and thinking about me on my birthday each year. To know that no one was doing that ... just hurt." Hurt caused by another human being, often one deeply connected to us, is often a part of life, of course. My mom accepted that. Yet it deeply bothered her, as it should have, that she did not have the right to know the identity of her original mother and contact her herself (so much so that she eventually found her mother on her own and sent her a letter in her own words, which was healing).

My mom with my sister and me when we were young, in the early 80s. She was still years away from searching for her original mother, but she had thought about it.

Mostly, though, my mom and I talked about things other than adoption. In fact we laughed, along with my sister, that we hardly ever talked about anything for more than a minute because the kids were always around, interjecting their urgent and ever-important conversations. This was the case last July, as we celebrated my mom's birthday. I don't remember talking about anything specific that night, though I do remember the happy feeling of being together, walking after dinner for churros and chocolate to Chocolatería San Ginés near Madrid's Plaza Mayor, extending the evening, in that most Spanish of ways, as long as it would go.

Time, though, keeps bull-dozing along, and eventually we had to go home. Eight days after my mom's birthday we left Spain, and on the plane ride home, several hours in, I remember looking down the row of seats to see my mom, sleeping, and thinking, "What would I ever do without her?"

My mom's sister Jo, however, helped me to see this question in a different way when she wrote me, Kate, and my dad in the beginning of June: "I have read them [your mom's writings] many times over. I think for every memory you have and  miss I am sad for  those that I might have had. Life sure is a mystery sometimes."

Mom, if life were a Spanish evening we would all be walking with you now to the Chocolatería. Those who loved you over years and years and those who loved you briefly, but truly, would be at your side. Happy Birthday, we would sing, and you would know that you were  thought about with love, love as deep as an ocean -- deeper, even-- each year on your birthday forever.

In Madrid last summer (above). I love the way my mom has her arm around me in this photo. We are standing in front of a plaque for the Battle of the 2nd of May, which is the basis of one of Goya's most famous paintings, though my favorite is "The Third of May," shown above. My mom loved this painting when she saw it, too. I think being an adoptee led her to be more sensitive to anyone whose rights were being trampled.

Happy Birthday, Nana.

Joseph, My Mom, and Unanswered Questions

Joseph in May. He has grown up so much since September.

This is another post by Jenn, Susan's daughter. Susan passed away on April 7th after an 8-month battle with melanoma. 


 This Thursday was my son Joseph's last day of school until next year, and we celebrated by bringing in fruit for the class and letting his teachers know how thankful we are. When I picked him up he was sitting happily with his friends, laughing and eating his snack, and though he was happy to see me, he wasn't in any hurry to leave.

What a difference since September, when I first brought Joseph to Kindercare, which is right across the street from where I teach in Philadelphia. He was two then and, because of my mom, had never before had to go to daycare or school. Like my girls, Joseph loved "Nana Days," when my mom brought him to the Discovery Museum or the playground and generally showered him with love. This September, a mere month after my mom's diagnosis with Stage IV melanoma, Joseph started school. He sobbed and clung to my leg when I dropped him off, and when I picked him up afterwards, nearly eight hours later, he was so overcome with emotion that he fell off his chair onto the floor as soon as he saw me and again broke into sobs. "Mommy," he said, and the look on his face was clear: "I didn't know if you were coming back."

Joseph on the first day of school, looking a little nervous.

Of course I was coming back. And as Joseph saw that this was true, day after day, week after week, and as he made friends and played on the playground and grew to love his teachers in the two-year-old classroom (Ms. Wanda, Ms. Stefanie, Ms. Jessica, Ms. Angie), he began to relax and enjoy himself. Eventually he gave me a hug and a kiss goodbye in the morning and ran off to play with his friends.

Joseph at 3 months, when my mom first started caring for him.

None of this is to say that no longer having my mom care for Joseph was not a huge loss, or that her two years of caring for him were not extremely important in his life. I plan to tell Joseph stories about his time with my mom for the rest of his life so that, if he doesn't remember himself, he will at least know. He will know how much he was loved, and what sacrifices were made for him. And another thing: none of this is to say that had I not come back, for whatever reason, that Joseph wouldn't have been truly traumatized, regardless of how wonderful his teachers were. And he would have been especially traumatized had all reasons for me not coming back been blocked from him forever. Had all information about me been blocked from him forever. I've been thinking about this lately as I think about the mysteries surrounding my mom's early life because of her adoption. She was three months old when my grandparents took her home. Three months! Who held her during those days and weeks before her new life? Who first saw her smile? Was she loved, spoken to, rocked back to sleep when she cried?

This winter, my mom received a letter from the Children's Home Society of New Jersey, the adoption agency that placed her, in response to a letter she had sent them asking for more information about her life, since she had been reunited with her sisters and her original mother had recently passed away.  What possible reason was left for any secrecy? The agency did send my mom more information about her father, and an older son that he had, but wrote that they could tell her nothing about who cared for her for the first three months of her life. "We could have you speak with a current foster family if you are curious as to what that experience is like," they wrote. That made us laugh.

My mom and dad also received another letter from
the Children's Home Society of New Jersey this

My mom, me, and Joseph in Parque Retiro, Madrid, in July 2013.

winter, one in response to their letter urging the agency to support S873/A1259, or the Adoptees Birthright Bill (signed into law in NJ in May) which will allow adult adoptees access to their original birth certificates, or OBCs. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Child Welfare League of America, among many, many other groups and institutions, support legislation such as this. Still: "We will take no position on the bill," the agency wrote to my parents.

I must admit that this is as much a mystery to me as the first three months of my mother's life. Why would an institution whose sole goal is to protect children not speak out on behalf of those thousands of children it placed for adoption who had their rights stripped from them? Donna Pressma, President and CEO of the Children's Home Society of Trenton since 1986 even chairs, according to her biography, a committee for the Child Welfare League of America (this one on children with HIV).

There are some other mysteries for me as well, mysteries I was reminded of as I searched the agency's website for clues to my mom's history, to my history. For instance: Why must an adoptee pay anything in order to receive information about his or her own family history? I knew that my mom paid for the piece of paper with minimal information about her original family (the one we laughed about for its inaccuracies with my mom's sisters this fall) back in 2002, but the prices listed here reminded me how much. $75 for basic information, $200 for a complete background, and $500 for a search, meaning that the agency would attempt to contact an original family member for you. $100 for each additional search (a sibling, a father). $50/hr for a pre-search counseling session. If I remember correctly, for my mom this consisted of someone asking her, "Why do you want to know?" (Eventually, my mother would pay several thousand dollars to an outside source to find her mother on her own so that she could deliver a letter to her "in her own voice," something I believe that is important for all adoptees to be able to do).

Also: why did my mom's original mother ever have to pay anything to the adoption agency? This winter my mom's sister Jo gave us a letter her mother had kept all these years about just this. Apparently she had fallen behind on payments but finally caught up, and a letter was sent to acknowledge this.  My mother's parents also paid a lot of money to finalize her adoption. I know diapers and formula are expensive, but ... well, it just doesn't add up.

Joseph at 2 months. So much had already happened in his life. Where and with whom was my mom at this age?

Children's Home Society of New Jersey, if you are reading, let me say that it seems, from your website, that you do some wonderful work for children. You wrote to my mom that you read her letters with "great compassion," and indeed much of your work does seem to be infused with this compassion. Yet how can compassion for adopted children stop once they become adults and begin advocating for their rights? Where is the compassion in charging them $500 simply to connect them to the parent or parents that you had a part in separating them from? And why can't we know where my mom was for the first three months of her life? Do those records not exist?

Faced with the losses tied up in sealed-records adoption, one can become overwhelmed. Faced with any loss, actually, one can become overwhelmed. I know that's how I was feeling last September when I picked up Joseph, sobbing, from the floor after his first day of school. Back in the car, once he was safely buckled, I let the feelings sink in. What I had already lost with my mom's diagnosis. What I might lose. Mom.

It was then, when I was feeling most lost, that the phone rang. I didn't recognize the number, but something made me pick it up. Joseph, unusually, sat quiet in the back.

"Hello, this is Jenn," I said.

"Jenn? Jenn Gentlesk?" spoke a sweet, yet inquisitive, and perhaps slightly nervous voice.

"Yes."

"I received your letter today, your letter you sent by certified mail, the one about your mom, Susan Perry ... I'm ... her sister." Carol then explained that my mom had another, younger sister (Jo), and that they both had been frantically searching for my mom for two weeks, ever since Jo had accidentally found a birth record in her mother's apartment.

I can't speak for my mom, but I know that at this moment in my life, when I was feeling a bit as though God had dropped me off at daycare and was never coming back, to hear "We were frantically searching for you," and then to be found, was nothing less than miraculous. I am grateful, and humbled, to have been touched by this miracle. It has sustained me through this incredibly difficult year. And I'm hoping that, like Joseph at his school, each day going forward will be a little easier for me. That each day I'll find some joy.

Yet is shouldn't take a miracle (or thousands of dollars) for people who are related to each other by blood to find each other. There are enough mysteries and tragedies in life that we can't do anything about and need true miracles for. As I reflect on this year -- the beautiful reunion with my mom's sisters, the devastating loss of my mom -- I know there are some questions that I'll never be able to answer. But others, well, I'm going to keep searching until I find what I'm looking for ... I'm going to search for answers for my mom.

My mom and Joseph in Spain last summer. She would hate how she looked in this picture (she had just woken up on our first day in the country, and was jet-lagged from our day of travel), but I love how her hand is on Joseph's leg, and how happy they look just sitting together.