Lately there have been many articles in various news publications about pending legislation to open adoption records so that adoptees would have access to their birth records. This would allow adoptees to have a greater chance of obtaining medical information and reuniting with their birth parents.

The state of New York is no different. If the pending legislation is passed in New York, adoptees born in that state will soon have the same right to their birth records like any other U.S. citizen.

Do you ever wonder why records were sealed in the first place? I have and this article attempts to address that.

New York began sealing adoption records in... more

While half paying attention to television Friday night, I heard this unique adoption/reunion story and was intrigued by the details I did hear, so I got online to search for more. I must preface this story by saying it is one of those stories that is so rare and unique.

Brandy Hersh, now 27 and Heidi Wickware, now 25 met about five years ago and instantly felt a connection towards one another and became best friends. Brandy reminisces about how their friendship started:

"When we first met, it was an automatic connection. I had told her that we were -- that I thought of her as such a good friend, like a better friend than some of the friends that I'd had for years... more

This story out of The Clarion Ledger in Mississippi provides an example of why open records are needed and why adoptees need and deserve easier access to their medical records.

In the article, we are introduced to Lauren McCrary, an adult adoptee. Lauren and her twin brother were adopted together after their birth in 1969. Raised partially in Mississippi and then partially in Texas, Lauren remembers being told that she was adopted around eight or nine. She says she never had any problems being or knowing that she was adopted, but as she grew up... more

A recent article out of the Mid County Chronicle discusses the registry that is through The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) and the Texas Vital Statistics Central Adoption Registry. Through this registry adult adoptees can be reunited with birth parents or birth siblings who sign up looking for one another. The Registry began in 1984 and to date has registered more than 8, 100 people who were searching for one another including adult adoptees, birthmothers, birth fathers, and adult siblings.

According to Patricia Molina,... more

A story out of Liverpool recently caught my attention I was reading through my Google News Alerts. A young woman, Rachel Selby, will celebrate her twenty first birthday on March 22nd and she is hoping to locate her birthmother before then and invite her to her birthday party.

Searching occurs every day and is typically a challenge for birthparents and adoptees alike, but what makes this story a tad different is that Rachel was abandoned on the steps of a church in 1987 and discovered by two policemen. The police tried hard to find her... more

This week a Senate panel in New Jersey finally unanimously approved a bill (S611) that will allow adult adoptess to get their original birth certificates which are currently sealed by law. This bill will allow adult adoptees or the adoptive parents of a child to petition the state registrar for a copy of the original birth certificate which contains the names of the adoptee’s biological parents.

Open record advocates have spent close to thirty years lobbying for this bill, so it has been a long time coming. They recruited rap star, Daryl McDaniels, who is known to most as DMC from the group Run DMC to help them get this passed.

Daryl McDaniels is an adoptee who didn’t learn... more

Allison Quets, the birthmother who kidnapped her twins last year, is back in the news again. She was recently sentenced and now the judge has ruled that she will have no visitation with her twins.

During her pregnancy, Allison suffered from hyperemesis gravidarum, a condition that makes you very ill and weak. Feeling very sick and weak from that condition, Allison signed relinquishment papers terminating her parental rights to her twins, Holly and Tyler.

Not long after singing the papers, Allison changed her mind and tried to revoke her consent yet the twins were not given back. Instead, Allison... more

It has been a long battle over the custody of little Max, one fought so fiercely that Gary Stocklaufer had life threatening weight loss surgery in order to increase the odds of little Max, whom he and his wife had been raising as their son since he was a week old, returning to their home, after he was removed at four months old.

A judge ruled today that Gary and his wife, Cindy, were to be awarded custody of the now eight month old baby boy, stating that it was in the child's best interest that the Stocklaufer's be permitted to adopt him.

The other couple that has been caring for... more

Michelle and Andrew Ransavage, a couple from Minnesota, have been denied the ability to bring home the daughter that they named Mia and are in the process of adopting from China because of a conviction on charges of Driving While Impaired (DWI) against Andrew in January of 2007.

The adoption was approved by the adoption agency in 2007 but was stalled because of the conviction. While Michelle and her parents were in China to bring two and half year old Mia home in November, Andrew (who was at home in the US) received word that Mia’s move to the United States was denied by the regional office of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (also known as CIS) because of the... more

Gary Stocklaufer, the man who made national headlines after claiming that he had been denied the ability to adopt his cousin's baby boy because he was overweight, and even went so far as to undergo gastric bypass surgery, losing close to two hundred pounds, in an attempt to regain custody of the little boy that he had been raising as his own, is once again back in the news.

While the courts denied that Stocklaufer was not granted the adoption due to his weight, but rather for his failure to follow proper legal procedures, stating that he and his wife took custody of the baby and brought him into the state,... more