The Adoption Decree: If the cat is out of the bag…

Posted on by — Leave a reply

This will be short tonight. Over on the FB Bastard Nation page  a conversation has evolved from the original discussion of adoptee problems with access to passports to access to the adoption decree. In Ohio, pre-1964 adoptees  receive their adoption decree when the get their original birth certificate.  I’ve got a certified and non-certified copy of mine.  I have little  idea what happens with post- 1963s by court order and post mid-1996s (too young to access). As far as I know in Oregon, Alabama, New Hampshire, Maine, and soon Rhode Island, only the obc is available. In those states, and including the always free Kansas and Alaska, can adoptees get their adoption decree? If not, why?  It seems pretty silly to deny the decree once the obc is out of the bag.  Do adoptees in closed states, who by hook or crook get their obc (through a state subdivision) get their decree? Maybe I know the answer and just need my memory jogged . It’s just not a question that gets brought up much.  Bastard Nation has always advocated for the release of all court documents. Decree access is something, unfortunately,  that has  fallen by the wayside, and we need Continue Reading →

Ivan Skorobogatov/Nathaniel Craver Case Update: Killers Walk

Posted on by — 2 Comments ↓

Once again, the dust and bone of a dead Russian adoptee has been swept under the rug.  After spending 19 months in jail awaiting trial (and after trial on the street waiting sentencing)  for the murder of Ivan Skorobogatov, 7, his  forever parents  Michael J and Nanette  L Craver are walking. Vanya and his twin sister Dasha (now known as Elizabeth)  were adopted in 2003 from an orphanage in Troitsk, Chelyabinsk region, through Lutheran Social Services of the South. The agency is no longer accredited in Russia. Vanya, lasting longer  (as far as we know) than the other dead  Russian adoptee, died on August 25, 2009 of what York County, Pennsylvania authorities describe as severe beating and malnourishment.  The autopsy revealed Vanya suffered 80 external injuries, including 20 to his  head. After a six month investigation, the Cravers were charged with homicide, conspiracy and child endangerment. In May 2010, York County Senior deputy prosecutor Jennifer Russell, citing Vanya’s age and the state’s contention that his death constituted torture, said she would seek the death penalty. But the best laid plans… Instead, in September this year, when the Cravers got their day, a jury of their so-called peers bought the couple’s Continue Reading →

Bombshell: A Hollywood Adoption Send-up

Posted on by — 1 Comment ↓

I’ve always loved Jean Harlow. and have taken it personally that she was taken from us at such young age. (2011 is the 100th anniversary of her birth).   Back in the day, her films, including PreCode supposedly not fit for children or Presbyterians,  were shown regularly on local television morning, noon and night.  Now they are only available on DVD and Turner Classic. Last week  in a battle of the blondes evening, TMC showed Bombshell.(1933) one of the films  I missed in that heyday of footloose TV or disappeared from my memory, but I can’t imagine how. I was really tired,  but forced myself to stay up and watch. What a treat! I don’t know for a fact, but I think Bombshell  is the first (at least full length) parody of Hollywood made by Hollywood. It  is certainly the first and as far as I know only  Hollywood send-up of Hollywood adoption.   Ostensibly , Bombshell is based on the life of  “It Girl” Clara Bow, but it is clearly “If Girl” Jean Harlow,  playing Jean Harlow under the stage name of Lola Burns..Platinum blond with matching wardrobe and bedroom, large white  fluffy people-pulling dogs, leeching  relatives  (Frank Morgan, Continue Reading →

Adoption: Make It Stop

Posted on by — Leave a reply

This really will be short tonight.  I’ve been sick all day again.  Not that it’s really bad sick, but enough to wear me down. I’ve had this before, and it will go away in a couple days (I hope)  In the meantime, every time I think of adoption, I feel sick.  No individual adoption stories,  not my friends, not organizations,   Like one could get sick of theatre( been there, done that),  the Complete Works of Karl Marx (been there done that for a class assignment).,  Obama (continually) Adoption. A subject that never goes away.   I’ve gotten lots of good comments here and on FB over my last couple blogs, and I’ll be responding soon.  Just not tonight. 

The Stolen OBC: Another Bastard Moment

Posted on by — 2 Comments ↓

I’ll be tied up later in the day (not literally) and don’t have much time.  NaBloPoMo calls however.  So to make things easy, I’m going to include another Bastard Moment–hopefully the last. I’m sure you all have your own. You don’t need reminded by mine. In June 1989 my adoptive  mom died about three weeks after suffering  a debilitating stroke. As required by law, a couple days later, her attorney, whom I’ll call by his initials JR, and I went over to the bank to open her lock box.and inventory its contents. My boyfriend, Gordon, who was pretty– hmm– impressive– (the only Orthodox Jewish hillbilly in the State of Ohio) came along.  I believe a bank official was also present as a fiduciary witness (or something) to oversee the entire affair. Afterwards, we were to hop over to the county seat and file the will for probate. All on my dime, of course, or rather the estate’s dime, of which I was the heir. By the time it was over, Lawyer JR had collected about $20,00 in lawyer’s fees. Adoption was the farthest thing from my mind that day. I’d gotten my original birth certificate and decree  in 1980, and Continue Reading →

My Wedding Anniversary; My Bastard Moment; My Bastard Month

Posted on by — 10 Comments ↓

Today is the xxth  anniversary of my marriage to T..  I refuse to write the number  It’s too depressing. It is also the anniversary, or thereabouts, of my first big Bastard Moment..  You know, the moments that hit you in the gut and remind you that as an adopted person–a Bastard–you are different from the rest  Suspect. Damaged, Troubled .Inadequate. Unloved. Abandoned. I met T (he is an intensively private person,  virtually invisible on the ‘net, so I’ll only use his first initial) when I was close to the end of my junior year in college.  I worked three evenings a week downtown at a bookstore, and he came in nearly every night.  He’d stay a couple hours, stand in the aisles, and read mostly poetry, European literature, plays and sometimes philosophy. He was especially fond of Beckett and Ionesco and German writers.  He’d memorized passages from Goethe’s Faust–in German–and could rattle them off.  He believed  Goethe was far superior to Shakespeare.We talked a lot.. He very much opposed the war in Viet Nam and had done civil rights actions in college.  He was a Taoist. Although I read The Village Voice and The Evergreen Review when I got my Continue Reading →

Welcome Back, Triona! Some Wise Words from 73 Adoptee

Posted on by — 1 Comment ↓

Yay! 73adoptee73 is back.  She’s come out of retirement–at least a little bit–to write on the Feigenholtz-Mitchell scam in Illinois.  She also gives us her analysis of AdoptionLand and why she has reassessed her role as a activist. I wholeheartedly agree with her on both counts.  . Honestly ,why do any of us continue with this–well–shit in our lives. It’s great to have Triona back, but she’s got a sobering message with 73adoptee Returns! But Nobody is Coming Back for Left Behind Illinois Adoptees. Two different topics covered, yet tightly related. First, on the glad-handing in Illinois where the seller-outs refuse to admit they sold out: Illinois is not open. Illinois is sort-of open to adoptees who unwittingly end up playing roulette with their own rights. Some will win. Some will inevitably lose. I’m on the losing team, so I know how it feels. Everybody’s celebrating and they’ve forgotten you. Or, if they remember, it’s to slap you on the back and say, “better luck next time” before they go off to congratulate the winners. But adoption isn’t football. There’s only one game, the Adoption Game, and if you make a mistake you don’t get a do-over. I remain disgruntled Continue Reading →

Living Adoption: Life-long issues in the Birth Parent Experience: Redux

Posted on by — Leave a reply

The Columbus Dispatch ran a pretty clueless article–For Some Parents, Struggle over Adoption is Never Ending,  on yesterday’s event at Camp Mary Onrton sponsored by the Ohio Birth Parent Grup  (see blog directly below this. I’m not famliar with reporter Bill Bush, but I think the event wojuld have much better served if Rita Price had covered it.  I’ve worked with Rita before, and she knows her aodption business. Anyway, Bush emphasized, victimization and sensationalizatin, something that sells papers, but not adoption reality, and makes those of us in adoption look like victims, not fiighters  Please post comments on the Dispatch website if you wre there or write a letter to the editor.. I’m posoting something ,but not tonight  I’m still sick and going back to bed.

Living Adoption: Life -long issues in the Birth Parent Experience: A Short Review

Posted on by — 1 Comment ↓

Earlier today it was my great pleasure to attend the first anniversary meeting of the Ohio Birth Parent Group (and Facebook). . The event. Living Adoption: Life-long issues in the Birth Parent Experience,  was held at Camp Mary Orton just north of Columbus and Worthington and featured Brenda Romanchik as facilitator and guest speaker. The first session was open only to “birthparents”, so I can’t report on that. The second session was a two-hour talk.open to the public including social workers who got CIUs,  and Q& A led by Romanchik.   About 19 attended the fist session (including one woman all the way from New York City!), about 60 the second. The group was mufti-generatinal and included parents in closed an open adoptions. Unfortunately I am sick with some kind of stomach bug (worse as the day goes on, and I’m going to bed in a few minutes) so and didn’t take notes. To make it worse, the shutter on my camera stopped shuttering, and I only got one picture.So here is a general review and some thoughts. I met Brenda online about 18 yeas ago on the original alt.adoption. Her son, Matt,  was a relatively little guy back then, and Continue Reading →

Florida: Questions about "Safe Haven" and Adoption Agency Privilege

Posted on by — 3 Comments ↓

Back on November 4, Al Neuharth, old newspaper man and founder (of among other things USA Today) wrote a rather unnotable piece in Florida Today, “Chosen Children” in which he extols National Adoption Awareness Month. Neuharth is a longtime advocate of adoption, so the essay isn’t surprising. . Left hand couple:  Fornes & Neuharth Neuharth, 87, and his wife, Dr. Rachel Fornes have transracially adopted six children between the ages of 11 and 20. Fornes, in fact,  founded the not-for profit adoption agency Home at Last located in Cocoa Beach, FL. and is a former board member of the National Council for Adoption. About half-way through the otherwise routine adoptaarticle, these curious paragraphs pop up:  [Rachel] has special contacts with schools, churches, hospitals and police who put her in touch with pregnant women who cannot or don’t want to take care of their offspring..I In Florida, women with newborn babies can leave them at any of those locations for caretaking, no questions asked. Then, instead of desertion, they are in good hands while the adoption process proceeds. Remember that in Florida, babies dumped off at “safe have” stations do not, as in most other states, go through the state system.  Continue Reading →