July 30, 2008

A New Boat-Load of Schitt

WHO IS JACK SCHITT?

For some time many of us have wondered just who is Jack Schitt?

We find ourselves at a loss when someone says, 'You don't know Jack Schitt'!
Well, thanks to my genealogy efforts, you can now respond in an intellectual way.

Jack Schitt is the only son of Awe Schitt. Awe Schitt, the fertilizer magnate, who married O. Schitt, the owner of Needeep N. Schitt, Inc.
They had one son, Jack.

In turn, Jack Schitt married Noe Schitt. The deeply religious couple produced six children: Holie Schitt, Giva Schitt, Fulla Schitt, Bull Schitt, and the twins Deep Schitt and Dip Schitt.

Against her parents' objections, Deep Schitt married Dumb Schitt, a high school dropout. After being married 15 years, Jack and Noe Schitt divorced. Noe Schitt later married Ted Sherlock, and because her kids were living with them, she wanted to keep her previous name. She was then known as Noe Schitt Sherlock.

Meanwhile, Dip Schitt married Loda Schitt, and they produced a son with a rather nervous disposition named Chicken Schitt. Two of the other six children, Fulla Schitt and Giva Schitt, were inseparable throughout childhood and subsequently married the Happens brothers in a dual ceremony. The wedding announcement in the newspaper announced the Schitt-Happens nuptials. The Schitt-Happens children were Dawg, Byrd, and Horse.

Bull Schitt, the prodigal son, left home to tour the world. He recently returned from Italy with his new Italian bride, Pisa Schitt.

Now when someone says, 'You don't know Jack Schitt', you can correct them.

Sincerely,
Crock O. Schitt

Thank goodness Jack wasn't adopted, so his genealogical origins could be found! In honor of this new discovery, here's the latest boat-load of the famous Schitt family...

Expensive Pregnancy 1
© Photographer: Camptown | Agency: Dreamstime.com

“Bitter Sweet is an important film to help everyone understand what adoption is about. It is positive, accurate and very well done.”
Sister Paula, Founder. International Life Services

A Video Documentary Bitter Sweet, Stories of Open Adoption is a poignant look at one of the most difficult, and loving, decisions a woman can ever make. Making the decision to turn an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy, into the miracle of family, through adoption.

Filmed over two years, Bitter Sweet provides a rare look into the adoption process. It features the stories of five courageous women who share their sorrow, strength and hope as they process through the steps of considering and finally choosing adoption for their children.
A must see for anyone woman facing the most important choice of her life - I use it in all areas of my counseling” Kim Felder, Adoption Counselor,Kinship Center, Los Angeles, CA

....So here's a new documentary in the arsenal of coercive tactics to persuade women to surrender their babies to adoption. Adoption is not a win-win ~ it is a loss-loss-win-loss-loss. It is not the most "loving" decision a woman can make ~ what bull-schitt (excuse the french, but true). A truly "courageous" woman would do whatever it takes to fulfill the role of Mother that God gave her the minute of conception. She wouldn't fall for the lies of being such a "courageous hero" for the benefit of desperate would-be adopters...sorry for being so blunt, but it is just the plain truth.

Relinquishment and adoption is the act of a Mother legally abandoning her helpless baby to strangers through a business-transaction, in a supply and demand based industry. Period. It is not courageous and not really all that loving. It is the easy way out. It is fulfilling the needs of adults over the needs of the child, no matter HOW GOOD the adoptive home is. I don't see adoptive parents making "loving" decisions to give their newly purchased kids away to another "more suitable" family when they suddenly get sick or broke or divorced or fall on hard times, in order to make a "courageous, loving choice" for the benefit of the child. I don't see parents doing that, period. I only see women falling for lies that are told to them in order to keep the waiting lists supplied.

As an adoptee it is very hard to rationalize ANY REASON a mother gives for abandoning her child...we get a little bit of relief by hearing first mothers tell their stories of how society treated them and their life-long loss that resulted...but it really disgusts me that it all still goes on...

When I see advertisements for adoption agencies that talk of giving a "birthmother" the chance to go to college and make a life for herself (without her own flesh and blood helpless baby), it makes me feel like I am not as valuable as a college-education and career. It makes me feel MORE unwanted than being given the "gift" of a "new" identity through a competitive monetary transaction. It makes me feel like a commodity who isn't worth the effort or sacrifice of being WANTED and NURTURED by my own mother, society, and life. Adoption doesn't LEGITIMIZE anyone. It creates unacknowledged loss for all parties involved and for society as a whole.

July 28, 2008

The Hormone Hostage

Roses and Wine
© Photographer: Photoshow | Agency: Dreamstime.com
The Hormone Hostage Knows That There Are Days In The Month When All A Man Has To Do Is Open His Mouth & He Takes His Life Into His Own Hands! This Is A Handy Guide That Should Be As Common As A Driver's License In The Wallet Of Every Husband, Boyfriend, Co-Worker, Or Significant Other!

Dangerous
WHAT'S FOR DINNER?
Safer
CAN I HELP YOU WITH DINNER?
Safest
WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO GO FOR DINNER?
Ultra Safe
HERE, HAVE
SOME WINE.

Dangerous
ARE YOU WEARING THAT?
Safer
WOW, YOU SURE LOOK GOOD IN BROWN!
Safest
WOW!
LOOK AT YOU!
Ultra Safe
HERE, HAVE
SOME WINE.

Dangerous
WHAT ARE YOU SO WORKED UP ABOUT?
Safer
COULD WE BE OVERREACTING?
Safest
HERE'S MY PAYCHECK.
Ultra Safe
HERE, HAVE
SOME WINE.

Dangerous
SHOULD YOU BE EATING THAT?
Safer
YOU KNOW, THERE ARE A LOT OF APPLES LEFT.
Safest
CAN I GET YOU A PIECE OF CHOCOLATE WITH THAT?
Ultra Safe
HERE, HAVE
SOME WINE.

Dangerous
WHAT DID YOU DO ALL DAY?
Safer
I HOPE YOU DIDN'T OVER-DO IT TODAY.
Safest
I'VE ALWAYS LOVED YOU IN THAT ROBE!
Ultra Safe
HERE, HAVE
SOME MORE
WINE.

Mother Lode



The average mother (is there really such a thing?) puts in a 92-hour work week, performing at least 10 jobs. If mothers were paid what they are worth on the open market they'd earn about $140,000 a year, according to Salary.com, a Washington D.C. based firm specializing in compensation determination. Even mothers who work full-time jobs outside the home put in $85,939 of work as mothers. Bottom-line? There's lots of room for no-salary career advancement!

I feel so blessed to have just landed a part-time job working at a non-profit agency who trains and matches "family mentors" with other families of preemies. It is something very close to my heart and the hours are flexible, which is something I really need right now with my son. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to work in an area that I am so passionate about and be able to feel productive and professional, and like I am at least bringing in a minuscule amount of money again.

I so wish I had known just ONE Mother of a preemie back when I gave birth to my son. I felt so alone and confused and unable to even articulate my emotions and fear. I remember thinking that my chapped and bleeding hands might never recover from the hours and hours of "scrubbing in" at the NICU and being insanely "germ phobic" for months and months ~ after watching my son fight a hospital-induced staph infection, himself weighing less than two pounds and so vulnerable. I should have bought stock in Lysol and hand sanitizer with how many bottles I went through his first two years of life!

If I could have done just ONE thing differently, I would have held him more in the hospital. I was SO scared of hurting him, with the dozens of tubes and wires he had attached to him, that I chose many days just to leave him laying in the incubator, rather than risk his harm. What I know NOW is that holding my son would have been the BEST medicine for him. He so needed my warmth and closeness at that vulnerable time. Not a stressed out, fearful mother who was obsessed with germs! But truly, unless you have been through such an experience, it is IMPOSSIBLE to fully grasp the trauma and emotional roller-coaster of having a micro-preemie. And it certainly doesn't end the day you leave the hospital ~ it is just the beginning.

I thank God for my son! I thank God for recovery! I thank God for restoration!

In fact, exactly a year later, on my son's 1st Birthday we were able to put an offer on a new house, and happened to close on the house on February 14th, 2006 ~ exactly one year to the day of the day my son had to go back on the "vent" to assist his breathing (due to a staph infection he contracted in the NICU on the day he turned one month old). He was the first baby at this particular hospital who was given Zyvox, a relatively new antibiotic for highly resistant infections. That alone was enough to send me into a panic. But who would have known that exactly ONE YEAR LATER God would remind us of His promises through being able to close on a new house just as my son was turning a year old! It still amazes me just thinking about it.

"I will restore the years the enemy has taken"...God is so FOR US and not against us. It isn't Him that brings trouble and hurt to our lives ~ it is HIM who brings healing and restoration, if we can only trust and believe in His goodness and love for us. He gets blamed for so much that He truly isn't the author of in life.

Thank you, Father God, for all that you have done and are doing for us every day.

Remarkable Reunion

Baby Shoe on Beach
© Photographer: Yooperjb | Agency: Dreamstime.com
A Guatemalan woman is celebrating a remarkable and emotional reunion with
her abducted daughter who was about to be adopted by an unsuspecting
American couple.

http://rbd2008. wordpress. com/2008/ 07/26/guatemalan -mother-reunited -with-baby
-stolen-and- sold-for- adoption- by-us-couple/

By Philip Sherwell in New York
Last Updated: 1:06PM BST 26 Jul 2008

AP Ana Escobar had clutched her only picture of her missing child when she
tearfully described to The Sunday Telegraph last year how six-month-old
Esther was stolen from her by a gunman in March 2007.

But her anguish ended last week when DNA tests confirmed that a girl, now
almost two years old and assigned for adoption by an unidentified US family,
was indeed the daughter of the 27-year-old shop worker.

³I can¹t explain how excited and happy I am,² Ms Escobar said last week
after hearing the good news. ³There are people who don¹t believe in miracles
and then there are people to whom miracles happen.

³Carrying the picture of Esther gave me comfort and company through these 16
long months. I will tell her the story as soon as she can understand what
happened².

The case is the first proven link between child-snatching gangs and the
international adoption system that was previously one of the highest foreign
currency earners for the impoverished Central American country.

³This was run by a mafia, and we going after them,² said Jaime Tecu,
director of a team now reviewing all pending adoptions from Guatemala. ³This
is the first time that we¹ve been able to show with irrefutable evidence
that a stolen child was put up for adoption.²

One in 100 children born in Guatemala eventually grow up in the US, with new
parents who paid on average about $30,000 to lawyers, doctors and brokers to
process fast-track adoptions.

But the Guatemalan authorities had long suspected that some children were
stolen and then sold to supply the adoption industry, which was
ill-regulated before a major crackdown launched last year.

The reunion is a testimony to the dogged maternal perseverance of Ms
Escobar, who at one stage went on hunger strike with five other women whose
babies had similarly been abducted at gunpoint to demand official action.

She spent months trawling hospitals and orphanages that supplied adopted
babies, or simply staring at children in the street.

³I looked in every child¹s face I could,² she said.

Then in May, she was sitting in the National Adoption Council offices,
hoping to gain access to babies whose adoption cases were being reviewed.

She briefly glimpsed a toddler, being ushered into another room, who
reminded her strongly of Esther.

The brief encounter haunted her, but she was assured that the girl¹s papers
were in order - and included the results of DNA tests that identified
another woman as her birth mother.

But Ms Escobar convinced the authorities to compare her own DNA with the
child¹s. Even then, she feared the results would be tampered with, but on
Wednesday she heard the joyous confirmation that the girl was indeed her
daughter.

Mr Tecu said officials will investigate everyone associated with Esther¹s
proposed adoption, including the lawyers who handled the case and the doctor
who signed the falsified DNA tests.

Ms Escobar had gone into hiding last year after identifying the gunman from
police mug shots and mounting her high-profile campaign.

³My mother¹s instinct tells me she has already been sold for adoption,² she
told The Sunday Telegraph when this newspaper was investigating the
controversial foreign adoption programme.

Last year, the country¹s congress passed a new adoptions law to clean up a
system ridden by allegations of corruption and fraud.

The United Nations had urged a suspension of all adoptions in what it called
a ³corrupt² trade.

Guatemala is now implementing the Hague Convention which strictly regulates
international adoptions, removing lawyers from the process and handing
responsibility to an independent commission responsible for putting more
stringent new rules into effect.

In 2006, the last year before the system was tightened, Americans adopted
4,135 children from Guatemala - second only to China, from where there were
6,493 adoptions.

In recent years, dozens of mothers reported stolen babies.

At least two were found in orphanages, although they had not yet been put up
for adoption.

Hysteria about child-snatching rings reputedly operating in remote rural
areas has ended in dozens of lynchings of suspected baby thieves - victims
who often turned out to be innocent outsiders.

Even more prevalent, campaigners said, was so-called ³baby farming² by
impoverished young women who were paid to become pregnant to supply the
adoption trade.

Many other children were put up for adoption freely and legitimately by
mothers who could not afford to raise their children and wanted them to have
a better life abroad.

International adoption agencies argue that the crackdown could prevent some
children from having the chance of a better life abroad, condemning them
instead to years abandoned in orphanages.

July 27, 2008

Discretion is better when used

Woman in jail
© Photographer: Joseasreyes | Agency: Dreamstime.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Discretion is better when used
By Rebecca Walsh
Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated:07/27/2008

Erlene Shepherd was one of those women who is going to save the world - one sponsored child in Guatemala, one stray cat at a time.
Before she died of breast cancer in 1991, Shepherd adopted eight children, paid 50 cents a day for another dozen around the globe and took in every lost pet she found. She kept important documents in two tote bags in her car. They were eventually stolen. And she died before she could file citizenship papers for her youngest - a little girl adopted at 3 months old from India.
None of those details should matter.
Except that 12 years later, Kairi Shepherd got caught forging checks to pay for her meth habit. Erlene Shepherd's quirky record-keeping went on trial. And as a result, her daughter has been snared in the morass of sometimes conflicting American immigration laws - legally adopted, a permanent resident, but still facing deportation to a country she never knew.
"They tell you you slipped through the cracks and that's your luck," she says.
Kairi Shepherd's troubles started with her mother's death when she was 8 years old. She was passed between older siblings (her maternal grandmother suggested offering her up for adoption again). A co-worker introduced her to meth - for its bursts of energy and appetite-suppression - when she was 17. In 2003, she was charged with forgery. Immigration came calling. Then she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
She has been in jail most of the past year, detained by Homeland Security, shuttled between four county jails from Ogden to St. George, sometimes allowed to take her MS medication, sometimes not.
All of which is to say: Enough already.
"Yes, she made mistakes. And she should be held accountable. But she has been," says her older sister, Kristi Tafoya. "Why aren't adopted children protected?"
Prosecutors use their judgment in cases where mothers and fathers leave their babies to bake to death in the car, with maliciously repetitive drunk drivers, or when con men bilk their LDS ward members out of millions. But not, apparently, in this all-important application of post-9/11 red tape.
Unable to staunch the flow of undocumented immigrants slipping over the Mexican border, government lawyers are going after the ones they already know about, the ones they can: immigrants who came here legally, then broke the law. Immigration and Customs Enforcement regional spokeswoman Lori Haley says the agency works closely with local law enforcement to identify those who should be deported. Kairi, it seems, is on that list.
She is not unique in Utah. Immigration officials also tried to deport 25-year-old Samuel Schultz last year after he was convicted of felony car theft. Schultz's mother adopted him from India when he was 3 years old and she, too, did not complete his citizenship paperwork. He appealed all the way to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, which upheld his deportation order.
Congress has attempted to streamline adoptees' citizenship applications. Until 2000, parents simply had to fill out a form before a child turned 21. Erlene Shepherd's daughters believe she filled out the paperwork but never filed it before her death. After 2001, legal international adoptions automatically confer citizenship on children adopted by U.S. citizens. But 26-year-old Kairi's birthday missed the new deadline by a matter of months.
Twice, immigration Judge William Nixon has dismissed the government's Notice to Appear against her - once because everyone involved in the case, including prosecutors, assumed Kairi's legal adoption would grant her citizenship, and a second time because her volunteer attorney Alan Smith argued the government could not refile its Notice to Appear to try to change Nixon's original ruling. Undeterred, local ICE prosecutors have appealed to the agency's Board of Immigration Appeals.
"It's really a garden variety case of how bureaucracy operates," says Smith. "From their standpoint, they're just doing their job. From my standpoint, I would like a little more equitable discretion to be exercised in a situation like this, where you have a young lady who has gotten off on the wrong foot."
Kairi has left a 40-pound box of supplies - clothing, a pair of shoes, pre-paid phone cards - with Immigration, just in case. If she is deported and India accepts her (the country has refused to take in U.S. deportees in the past) she and her sister plan to buy a plane ticket to London. She won't even leave the airport in Delhi.
"She'll die in India," the older sister says. "If [deportation] happens, she's got to be OK."
Meantime, Kairi has been charged with violating her probation for the original forgery charge. She didn't notify her probation officer she was being held all those months in jail by Immigration. A hearing is scheduled for Aug. 4.
walsh@sltrib.com http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_10011361?source=sb-digg

July 26, 2008

300 Babies Frauded

Chinese children
© Photographer: Liunian | Agency: Dreamstime.com
http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/showarticle.php?num=01CAS150708

300 infants illegally put up for adoption
(15-07-2008)

NAM DINH -- Around 300 under five-year-olds have allegedly been falsely
put up for adoption abroad in the northern province of Nam Dinh since
2006, provincial police reported.

The heads of two communal healthcare centres were arrested last month
under suspicion of forging State adoption documents and of making up
bogus histories for the infants, said Nam Dinh Investigative Police
Department.

Tran Ngoc Lam, who lives in Nam Dinh City, allegedly picked up
abandoned children in the province and took them to healthcare centres
in Yen Tien and Yen Luong communes. The centres' directors, Vu Dinh
Loi and Truong Cong Lich, allegedly forged fake birth certificates for
the children so they could be put up for adoption.

The children were then sent to centres for disabled children in Y Yen
and Truc Ninh districts.

It is believed Y Yen's Centre for Disabled Children, which was
established two years ago and which has a seasonal nursing staff of
just four, had, by June 21, sold 100 infants to foreign child adoption
organisations.

Meanwhile, Truc Ninh's Social Protection Centre, which was established
in early 2005, has allegedly put 221 infants illegally up for foreign
adoption.

According to Nam Dinh's Department for Labour, Invalids and Social
Affairs, inspectors found five heavily pregnant women staying at the
centre when it was raided.

The investigation was launched following an anonymous letter that
claimed the centres were engaged in child trafficking. There had also
been rumours circulating among local residents that the centres were
selling babies abroad.

The Department's Child Care and Protection Division reported that they
had found 11 infants, aged two to five months, at the Y Yen centre.
They are now been taken care of at the provincial Social Protection
Centre.

Nam Dinh Investigation Police Department was also looking into the
case, said department director Nguyen Ngoc Kha. -- VNS

July 23, 2008

Stolen Baby Linked to Guatemala Adoption System

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/07/23/guatemala.babies.ap/index.html

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) -- Adoption officials said DNA tests indicate a Guatemalan baby reported stolen from her mother was being adopted by a U.S. couple, the first strong sign that the Central American nation's troubled adoption system relied in part on abducted children.

Authorities have long believed that children were stolen or bought to supply Guatemala's US$100 million-a-year adoption industry before thousands of pending adoptions were frozen in May.

Previously, dozens of mothers reported stolen babies, and at least two were found in orphanages, although they had not yet been put up for adoption.

But adoption officials revealed to The Associated Press on Wednesday that DNA tests identified toddler Esther Zulamita, who was reported stolen on March 26, 2007. The girl was in the process of being adopted by an unidentified U.S. couple.

Jaime Tecu, director of a team of experts reviewing all pending Guatemalan adoptions, said the DNA test results represent the first time officials have directly linked a baby reported stolen by its mother to the fraud-plagued adoption system.

"This is the first time that we've been able to show, with irrefutable evidence, that a stolen child was put up for adoption," Tecu said.

The baby's mother, Ana Escobar, said armed men locked her in a storage closet at the family's shoe store north of Guatemala City and took the 6-month-old.

"When I got out, my daughter was gone," she told the AP in an earlier interview about the case.

She spent months searching hospitals and orphanages, looking for the child.

In May, Escobar says she was sitting in the National Adoption Council's offices, hoping to get access to the babies whose adoption cases were being reviewed. She looked up and saw a toddler who looked like her baby.

The image of the child being carried by an official haunted her, and she asked officials to see more photos. Soon she was sure the baby girl was hers.

All of the girl's papers were in order, including DNA tests showing that her birth mother was someone other than Escobar. But Escobar convinced officials to take new DNA tests.

"She was so sure that the child was hers that we agreed to search the house where the baby was kept," Tecu said.

The baby was placed with a caretaker while her adoption was pending, but Escobar convinced a Guatemalan judge in May to let her care for the child while the new DNA tests were performed.

"I can't explain how excited and happy I am," Escobar told the AP on Wednesday. "It's a miracle."

Tecu said officials will investigate the lawyers who handled the adoption, the doctor who signed the falsified DNA tests, and anyone else associated with the process.

"This was run by a mafia, and we're going after them," he said.

Guatemala froze all 2,286 pending adoptions in May, and officials are reviewing each case to confirm there is no fraud.

At the same time, Guatemala is just starting to adopt babies under a new, more stringent system run by an independent adoption commission.

Before the reform, foreign couples, mostly from the U.S., paid up to US$30,000 to adopt children.

The previous system was so quick and hassle-free it became the second-largest source of foreign babies to U.S. couples after China.

This Says it All...


My First Mother passed away at the age of 32 from breast cancer, while searching for me...she needed to give me important medical information. Not only for myself, but for all my decendents. No state "match" registry would have worked (even though she did register before she passed away) because she was told she had given birth to a son instead of a daughter. I have an adoptee friend who found her First Mother to find out the same thing ~ her Mother had been searching for a son all these years. Not only that, she also found out that her amended birth certificate listed her birthdate as 3 days later than her TRUE date of birth. She was born on April 1st, but because her adoptive Mother did not want her birthday on April Fool's Day she just conveniently CHANGED the factual information of her birth. Amended birth certificates are just THAT ~ UNFACTUAL. They state that our adoptive parents actually gave birth to us ~ a certificate of "Live Birth" that is not true. Adoption is adoption ~ birth is birth ~ but the government continues to CHANGE (amend) birth certificates every day for adoptees, and SEAL our original information from us for life. Only 6 states have passed legislation to UNSEAL our birth certificates and give us the same RIGHT as every other American citizen ~ to OWN our identity, birth history, genealogy, medical history and dignity.

National Conference of State Legislators, New Orleans July 22nd


"An Emotional Call for Change"

http://rochesterhomepage.net/content/fulltext/?cid=23211

"An Emotional Call for Change"
Rochester, NY

Adoptees from across the country rallied at the National Conference of State Legislators in New Orleans Tuesday morning while some local adoptees called for action here in New York State. They are calling on state lawmakers for help.

“Open the records,” said Emily Daszkiewicz. “Unseal these records.”

Local adoptees and birth mothers joined together in the genealogy section of the main library in Downtown Rochester this morning. It’s a place many of them have done research to find their birth parents.

The group is one of several across the state calling for what they say is a civil rights issue: Allowing adoptees to open sealed birth records.

“These people are adults,” Daszkiewicz said. “They can vote. They can drink. They can go to war for us. Who are you to say these adults can't have access to these records?”

Daszkiewicz, a birth mother, has not been successful in finding the son she gave up for adoption in 1975.

However, Katherine Tuttle, 41, found her birth mother, Claire Gmelin, in October of 2007. It took seven years worth of research. Having access to her birth records, she says, would have saved a lot of time and grief.

“I would have found her immediately,” Tuttle said. “She started looking for me in the 1970s and 80s when I was a little girl and had to give up because she was told that it was closed.”

The executive director of adoption resource network at Hillside Family of Agencies says a bill of adoptee rights is nothing new. In fact, there's been proposals for one in the state legislature since the 1980s. But ethical concerns and questions with opening up records have kept a bill from passing.

“Did we make a commitment and provide an assumption to women who were making adoption plans that their identity would be protected forever?,” said Lisa Maynard of what some people and agencies ask regarding opening records that were promised to be closed forever.

For the local adoptees and birth mothers, opening the records isn't necessarily about having a relationship with a birth parent or child.

“It's strictly to find out your heritage, any birth concerns you might have, any medical problems you feel, (or) if you want to know your ancestry,” said Jeff Hancock, 43, who found out he was adopted just 15 months ago.

“It's closure for me,” Daszkiewicz said. “It's closure I'd like to have before I'm gone.”

Assemblyman David Koon is sponsoring the Bill of Adoptee Rights in the State Legislature. He says he's been pushing it for three years, but the bill is still in codes committee in the Assembly.

July 22, 2008

New Law Allows the Dead to Adopt???

Ancient grave
© Photographer: Dtopal | Agency: Dreamstime.com

New Law Allows New Yorkers Living & Dead to be recognized as adoptive parents...

http://www.empirestatenews.net/News/20080722-8.html

ALBANY - Under legislation signed into law by Governor David Paterson, adopted children will be able to claim two parents of record, even if one parent dies before the adoption is final.

The bill was sponsored by Senator Velmanette Montgomery (D-Brooklyn) and Assemblywoman Annette Robinson (D-Brooklyn).

In discussing the need for this law, Montgomery noted that there is precedent for allowing a deceased parent to be recorded on the birth certificate of an adopted child. This authorization, however, is only made possible by enacting laws on a case-by-case basis.

“Our bill eliminates the need to address these cases individually by ensuring that all adoptive children can have two parents of record,” said Senator Montgomery, who is the Ranking Democratic Member of the Senate Committee on Social Services, Children and Families.

Currently, only the adoptive parent who is living at the time the adoption is complete, is recorded on the birth certificate ate. In addition, if one of the parents dies before the adoption is approved, the proceeding is halted and the surviving parent must reapply for the adoption.

The law takes effect immediately and applies to future adoptive parents who pass away.

U.S. adoptee a stranger in his birthplace...

Stranger metaphor #2
© Photographer: Kmitu | Agency: Dreamstime.com
U.S. adoptee a stranger in his birthplace

By Leslie Berestein

UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

July 20, 2008

A man adopted by a U.S. couple when he was 6 months old has been
deported to
El Salvador after spending five years in immigration detention in Otay
Mesa
while he appealed his case.

Jess Mustanich, 29, arrived in El Salvador on July 10 after losing his
appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last spring, a
proceeding
that stemmed from a burglary conviction 11 years ago. Described by his
father as "a middle-class white kid" raised in an Anglo household,
Mustanich
learned a handful of Spanish words from Latino detainees while in
immigration detention, but is otherwise starting over as a stranger in
a
strange land.

Speaking by phone Friday from a San Salvador hotel, he described going
through customs at the airport.

"They brought out some guy, and he asked, 'Why don't you speak
Spanish?' "
Mustanich said. "I told him it was because I was adopted, and he said,
'Then
why are you here?' "

Mustanich's case is rare. But foreign adoptees occasionally land in
deportation proceedings, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, usually after getting into trouble with the law and
learning
that their parents, who brought them into the United States legally,
did not
complete the process of making them citizens.

Not long ago, ICE deported another foreign adoptee held in San Diego, a
man
adopted in 1959 from Japan when he was 1. While a 2000 law made
citizenship
virtually automatic for most adopted children brought into the United
States, it doesn't apply retroactively.

Mustanich landed in prison as a teenager after he and some friends
burglarized his father's house. His father, hoping to scare him
straight,
called the police. Jess Mustanich's resulting conviction for
residential
burglary set in motion a series of events that his father did not
imagine.

"I was trying to do the right thing for my kid," said Bill Mustanich,
61, of
San Jose. "Every time I think about this, I think about throwing up.
What am
I going to do about him now?"

Bill Mustanich, who recently retired from his job as a school adviser
for
troubled teens, said he tried on several occasions to naturalize his
son. He
and his wife adopted their son under Salvadoran law through an agency
in
1979; the couple divorced before they followed through on naturalizing
Jess.


After the dust settled, Bill Mustanich hired a family law attorney to
complete the process; his son was about 5. The attorney ran into
roadblocks,
including changes in the law and the fact that the adoption agency was
no
longer in business.

In 1988, with his son in tow, Bill Mustanich took a completed
citizenship
application to an Immigration and Naturalization Service field office
in San
Jose, he said, but they were turned away and given a phone number to
call.
Bill Mustanich said he called several times and left messages, but
never
received a reply.

Meanwhile, Jess Mustanich was growing up and he began to act out,
experimenting with alcohol and drugs and getting into trouble. Shortly
after
his 18th birthday, Jess Mustanich and several friends who had been
stealing
from their parents burglarized his father's home. The police were
called
and, Jess Mustanich was convicted of residential burglary in 1997.

Neither father nor son knew at the time that changes to immigration law
enacted the previous year had eliminated most legal relief for legal
U.S.
residents convicted of a crime.

According to immigration officials, Jess Mustanich matched the
definition of
a deportable alien, regardless of his adoption background. In 2003,
after
his release from prison, he was placed in the custody of Immigration
and
Customs Enforcement to await deportation.

"He had a criminal conviction that made him removable, and our job is
to
comply with what the judge orders," said Lauren Mack, an agency
spokeswoman
in San Diego.

At a hotel now for more than a week, Jess Mustanich isn't sure what to
do
next. His father can provide financial support, and members of a local
branch of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, of which he is a member,
have
helped get him oriented.

Bill Mustanich, who referred to ICE as "an agency out of control,"
plans to
travel to El Salvador, though he feels helpless.

"It's a country in turmoil," he said. "I am terrified about his ability
to
move around. The whole thing is just appalling."

Jess Mustanich said he would like to return home one day, but realizes
it's
unlikely. He recently bought a copy of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to
Intermediate Spanish" at a bookstore.

"It's going to take some time," he said. "Until then, I'm going to have
to
rely on hand signals."

July 17, 2008

Adoptee Rights Demonstration ~ 5 Days & Counting!

Seriously, you guys should rent "Iron-Jawed Angels" and watch it this weekend before the trip to NO ~ or in one of your rooms, together ~ it will definately give you "fire" for the importance of what you are doing.

I will be thinking about you all and praying for safety, great fun, and great success and favor with all the legislators and staff, and public.

I ran into a lady outside my public library today who was getting signitures on a ballot for a new law regarding non-partisanship. I told her about the fight for adoptee access and she said "Thank God!" She seemed very open...I think most people ARE very open and WANT us to have the same right as everyone else ~ it is just the elite business-side who have fought with all the power. BUT that is sooo changing, and I am awed by the efforts and work everyone here has put into this event. I just can't thank you enough for taking on the sacrifice of the WORK that it is going to take to make the difference. The fact that you didn't let others stop you or discourage you, that the numbers aren't as important to you as the issue and the passion ~ that is what is going to make the difference in the long run and is what is going to get the job of adoptee access legislation done. You are THE example of true leadership and change...I will so miss meeting everyone and being there.

Those of us who can't be there, we will be talking to our legislators here in our states (this is election year!) and not be silenced any longer.

You truly are heroes...thank you for representing millions of us in America...millions of our children....our mothers....our lives.

Please feel free to forward this press release to the media.
______________________________


PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Attention Editors/Producers:

ADOPTEE RIGHTS DEMONSTRATION - EQUAL ACCESS TO BIRTH CERTIFICATES

Adopted persons, their families and friends will be gathering in New Orleans for the National Conference of State Legislators for a demonstration on equal rights for adopted persons in the United States.

DATE: July 22, 2008

TIME: 11:30 am

DEMONSTRATION LOCATION: Lafayette Square Park New Orleans. The demonstration will begin at Lafayette Square Park marching 8 blocks to the National Conference of State Legislators being held at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Centre (900 Convention Center Blvd., New Orleans)

WEB SITE FOR DEMONSTRATION: www.adopteerights.net

In the United States only six states (Alabama, Alaska, Kansas, Maine, New Hampshire and Oregon) allow adopted persons access to their original birth certificates. We believe that that state governments are discriminating against a sector of the population by legally withholding personal information and documents from citizens, that all other tax-paying voting citizens are entitled to.

In no legislation or on any adoption contract does it state why an adopted person is not entitled to their own birth certificate. Opposition to adopted persons possessing their original birth certificates will present unsupported claims that a relinquishing mother has the right to privacy and to be protected from her daughter or son relinquished to adoption, therefore allowing a mother a lifetime of privacy and anonymity. The truth is that relinquishing mothers do not seal their children's original birth certificates - the original birth certificates are sealed by state governments.

The participants of the demonstration believe that every citizen of the United States should be treated equally. To do otherwise is discrimination. We would like all remaining states to introduce legislation that will allow adopted persons in the United States equal access to their original birth certificates.

We encourage your reporters to cover this story and event to help us bring public awareness to this demonstration in New Orleans.

Media contacts for New Orleans Demonstration

Kali Coultas
805 500-5317 (pst)
Cell: 805 607-2704
withoutatribe@hotmail.com
Michelle Edmunds
416 537-3977(est)
theadoptionshow@gmail.com

July 16, 2008

Mr. Big - Wild World

Here's one of my Mom's favorite songs from the 60's... When Norma's sister told me this had been one of her favorite songs, it didn't surprise me. But I did get goosebumps. Every time I hear it I can't help but sing along, and think of "us"...what a decade.

July 8, 2008

in one word...

One
© Photographer: Stepanov | Agency: Dreamstime.com
Answer these questions with one word only: no word can be used twice. If you'd like...copy & paste in a comment, and have some fun...

1. Where is your cell phone? purse
2. Your significant other? caring
3. Your hair? there
4. Your mother? speechless
5. Your father? unreliable
6. Your favorite time of day? morning
7. Your dream last night? intriguing
8. Your favorite drink? tea
9. Your dream goal? book
10. The room you’re in? office
11. Your ex? what?
12. Your fear? fear
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? healthier
14. What you are not? passionless
15. Your Favorite meal? thai
16. One of your wish list items? organized
17. The last thing you did? blog
18. Where you grew up? oklahoma
19. What are you wearing? jeans
20. Your TV is? new!
21. Your pets? Blaze
22. Your computer? slow
23. Your life? blessed
24. Your mood? tired
25. Missing someone? definately
26. Your car? outback
27. Something you’re not wearing? shoes
28. Favorite store? Mardel
29. Your summer? hot
30. Your favorite color? purple
31. When is the last time you laughed? today
32. When is the last time you cried? today
33. Your health? thankful
34. Your children? amazing
35. Your future? hopeful
36. Your beliefs? tried
37. Young or old? neither
38. Your image? unsure
39. Your appearance? frumpy
40. Would you live your life over again knowing what you know? YES

How about you? What’s the state of your state?

July 7, 2008

The Real Me

"Held" by Natalie Grant

"To think that Providence would take a child from his mother while she prays is appalling..."

"This is how it feels when the sacred is torn from your life and you survive..."

"When everything fell...we'd be held..."

This video depicts what relinquishment and adoption is...dead dreams, identity, relationships, memories, moments...

"To be loved and to know that the promise was...when everything fell, we'd be held..."

Insanity...Doing the Same Thing Over & Over...



I STILL have such a hard time saying "no" sometimes. I feel guilty and obligated to spend time with my Mom...part of me truly wants to, while part of me fights against it at every turn and gets angry with myself for "making" myself do it when I really don't want to. It is almost like two different parts of myself fighting against each other. Scary. lol

I want to spend time with my Mom because of compassion and love I have for her. I want my son to have a grandmother and have those memories. But EVERYTHING is a huge trigger for me and I am reduced to some kind of perpetual child or something when I'm with her. (wonder why? lol)

For example, we somehow got stuck in this "tradition" of going out to eat with my Mom after church on Sundays. My son's nap time is very close to that time, but because of this "tradition", my Mom doesn't seem to care or understand that...and she is always hungry and wants to go. Sometimes (before it got too hot) we suggest getting something fast "to go" and going to a local park to eat while my son plays for a few minutes, because he doesn't do well in restaurants at all. But for some reason we always seem to find ourselves in a restaurant nowdays as my Mom takes her sweet loving time to order and eat...while we are fighting with our son to "behave". And it disgusts and triggers me so much.

Yesterday, we were going to sit in an outside eating area (because he does better) but it was too hot, so we ended up in a small, crowded Mexican restaurant.
My son gets easily overwhelmed with a lot of noise and he is very sensitive to my moods, so he can detect when I am tense (and for some reason I always am around Mom). He didn't want to sit and eat (he's still on Pediasure for most of his nutrition anyway, due to oral aversion from being intubated for so long, and sensory issues). It is only when I'm around Mom that I try to be the "firm" Mother and somehow expect him to sit (like other children) and enjoy a nice leisurely family meal. (ha) Any other time, when it is just my husband and I, we accomodate his needs and see a lot more progress and peace. The pressure situations are what makes meal times unsuccessful, and I get so disgusted with myself for trying to "please" everyone else when I know damn good and well that it isn't beneficial for my son or me. My husband is usually good about not pushing pressure situations, but we've both given in at times, and it usually ends with us arguing about how to "discipline" or "handle" the situation, tears from my son, and anger and tears from me ~ because I am mad that we even tried, am sad that my son deals with so much from being premature, angry at myself (and feeling guilt) for his prematurity, and the list goes on and on...I can't even express.

I have gotten VERY GOOD at not caring what other people think...a complete and total turn-around for me from my "good adoptee" days. My Mom doesn't understand me, because I flucuate from trying to "please" and becoming a t-total bitch because I'm still struggling with it and not finding a good balance...circumstances make it hard anyway.

But in PUBLIC I've gotten good at not caring ~ so when my son "acts up" I just remove him from the situation and comfort him. But yesterday I noticed several people giving us "dirty" looks...really for the first time. And it was warranted, actually, and I'm ashamed. They were watching a table of adults not acting like adults...but all in total disagreement about how to handle the situation. I was fine with my son making noise. But then he got mad at the entire situation of us trying to get him to "sit and eat", so he started trying to dump the food out of the plate; and when I told him "no", he started what I like to call his "primal scream" ~ the scream that all kids should be able to let out, but few are given the freedom to do.

My Mom and husband immediately started trying to get him to quiet down, and because that triggered the bejeebers out of me, I snapped back that "it is OK if he cries". I'll admit, though, it wasn't a cry ~ it was a blood-curdling scream ~ but hey, he's my son and I'm used to his noises, so I guess I expected everyone else to be also. Especially when I was trying to make a point. It's damn ok to let your feelings out. As a toddler and child I guarantee I wasn't "allowed" my emotions. My husband, unfortunately, grew up in a home where even his biological parents didn't allow emotions. So...I've got some massive triggers about this, and I SO want my son to be allowed to show his emotions. I REALIZED that from the very beginning of my being a Mother, that it made me (and my husband gets even more uncomfortable than me) very uncomfortable when my son would cry or get angry...we did everything possible to make him happy and stop crying. It showed me that neither of us were comfortable with negative emotions. And I so want to reverse this in my current family...

I wanted my son to be able to sit there WITH his emotions and still be accepted. Even if it was socially "unacceptable". My husband almost climbed over me trying to get to him to get him out of there. I refused to move. Mom sat smug-faced. I was close to losing it. Looking around, I noticed people looking (I would have been too lol), and got even more angry...literally visualized myself standing up and dumping plates of food, and telling the entire restaurant to "bite me". The funny part about that is, I am the LAST person anyone would ever imagine "making waves" and I've never used the term "bite me" in my life (lol) so that is why these intense feelings scared me a little (thinking how close I actually felt to making a complete fool of myself), but also amuses me at the same time.

What I did (instead) was finally allow my husband to get up (he had already eaten fast) and remove our son from the situation. I sat in silence shoving my food in, & then got up and left my Mom still eating her first bite or so, and took my son outside. Left hubby with the job of sitting there while my Mom finished her meal...that is exactly what she wants, it seems. For all the attention and assistance to be on her, because she MUST have her leisurely meal, even at the expense of others (mine and my son's) unhappiness.

On the way home I told my husband about the "bite me" thought (he bust out laughing)...and that I was never ever going to another restaurant with him or my mother again. Never. lol

The SAD thing is that my a-cousin is getting married in TX in two weeks and we had decided this would be our inagaural "trip" as a family. We have never taken our son on a trip anywhere overnight, and Mom acts as if she can't go see her relatives unless we take her. I guess she forgot that she can drive herself or board a plane. She's always been like this. And I've always given in. And I still do. Because I love her and WANT things to be better. But without more healing, or something, I don't see it happening.

My son has several doctors appointments in July as well as this planned trip to the wedding (the SAME week as the Adoptee Rights Demonstration in New Orleans), so I had given up on the idea of going to the very event that I would LOVE to attend. This is the typical "loyalty" fight that I think ALOT adoptees deal with...it seems like, even in my reunion, that I have always had to CHOOSE where I would be spending holidays, weekends, events...with my afamily or my first family ~ and things DO SEEM to all happen at the same time, creating a CRISIS of emotions and choices that are debilitating to adoptees. Very sad. I dread being in the same car for several hours and trying to spend nights away from home for the first time with my son, WITH the added pressure of RELATIVES (and that could be relative, as well). lol

I need a good protest...