Our Little Tongginator: Sunday Linkage

Our Little Tongginator: Sunday Linkage

Are You Aware? | The Mantle

Are You Aware? | The Mantle

You Said What?

I think adoptees & First Moms have our fair share of "You Said What?" moments, don't we!

Cassi, a First Mom, writes an enlightening post on "Adoption Truth" ~ "You Said What?"

Vital Records

Vital Records - the debate on adoptee access from Jean A. S. Strauss on Vimeo.

We're Birthparents Promised Confidentiality?

Pam Hasegawa's testimony on behalf of the NJ Adoptees' Birthright Bill 6/14/2010 from Jean A. S. Strauss on Vimeo.

I AM - Nichole Nordeman

True Confessions

...Yes, I've actually written one of these, "Dear Incubator" letters. I even saved it for several years as a momento of my journey through "waking up", but can't seem to find it now.

My husband and I had been married for quite a few years and hadn't even tried to have children. Not because we were infertile, but because we both were dealing with "family" issues with taking care of controlling and elderly parents...as well as my adoption issues, that I didn't realize were "issues" for way too long. I was too scared to TRY, even though we both loved kids and wanted children.

It amazes me now (and probably you too, if you read my blog ~ lol) that I could have EVER written a "Dear Birthmother" letter...but I did. We thought we would adopt. What I didn't realize, is that I really needed to be writing completely different kinds of "Dear Mother" letters ~ one to my natural Mother, when I found out she had passed away while searching for me. And one to my adoptive Mother who I needed to "break the apron strings" from. Instead, I locked the pain deep inside. And pretended. It didn't matter. When it did. If I had dealt with the unresolved and disenfranchised grief I was carrying from growing up adopted and finding this news, I would have had more courage much earlier in my life.

Alison Larkin spoke at an AAC Conference about how having children was a deep, emotional breakthrough for her as an adoptee. I sat there and bawled. I was embarrassed. It felt like it would never go away if I let it out.

I'm so thankful for adoptees and first Moms who are speaking their lives and their truths, so it can reach others to help set us free.

I realize, now, I could have never made myself go through with adopting an infant. It would have been too close to home. But I still can't believe I even wrote the letter. Oh, it was flowery and wonderful, just like most. But underneath all the flowers and goo, it was just like the rest...this natural Mother hit the nail on the head at Adoption Critique.

Morning Tears - Children Village

What Do Adoptees Want?

Check out this thought-provoking article, from John Raible Online.

Forgiveness

Rainbow Teardrops

© Photographer: Specular | Agency: Dreamstime.com

"Only eyes washed by tears can see clearly."
~ Louis L. Mann

I cry a lot...and am so glad I finally can. I think I'm making up for many years of numbness and not allowing myself to feel...I love the scripture in Psalms that says God saves our tears in His bottle...can you imagine. Not one tear wasted or unseen.

I especially treasure the gift of tears for my son. He was born three months early and spent 98 days in the NICU. It breaks my heart to say this, but my son literally doesn't know how to cry. His little sensory system handles distress by anxiety, avoidance, and anger, instead of saddness and tears. I know the reason...because tears didn't work for him as an infant. They failed to bring his Mommy to him like nature intended. I'm praying and believing for complete healing in his heart and mind..."I will comfort you like a Mother comforts her child, says the Lord." (Is. 66:13) My very favorite "Andrewism" is when my son implores, "Hold me like a rainbow, Mommy!" What a beautiful picture!

On Wednesday of this week I found myself crying tears of relief. How good it felt to be surprised by understanding, especially as an adoptee. The Women's Bible Study I've been a part of for a few years now has been such a blessing to me. God has used these women to bring comfort & strength to me, and I'm so thankful for them. At the end of this week's lesson, the leader shared on how God wants to heal us of an "orphan spirit". So many of us feel utterly alone and disillusioned because of what we have gone through in life. We have a very hard time trusting anyone, especially God. We feel as though we must take care of ourselves. Yet we know we really can't. Hopeless.

I remember crying out to God several years ago to PLEASE teach me to trust Him. I knew I couldn't trust Him, but I so wanted to. That is when He heard my prayer and began to show me, little by little, how much He loved me and wanted me free. Journal after journal is filled with written prayers and tears, as He helped me pour out my heart to Him, and He sent comfort and promise to me through His Word. I'm still on that journey and asking Him to help me know Him as Father.

So many in the Christian Church loudly proclaim that the only remedy for the "orphan spirit" is the "spirit of adoption"...yet they don't realize that every time they make that claim, they are rubbing salt in the wound of every adoptee, and driving us farther from God, rather than closer. In order for us to be adopted, we were relinquished, given up, abandoned. We certainly don't need more of that in our search for oneness with a loving God.

The more accurate translation from the original Biblical language in those scriptures used to speak of us being God's children (rather than "adoption") is actually "sonship". Thank God we are His son's and daughter's by birth...not adoption.

In fact, that is what made tears well up in my eyes this week. Our leader spoke of God's unfailing, unconditional love for us as our Father, and how we are delivered from an "orphan spirit" through the "spirit of sonship"...my heart didn't have to immediately flinch or harden to the word "adoption" again...and it felt like water to my soul. Exactly what my spirit needed...

She had us raise our hand if we had ever felt like an "orphan" and then the ladies all gathered around those of us who did...and prayed. They loved on us and our tears flowed together...tears of healing. It wasn't until I allowed myself to become vulnerable and take down the walls of "I'm strong" and "I'm OK" that God has been able to help me. I still walk around with some of those walls, but I ask Him every day to peel back more and more layers, help me lay aside my pride and self-sufficiency, and not be afraid.

I wanted to share the teaching on "The Orphan Spirit" here and hope that it will bless you as it has me. I especially saw many of the "symptoms" it speaks of in myself, and am asking God to work miracles in our hearts and speak Words of Love over us as His sons and daughters...

I used to wonder why the Bible uses the term "Born-again" to describe the salvation experience of trusting in Jesus as our Savior. Just this past week I felt a comfort I had never felt before regarding this term...Born-again. It is a promise to those of us who needed help from day one. No matter how much loss we experienced since our very birth, we can actually receive a NEW BIRTH, a new beginning. 

 

I love Psalm 103:2-5..."Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not His benefits. He forgives all our sins, and heals all our diseases. He redeems (buys back) our lives from the pit, and crowns us with lovingkindness & tender mercies. HE RENEWS OUR YOUTH. He can RENEW our spirits with the Love of a perfect Father...even if we don't know what that is. If only we dare to ask Him.

The Spirit of Sonship

by Tino Todino

November 2, 2008

http://heartbeatcc.org/2008/11/the-spirit-of-sonship-v-the-orphan-spirit/comment-page-1/#comment-3151

We worship God who is Trinity in unity. Three unique aspects of the same being expressed in human terms as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The relationship that the Trinity enjoy with one another is described as a “Circle dance” (Greek – Perichoresis). It describes the way the Godhead interacts with each other in unity, intimacy, joy and closeness.

•The Father’s mission is to bring many sons to glory (Hebrews 2:10), to invite us to participate in the intimacy and joy of this circle dance with them.

•To receive the Father’s love and to give that Love to others

•The Father’s desire of redemption is to give His sons a home (John 14:2)

•What is Home? Home is a Place of warmth, affection, affirmation. Where you are known and understood and where you can be yourself.

•We either live our life as if we have a home, or as if we don’t have a home (Henry Nouwin)

•Only family (sons) can participate in this dance, for they are the ones that know they belong in it and are at home in it.

•Son = Huios – matured for full partnership in the Father’s business. (Romans 8:14-17)

•The battle that rages in the earth is between two spirits, either the spirit of Sonship or the orphan spirit.

•The orphan spirit cannot be cast out, rehabilitated, or psycho-solved. The orphan spirit can only be conquered by being introduced to the Father.

The Spirit of Sonship v Orphan Spirit – What they say:

The Spirit of Sonship says:

I belong and I can be myself.

The Orphan Spirit says:

I don't belong here, so I must pretend to be someone I am not to be accepted. (sealed records law in adoption harms the very spirits of adoptees).

Sonship: I don’t have to perform to be loved

Orphan: I must achieve, perform and prove myself

Sonship: I’m a son/daughter

Orphan: I don't know who my Father is

Sonship: I have a home

Orphan: I don't know where I am supposed to be

Sonship: Father knows me better than I know myself and He loves me.

Orphan: Nobody knows what I'm going through or the pain I'm in and no one cares.

Sonship: Because I am a son, I have an inheritance from my Father

Orphan: Since I don't have an inheritance I must claw and grab for everything I

can get. No one but me can meet my needs. I am alone.

Our Father says "Though your father & mother forsake you, I WILL TAKE YOU UP." He will never leave us or forsake us. Oh, how HE loves us. We are HIS.

Coming Home to Self by Nancy Verrier

COMING HOME TO SELF

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Coming-Home-to-Self/Nancy-Newton-Verrier/e/9780963648013#CHP
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By Nancy Newton Verrier Gateway Press Inc.
Copyright © 2003 Nancy Newton Verrier
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-9636480-1-2
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Chapter One
Separation Trauma

Although more and more attention is being paid to the effects of trauma on the human psyche, separation between mother and child is rarely recognized as a trauma. Authors have written about rape, incest, battering, the holocaust, natural disasters, and war, but not about perhaps the most devastating trauma of all: being separated from one's mother at the beginning of life. Yet, when else in life is one so helpless and in need of the one person to whom one feels connected-the one who is still part of the Self? The fact that the mothers of these babies were discouraged from seeing, touching, or being available to their infants meant that no one paid attention to the babies' crying and going into shock.

Fortunately, there are now means to measure some of the physical responses to this trauma, such as monitoring blood pressure, heart rate, and neurological changes. A drop in the serotonin level and elevations in adrenaline and cortisol levels have been noted in many trauma victims. According to lames Prescott, "One of the brain neurochemical transmitter substances-serotonin-has been shown to be significantly reduced under conditions of failed mother-infant bonding" (Prescott, 1997). This reduced serotonin level influences conditionedavoidance, sleep regulation, and impulse control (van der Kolk, McFarlane, & Weisaeth, 1996), all problems which are often mentioned by adoptees. Brain imagining can also bring insight into the ways in which dendrites and axons connect to form synapses in the developing brain, and how that is affected by the environment and by emotional trauma.


Manifestations of Trauma

What is trauma and how does it manifest in the lives of its victims? Trauma is reality. Trauma is not an intrapsychic phenomenon which results in neurosis. Trauma is part of the history of the victim and can affect all aspects of the victim's life thereafter. "Trauma can affect victims on every level of functioning: biological, psychological, social, and spiritual" (van der Kolk, et al., 1996). This is what I tried to convey in my first book. It seems so obvious, and yet the unavailability of conscious recall of the event by the victims themselves has certainly contributed to many of the misperceptions about relinquishment and adoption. As we look at the ways in which trauma manifests in the lives of its victims, you can decide for yourselves if separation from mother is indeed a trauma.

Trauma is an event in the life of the victim which overwhelms her ordinary human adaptations to life. Who could be more easily overwhelmed than a helpless newborn infant whose very existence was tied symbiotically to that of her mother? An infant has no way to adapt to the sudden disappearance of its mother/self, especially when it has just entered a world which no longer includes the safety of the mother's womb. Anyone except this original mother, whose rhythms and resonance the infant knows and is in tune with, is foreign and dangerous. Just as a transplant patient needs special medications to keep from rejecting the foreign organ, adoptees need special emotional responses to overcome the impulse to reject the "foreign" family.

In her book Trauma and Recovery, Judith Herman tells us, "Traumatic reactions occur when action is of no avail ... the human system of self-defense becomes overwhelmed and disorganized" (1992). The baby who cannot get his mother back, despite his cries (protesting her disappearance and beseeching her return), is helpless, overwhelmed, thrown into chaos, and eventually goes into shock. Joseph Chilton Pearce, author of Magical Child and Evolution's End, reminds us that it takes about 45 minutes for an infant separated from his mother to go into shock (Pearce, 1992). After rage comes despair and then shock. This helplessness turns to hopelessness and a belief that the world is not safe. One cannot trust. Babies in incubators may experience the same sense of helplessness, where "neither resistance nor escape is possible" (Herman, 1992). While all kinds of physically and emotionally painful procedures are perpetrated upon these infants, there is nothing they can do. Defenses against any future reoccurrence of these traumas are being put into place, many of which are almost impossible to eradicate from the psychological/neurological systems.


Symptoms of Traumatic Response

There are definite responses to trauma that help to differentiate traumatic events from ordinary difficult circumstances. One is the persistent intrusion of memories traces related to the trauma that often interfere with attending to other incoming information. In their wonderful little book A General Theory of Love, Lewis, Amini, and Lannon say, "If an emotion is sufficiently powerful, it can Quash opposing networks so completely that their content becomes inaccessible" (2000). In other words, given a choice, our brains conjure up old responses to new events that bear even a slight resemblance to old painful experiences. The authors go on to say, "Because his mind comes outfitted with Hebbian memory (neurons that fire together wire together) and limbic attractors, a person's emotional experience of the world may not budge, even if the world around him changes dramatically." This is the reason that even the best of adoptive mothers often cannot eliminate anxiety about abandonment in her children.

Another response is the tendency to compulsively expose oneself to situations reminiscent of the original trauma (called repetition compulsion). Juxtaposed to this compulsion is the avoidance of any situation which might evoke the emotions of the original traumatic event. This usually results in the numbing of emotions. Because there are elevated levels of adrenaline and cortisol in the body, one loses the ability to utilize the bodily signals as a means of modulating one's physiological responses to stress: in other words, the fight or flight signal is always on, so that one can't rely on it to tell if danger is actually present. (Herman, van der Kolk, et al.) These symptoms can result in behavior which is often interpreted as personality changes, such as disturbed affect regulation, aggression against self and/or others, dissociative problems, somatization, and an altered relationship with self and others (van def Kolk, et al., 1996). The problem for adoptees, as will be discussed in more detail later, is that there is no "pre- trauma self" to which they can refer. This lends itself even more to the belief that the post-traumatic coping behavior is representative of the personality.


Hyperarousal

Furthering the difficulties for victims of trauma is their inability to regulate their arousal levels. There is a restlessness, a perceived need to be constantly on the alert, although in the case of early trauma, the victim seldom knows what the danger is. Herman states, "Traumatic events produce profound and lasting changes in physiological arousal, emotion, cognition, and memory." Hypervigilance and hyperarousal are manifestations of separation trauma. Adoptees can attest to their constant need for vigilance. There is a prevailing feeling of dread, a need to be on the alert for disaster. Because this hypervigilance is continuous, the world is seen as an unsafe place. Van der Kolk, et al. state, "These hyperarousal phenomena represent complex psychological and biological processes, in which the continued anticipation of overwhelming threat seems to cause difficulties with attention and concentration" (1996). This is evident in adoptees' problems with focusing (especially in school). They are easily distracted and have difficulty with stimulus discrimination. The inability to discriminate among the various stimuli constantly occurring in the environment means that adoptees, as well as other trauma victims, have difficulty sorting out relevant from irrelevant stimuli. What most of us would ignore, they must check out as a possible danger. Van der Kolk contends that this makes it difficult for individuals to respond flexibly to the environment and that this loss of flexibility "... may explain current findings of deficits in preservative learning and interference with the acquisition of new information" (1996). This may explain why so many adoptees are diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (ADD).


The Formation of Beliefs To make things more difficult, the emotion of the traumatic event often gets disconnected from the memory (if there is a memory). For most adoptees, the trauma takes place during the period of childhood amnesia or implicit memory. This means that the events of their lives are having a profound effect on their perceptions and on neurological connections in the brain, but there will be no recall of the events. Many adoptees, as well as birth mothers, will react to a reminder of the traumatic event as if it were the event happening in the present. For adoptees, who experienced their trauma before conscious memory, these are feelings and emotions which they can't seem to connect to any event. These are the implicit memories (which will be explained in more detail in the next chapter), which influence one's sense of Self and others, one's emotional responses and behavior, and in some cases physiological responses without there being any hint about the cause of these manifestations. Feelings of anger, hostility, panic, and sadness can come, seemingly, out of nowhere.

Dissociation often occurs, accompanied by distortions in perceptions. These distorted perceptions become disorganized and imprinted as beliefs about oneself. The "defective baby" belief is one of these. Because babies instinctively know that mothers don't give up their babies, most adoptees seem to blame themselves for their own relinquishment. This belief is consistent with the way that children respond to trauma. As van der Kolk, et al. say, "Many traumatized individuals, especially children, tend to blame themselves for having been traumatized" (1996). The "bad baby" belief allows the child to organize in his own distorted way something which had been completely disorganized. The inexplicable begins to make sense, and the victim can believe that he or she was not completely helpless in the situation. (If I had been a better baby I would not have lost my mother.) There is the illusion of control and the preservation of the idea of the birth parent as good. Yet there is an altered perception of self and others. This is manifest in a sense of being unworthy, flawed, undeserving. Equally distorted are the adoptee's perceptions about others who matter in her life. The adoptive mother seems to bear the most distortion, probably because she was the first person with whom the adoptee interacted and because she was not the mother to whom the baby was connected.


Anxiety

When traumatic events become disconnected from their source, as is the case in any trauma happening in infancy, they begin to take on a life of their own. For example, a child waiting for his mother to pick him up from school begins to feel anxious when she is late. He doesn't associate that anxiety with the fact that once a long time ago his first mother disappeared, never to be seen again. He just knows that he becomes more and more anxious, until he begins to feel panicky. Most adoptees' symptoms take on a life of their own because they were too young to remember the original precipitating event. However, because trauma itself produces amnesia surrounding the event, even those children who were old enough to remember the separation will seldom connect it to their panic about mother's being late to pick them up from school or baseball practice. For this reason, being late is a grave offense against adoptees.

It is important for adoptees to understand the amnesia aspect of trauma before they get angry at their birth mothers for not remembering exactly what day they were born or the events surrounding the birth and surrender. Many birth mothers, being traumatized themselves by the separation from their babies, have very hazy memories of the birth and the days following that event. Even if the connection is made cognitively, the intellectual understanding for the anxiety doesn't always do away with the fearful feelings. That's because the reptilian brain is in charge of the responses to trauma. The reptilian brain acts nanoseconds before the neocortex, which could add reason to the mix. The reptilian brain is the survival brain, in charge of the four Fs: fight, flight, freeze, and ... er ... reproduction. If one responds to one of those messages before one can think, difficulties often arise.

"Traumatic memories lack verbal narrative and context: rather, they are encoded in the form of vivid sensations and images" (Herman). A lack of verbal narrative makes memories difficult or impossible to talk about. It would be especially true of adoptees, who, at the time of the traumatizing event, were not yet able to speak. But even if the trauma occurred later, when speech had been mastered, the events surrounding a trauma are difficult to put into words. This may be why war veterans seldom talk about the war, or holocaust victims about the camps. When an experience defies the human brain's capacity to integrate it, it floats around without context in the never-never land of dissociated images, vivid sensations, and puzzling behavior. It is like living in one's nightmare. And no one is immune to trauma. Because trauma has the element of surprise, it can happen to anyone. Not only that, but specific events often cause specific responses in trauma victims. The consequences of trauma are predictable.


The Consequences of Trauma

There are three main consequences of a traumatic event. They are terror, disconnection, and captivity. Using Herman's model, which I believe fits the abandonment experience the best, it will become evident how these characteristics apply to the trauma of the separation between mother and child.


Terror

The immediate response to trauma is terror. Something is not right and no amount of effort makes it right. In the case of the separated child, the inability to reestablish connection to the mother is a terrifying experience. Infants who are placed in hospital nurseries experience this terror to some extent. Babies live in the moment: they do not know that in time they will again be with mother. The same is true for infants in daycare. They have no object constancy, the ability to hold mother in memory when she is absent. Every separation from the mother seems like forever for the infant. This is terrifying.

Some of the physical responses to terror are an elevation in pulse rate and blood pressure, as documented by Kate Burke Cleary in a 1995 unpublished study of 400 infants in a San Francisco hospital titled "Before Attachment: The Effect of Infant/Mother Separation on Adopted Newborns." Sleep disturbance, irritability, and gastro-intestinal problems are also noted in babies separated from their mothers. There may be elevated levels of adrenaline and cortisol circulating throughout the central nervous system, which makes this experience more pronounced and may result in memory traces being more deeply imprinted

Even in situations where the mother and baby will be going home together, the practice of putting babies in the nursery, instead of keeping them with their mothers, creates tension and fear for the babies, and a sense of sadness and unease for the mothers. In extreme cases, that separation can result in post-partum depression for mothers and a difficulty in bonding between mother and child. At the very time when the mother and baby should be bonding, they are in separate rooms yearning for one another. In the case of premature births, there is an even longer separation, which often results in a wound which resembles that of adoptees: an impaired bond and a lack of trust in the mother's ability of meet the needs of her child and to protect her from danger.
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Excerpted from COMING HOME TO SELF by Nancy Newton Verrier Copyright © 2003

Angry Adoptive Mom

Angry Adoptive Mom: About: "My name is Margie, and I'm the adoptive mom of two young adults, both of whom were born in Korea.  Our family is much like any other family:..."

The Declassified Adoptee: A Talk: Emerging from my Mask

The Declassified Adoptee: A Talk: Emerging from my Mask: "My [Adoptive] Parents are here visiting. I was logged on to my mom's Facebook account and was showing her how some of the features worked. W..."

What Every HS Reunion Needs...

Another wave of healing...It started out with my sweet husband asking if I had ever checked to see if my First Mother's High School graduating class had a website or FB page. I happened to look on FB, and was amazed to find out that not only were they on FB, but they were celebrating their 45th High School Reunion the very next weekend here in my hometown. I threw caution to the wind and emailed the contact lady with my request. Was there any way to find out if any of Norma's friends might remember her and share their memories with me?

Several years ago I would have felt too much embarrassment & shame to do that. Thank God I'm past that now. I explained to Val that my First Mom passed away while searching for me and that I've been reunited with the rest of my First Family for years now. But I still have a longing...

The response I got from this woman and several others was overwhelming and beautiful. She not only emailed me back immediately, but she also called. She also put out an email to all the graduates of Nathan Hale 1965 with my contact information in case anyone knew my Mother and would like to get in touch with me. She even invited me to the reunion! So I went...

It still feels like emotionally trying to untangle a ball of yarn without a beginning thread...the feelings and thoughts swim so incoherently it is hard to express or write about them...but I was so touched just being there and the warm reception I received. So many came up and said they wished they had known her and how sad they were that she wasn't here. It made her life & death more real to me. Seeing her classmates so full of life & enjoying themselves...talking about their families and lifetimes of memories.

I have to admit, even though the pain, it felt good to exist. To be there representing her and her legacy, and not feeling like I was still in hiding and shame. Adoptees take on the same shame that society puts on our Mothers. Unlocking our lives is truly healing, not only personally, but also for society...

I received an email from one of her classmates who said he and his wife had two adopted children. The son "has no interest" in finding his "birthmother", but his daughter had recently been "reunited." He said he was happy for her, but that it "was a dagger" in his heart.

One of the wives at the reunion came up to me and coyly asked, "Did my husband know your Mother?" with a smile...I could sense a little bit of nervousness in her voice. Wow ~ I wonder how many men & their wives were wondering who my First Father was, and trying to remember their High School years a little more "specifically"? I should have just worn it on t-shirt ~ "Are you my Daddy?" ~ and really stirred things up, huh?! NO ONE dared to mention or ask about him.

Thank you, GOD, I didn't have to go there, and for the fact that I've known my First Father for years. I was truly blessed when I found Norma's mother (Grandmother Carolyn) and she immediately gave me the name of my First Father. She said Norma died telling her whole family never to forget that I would someday find them...tears.

It was truly a healing night for me. Thank you, Val, for reaching out to me so lovingly. Thank you for making me real and for making my Mother real. For including a beautiful tribute in picture and verse to all those in the graduating class who were deceased. For allowing me to be there.

"ADOPTED: for the life of me"

Adoption & The Bible

God's Will or God Swill
by Rohan McEnor

"For the sake of this article I will define 'adoption' as "the practice of altering the birth certificate and therefore the identity of a child such that a person or persons not biologically related to the child, are recognised as parents of the child. "

A large subset of all adoptions is newborn adoption - the child adopted into a family as close to birth as possible to give the illusion to both those within the adoptive family and outside the adoptive family, that the child is "as if born" to the adoptive couple.

Is such a general practice any part of God's will, or is it merely churchian god swill?"

Oxytocin and Children

Life...Adopted! Conference

© Photographer: Littlemacproductions | Agency: Dreamstime.com


Life...Adopted Conference

When: November 13, 2010
9am to 4pm
Where: Tulsa Technoloy Center
Health Sciences Center
34th & Memorial, Tulsa, OK

A conference focusing on the life-long issues in adoption. Speakers all day regarding adoptee, adoptive family, and first family perspectives. Also participate in RegDay & sign up on the free Soundex Reunion Registry, for those searching for family members separated by adoption.

Cost for the all day workshops is $10.00 and includes breakfast & lunch. Please rsvp to Rhonda Noonan at Rhonda.Noonan@psysolutions.com or (918) 607-3932.

That evening at 7pm, Alison Larkin, the author of "The English American" will be performing live at Tulsa's Union High school's Performing Arts Center (near 68th & Memorial). Her performance is free to the public. She is a broadway actress, comedian, and reunited adoptee.

Please join us!!!

The Good "Sealed" Record...

© Photographer: Jgroup | Agency: Dreamstime.com

I just wanted to share some of my favorite Scriptures. I'm in an amazing Women's Bible Study on the book of Revelation, and am learning how God's Word was prophecied and revealed over the centuries ~ how every prophecy was fulfilled, and how His Word is True, from beginning to end. It is full of promises to us ~ Grace & Peace (unmerited favor) and Salvation!

Isaiah 49 (A beautiful promise of God's restoration for both Adoptees & First Moms)

This is what the Lord says: I will answer you with favor and help you in the time of salvation. I will keep you. I will appoint you for the people to restore the land and help them possess the desolate inheritances. Saying "Come out" and to those who are in darkness, "Show yourselves" (don't hide), for their Compassionate One will guide them. For the Lord has comforted His people, and will have compassion on His afflicted ones. They say, "The Lord has abandoned me; the Lord has forgotten me." Can a woman forget her child, or lack compassion for the child of her womb? Even if these forget, yet I will not forget you. Look, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; you are continually before me. I will restore you.

Isaiah 66:13
As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you, and you will be comforted.

Ephesians 1:13-14
But you who were far away have been brought near through the Blood of our Savior. For He is our Peace, Trust, and Security. He tore down the dividing wall with his own flesh, and set HIS seal on us for the day of redemption (salvation ~ to rescue, forgive, heal, and deliver).

Neurofeedback: A Treatment...

"... in the absence of self there is absence of other. He lives as a child or adult within the mirrored reflection of the original infant state, one in which he had no experience of mother and, as a result, no experience of the reality of other or of self."

Neurofeedback: A Treatment for Reactive Attachment Disorder
Sebern F. Fisher, M.A.

In 1939, John Bowlby began what amounted to a campaign for the recognition of the primacy of attachment in the development of the human infant. Near the end of his life, in 1991, he reportedly expressed some measure of satisfaction that his ideas were gaining acceptance. It has only been within the last decade that attachment paradigms have become widely enough accepted to encourage widespread research and an increasing body of literature on theories of attachment and disordered attachment. Attachment research is still under-funded. Findings remain controversial in the field of psychotherapy, and in the arena of public policy, their implications go unheeded.

Vital Records: The Debate on Adoptee Rights Pt 3

Reunion Resolution?

Once Was Von: Resolution?: "Here at Shadow Between Two Worlds Mei-Ling relates the grappling with how it is to be an adoptee in reunion.The learning that t..."

Experts Discuss Adoption Laws

http://pittnews.com/newsstory/experts-discuss-adoption-laws-at-pitt/

Experts Discuss Adoption Laws at Pitt

By: Gretchen Andersen / Staff Writer
Posted on 30. Sep, 2010 in News

Despite wide reform in American adoption practices, adult adoptees in some U.S. states are challenging laws that prevent them from learning the identities of their biological parents.

Elizabeth Samuels, a professor at the University of Baltimore Law School, discussed this issue and others that pertain to adoption yesterday afternoon during her lecture “Adoption, Identity and Confidentiality: The History of Closed Records.”

Samuels spoke to a crowd of about 50 people gathered in a classroom of the Barco Law Building, providing a detailed history of the traditions and legislation associated with adoption. She said one of the ongoing issues surrounding adoption practices today involves people’s ability to access their birth certificates.

Kansas, Alaska, Maine, Oregon, Alabama and New Hampshire are the few states that allow unrestricted access to birth records for adult adoptees, Samuels said. Pennsylvania’s birth records have been closed to adult adoptees since 1984, keeping some people from identifying their biological parents.

According to adopteerightspa.org, adult adoptees must “petition the courts of the county their adoption took place” to receive their original birth certificate, and can only receive the document with permission from their birth parents.

State Rep. Curtis G. Sonney, R-Erie, and Rep. Kerry Benninghoff, R-Centre, have introduced House Bills 1968 and 1978, respectively, aimed at changing Pennsylvania’s policies regarding access to birth records.

Liberty Hultberg, Pennsylvania state representative for American Adoption Congress, said in an e-mail that House Bill 1978 is preferred by most in the adoption community. According to its brochure, American Adoption Congress is an “international network of individuals and organizations committed to promoting truth about adoption.”

The new legislation would allow people to obtain their original birth certificates that list their original names, birth parents’ names and place of birth, Hultberg, a member of Pitt’s English faculty, said.

She said it’s important for students and citizens to understand adoption issues, such as free access to birth records.

“There are so many long-standing misconceptions out there, such as that birth mothers want nothing to do with their relinquished children and want ‘protection’ from them,” Hultberg said. “Adopted persons are the only ones in our culture who do not retain the right to their birth certificates. It can be a hazard not only to identity formation but also health.”

During the lecture, Samuels said that from the 1850s to the 1920s states began to regulate adoptions. Before that time, many adopted children were not issued a birth certificate, making it nearly impossible to locate biological parents or family.

To give further perspective on the difficulties and joys of adoption, Samuels showed the 1946 movie “To Each His Own,” a drama centered around a woman who gave birth to an illegitimate son who was then adopted.

Samuels says she supports the right to nonrestrictive access because it is a “basic human right to know your identity.”

Pitt’s School of Arts and Sciences sponsored the lecture along with the School of Law, Women’s Studies Program and the Pittsburgh Consortium for Adoption Studies. Marianne Novy, a professor in the English department, organized the lecture.