Jessica Lost by Crumpacker/Picariello

Author:Crumpacker/Picariello
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Sterling
Published: 2011-05-03T04:00:00+00:00

In the fall of 1995, with Maureen’s encouragement, I decided to get some basic information about my adoption—just a few facts. I wrote a letter to the Louise Wise adoption agency, requesting information on my parentage: medical history, ethnic background, anything they might be able to tell me. I was humble and nervous. I felt like a bank robber asking permission to visit the vault. It didn’t occur to me that I had any right to information about my identity. I had been brainwashed well.

What I got was nothing: no phone call, no return letter.

A couple of months later, I sent another letter, enclosing a copy of the earlier request—but no response.

By the time the New Year rolled around, I had been waiting three months, and was getting annoyed. I still wasn’t completely positive that I wanted to know any of this—just the thought of it made my stomach clench. But now I was invested, and tired of being ignored. I got the name of the agency’s president and wrote him a letter personally, enclosing copies of the two prior letters.

On January 25, 1996, I finally received a response. Ruth Hubbard, the agency’s supervisor of postadoption services, wrote to apologize for the delay and enclosed a brochure and application for the New York State Adoption Registry. She asked me to complete and notarize the form and return it to her, along with a check and a copy of my amended birth certificate—the only birth certificate I had—which every adoptee in New York State receives when he or she is legally adopted .

I showed the brochure to Lenny once the kids were asleep. I felt as if I were showing him pornography. I was nervous, excited, scared—of what, I didn’t know.

“It says there are two types of information,” I explained. “Nonidentifying and identifying: Nonidentifying is all they can give me if the birth parents haven’t signed up for the registry.”

“Like what?” he asked.

I read the list. “Like ethnic and religious background, education, age, occupations, hobbies, health history… even general appearance. And circumstances related to the adoption.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know, I guess why they were giving up the baby.”

Lenny looked at the brochure. “So what’s the identifying information?”

“Names and addresses. Their names and addresses. But that can only be released with the permission of both birth parents.” That seemed incredibly improbable to me, which I liked. It felt safer.

I looked the form over. Check Box A, it said, if you are requesting nonidentifying information. Check Box B if you are requesting identifying information.

I hesitated. I thought about it. I hesitated some more.

It seemed completely unreal. The fact of my birth parents’ existence felt nothing like fact to me. I knew they existed, but only theoretically. I had no sense of actually being born to someone.

“How much do you want to know?” Lenny asked. This whole thing made him nervous, too, I knew. He expended a lot of effort keeping my relationship with my mother from boiling over, and I could see that he viewed this as potential trouble.

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