By Laura Marie Scoggins I am writing to encourage your support of Senate Bill 91 which will allow ALL Hoosier Adoptees equal access to their original birth certificates. Pre 1994 adoptees deserve the same access as post 1994 adoptees. One of the most common questions adoptees are asked when they tell people they are searching for their biological family or have been reunited is “why would you even want to…
By Laura Marie Scoggins I am writing to encourage your support of Senate Bill 91 which will allow ALL Hoosier Adoptees equal access to their original birth certificates. Pre 1994 adoptees deserve the same access as post 1994 adoptees. One of the most common questions adoptees are asked when they tell people they are searching for their biological family or have been reunited is “why would you even want to…
By Laura Marie Scoggins Life has been tough lately. I hadn’t been to church in a while due to some of the difficult things I have been going through (my adopted mom’s cancer and rapidly declining health, a frustrating year of my own health issues and trying to get to the root cause of the problem, wounds from relationships). Sometimes you just need to back away from life for a…
By Laura Marie Scoggins November is National Adoption Month (NAM). During this month we are supposed to “celebrate” adoption. The problem with this is that the voices of adoptees are usually absent from the conversation. Adoptees have historically been left out of the adoption discussion. In 2014 the hashtag #flipthescipt was created by a fellow adoptee as a way for adoptee voices to be heard. For National Adoption Month 2015…
By Laura Marie Scoggins One cannot annul the fact that one was given up by one clan and taken in by another; one can only see the consequences of that fact in a new light that illuminates what happened in a healing way. Betty Jean Lifton, Journey of the Adopted Self One of the most common questions asked of adoptees is why they search for their biological family. Our response…
By Laura Marie Scoggins One of the most common questions adoptees are asked when they tell people they are searching for their biological family or have been reunited is “why would you even want to search?” The insensitivity of this question makes my blood boil. I have to pause and count to ten before replying. Sometimes when that doesn’t work and the blood boiling makes my head feel like it’s…
By Laura Marie Scoggins When I received my original birth certificate from Ohio, one of the first things I did was show it to my adopted mom. We ended up having one of the best conversations about my adoption that we’ve ever had in my entire life. It was a healing conversation. It was like the whole thing coming full circle. The conversation made me realize a few things. 1….
By Laura Marie Scoggins Many adoptee bloggers begin by telling their own story. Maybe they are in the process of searching and chronicle unfolding events. Sometimes they are like me and begin writing the story years after the reunion has unfolded. My biggest advice to someone going through the search and reunion process is to start a journal and record everything. It doesn’t have to be a public blog, but…
By Laura Marie Scoggins On March 25, 2015, I mailed the application for my Ohio original birth certificate. Just five days after opening day. Finally, on April 20 I received an envelope in the mail from the State of Ohio, Department of Health. The envelope contained a piece of my identity that has been behind lock and key for almost 50 years. How do you even describe what it feels…
By Laura Marie Scoggins One of the best things that has come out of open records legislation is the connections and community of adoptees. Adoptees are only truly understood by each other, and most of us live our lives without other adoptees to express what life adopted is like. In addition to reunions unfolding each day with birth families the biggest reunion of all just might be OUR reunion in…
By Laura Marie Scoggins I am an adult adoptee writing in support of SB352 coming up for a vote on Tuesday. I cannot stress how important this vote is to 350,000 Hoosier adoptees who have waited a lifetime to obtain their records and original birth certificate. You have your original birth certificate. It’s my civil right to have mine as well. Back in 1999 I took advantage of the current…
By Laura Marie Scoggins It has been 15 years since I found out my birth mother died of breast cancer. My story had a lot of twists and turns until two years later I was able to walk into the office of Catholic Charities and obtain her true identity. How those events unfolded and why it took so long is a long story. Search, reunion and even the post reunion…
By Laura Marie Scoggins Today is Independence Day for Ohio adoptees. Today is the day that 400,000 Ohio adoptees from the closed records adoption era are finally allowed legal access to their original birth certificate. Records for adoptions before 1964 and after September 1996 were not sealed, but for those of us adopted during the years in between our records were. Today we finally have access to those records. I…
By Laura Marie Scoggins Back during my middle school years I was a huge Shaun Cassidy fan. My bedroom was plastered with posters including the ceiling. I had all the latest issues of Tiger Beat and Teen Beat. I sat in front of the TV each week in anticipation for the next episode of the Hardy Boys. I had all of his albums. I knew all of his songs. Needless…
By Laura Marie Scoggins In all of us there is a hunger, marrow-deep, to know our heritage-to know who we are and where we have come from. Without this enriching knowledge, there is a hollow yearning. No matter what our attainments in life, there is still a vacuum, an emptiness, and the most disquieting loneliness. – Alex Haley, Roots It was a cold January day with snow on the…