A Texas birth certificate will have your adoptive parents as your mother and father. You cannot learn anything about bio from it.
Right, I have my amended birth certificate that lists my adoptive parents, which Iâve used my whole life. But there is still an original, unamended birth certificate somewhere in Austin, but the rules state that I canât see it unless I can state the exact names on it. Which I canât, because the Methodist Mission Home routinely supplied false names for mothers and babies.
Because the names are fake, it obviously wonât do me much good, though I still have a morbid curiosity to see what my fake name was. Because ⌠if my mother put that name on my original birth certificate ⌠isnât that my real name? Thatâs the name she told the universe.
Craig is my middle name, and my parents never would tell me why they always ignored my first name. Iâve always wondered if my birthmother gave it to me, but she wonât talk to me.
There is a group of Texas adoptees who have gotten a bill through the Texas House in the last several sessions, almost unanimously, that would let Texas adoptees see our original birth certificates. But every session it dies on Dan Patrickâs desk, because Donna Campbell talked him into killing it.
My original birth certificate wouldnât be much more than a souvenir to me, but to adoptees born later, when real names were used, they could be very beneficial.
Ok, you obviously know more about the original birth record than I do. I am a bit surprised the original is not destroyed when a child is adopted. As a technical matter, your bio motherâs parental rights were terminated before you were adopted so she is not your mother in any legal sense now. At one time, the bio father had no legal parental rights, but I do not know the current status of that law.
ETA: now I do. The unwed father has no inherent parental right. I do understand the concern for the bio motherâs privacy.
I guess because a birth certificate is a vital record, they canât destroy it so itâs amended instead. But trying to see an original is a Kafkaesque mind-fuck.
Iâve gone down some real rabbit-holes studying the history of adoption in Texas. Before birth certificates were widespread, adoptees in Texas used to be recorded on land deeds, which was probably a holdover from the old Orphan Trains. I could give a Ted Talk.
At the time we adopted, there was a database into which anyone who thought they might be a bio father could input their name to assert potential parental rights.
If the bio father was known, he could also assert parental rights prior to birth. If not asserted within 30(?) days of birth, they were presumptively relinquished.
Craig, I always appreciate your discussion of these issues as it gives me real insight into what my kids could potentially encounter some day.
We were beyond blessed that our daughterâs bio parents were a married couple who simply could not deal with another child, and the father had been adopted himself and so was open to the idea. They even asked us what we wanted her given name to be so there would be minimal confusion for the hospital or birth certificate.
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Thank you, it sounds like you and your family have a wonderful relationship. I think the open-mindedness from all sides is important, because so many of my late-life issues relate back to secrecy and shame early in my life. Not to place blame ⌠thatâs just how society was in the '60s, but now itâs become more supportive.
I donât want to clog up the Christmas thread anymore with my whiny adoption stuff, but always feel free to reach out to me if you want to discuss it further.
If I were writing your biopic Iâd hope there was a scene in there of you trying to seduce someone who had access to the records.
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James Bond would have had that record years ago.
Requires a court order. At the outset, zero rights.
âHey Sweetheart, I heard you work at Vital Statistics. And may I just say, your ⌠statistics ⌠do look very vital to me.â
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(swoon!)
As some one who works in the Adoption field, thanks to all you for sharing your experience. Hearing your first hand accounts provides depth to my knowledge of the adoption experience. Identity is so very important in many different stages of life.
We tell families and birth mothers at our agency, that there is no such thing as a closed adoption. With social media, and DNA testing, assume contact will be made. We require our families to be open to at least a minimum level of openness. We have many great stories of families having healthy on going relationships and the child knows their story. It isnât always easy and clean but it is best for the child in most cases.
That wasnât always the case, but it is now. I know a lady who was adopted through our agency and then in young adulthood made an adoption plan for her child. She has a great relationship with her child & the childâs adoptive family. She longs for a connection to her mother who wonât respond to her attempts to reach out to her. It is heartbreaking to watch
her go from beaming about her child to tearing up talking about wanting to know her mother.
If you donât know the story of Georgia Tann, you need to. This lady trafficked children to wealthy families starting in the 1920âs. She was the one who got the sealed birth certificate laws started because it would protect the mother from shame. In reality, it covered her tracks. I highly recommend the book âThe Baby Thiefâ if you want to dig deeper than her wiki page. The US version is out of print but is available for e-reader. The UK version is available on Amazon.
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We HAD a family tradition where the first born son is named after the parernal grandfather
My grandfather is James
My father is Kenneth
Iâm James
My son is. . . Tyler
My father was so pissed.
He waited until I left the hospital to bring my 4 yr old daughter to the hospital and bring my wife roses.
He went to my wifeâs room and tried to bully her to change his name.
She had security kick him out of the hospital
Now 27+ years later he is upset at me for him not having a relationship with his grand kids
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Sorty late
I hope everyone here had wonderful and memorable holiday experiences.
Thank you all for letting me join you here.
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Iâve never been great at panty-dropper lines. At least not as good as my birthfather, apparently.
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To be fair, Bond wasnât always on solid ground consent-wise.
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Thanks for all you do, and for approaching it so thoughtfully.
As an aging adoptee, the one thing I hope the industry will address is medical records. Not just providing family history at birth, but keeping them updated. On my censored files from the Methodist Mission Home, there was a place for my mother to fill out medical history. It just said âGoodâ for both her and my father.
When I was 19, two of my biological grandparents died of heart attacks. Thatâs the kind of essential information that I never had, but would be more accessible in the open adoptions you described. But if the birth parents donât want to provide that info, youâre pretty much stuck.
Health information doesnât just affect the adoptee either ⌠it affects everyone who comes after us.
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Iâve looked up the cemetery in Mississippi where sheâs buried. Just in case my bladderâs full and I need a place to stop.
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When I needed medical info about my daughterâs bio families, the agency sent me what it had without question or hesitation.
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