Did You Know Your Child’s Birth Information Can Be Changed?

I have been thinking a lot about my search for my birth son and some of the many obstacles I ran into. 

Here is one I want to share with you.

When I first started looking for my birth son there were a limited number of books that you could find to give you ideas on how to search. Back then I found a couple of sites where you could register as a birth parent, or a birth child could register, in hopes of finding each other.

The infor­ma­tion you could provide was very limited. 

You could only put in the date of birth, city, country, M/F and hope that there would be a connection.

I remember back when I posted on these sites thinking how unlikely it was that my birth son would find me IF he was looking for me.  There was so little you could say. I remember going into these sites daily looking for new updates, looking for anything that might lead me to finding him.

There wasn’t a lot of infor­ma­tion to go on.

I remem­bered today that on these sites they said that birth parents should not ‘assume’ that a connec­tion might be made. They said adoptive parents can make changes to the birth child’s information.

The date of birth could be changed, the location of birth could be changed, and hospital.

So in searching the birth child may not be found.  What they advised was to look for a day before or a day after the actual birth date.  Also to look for areas, and hospitals, close to where the birth child was born.

Just because it’s legal it doesn’t mean it’s right that the infor­ma­tion can be changed by adoptive parents.

All these years later, and way older, I have some under­stand­ing of the adoptive parents point of view.  They were/are terrified that the child they adopted could be taken from them.  Do I think it is right that that they would do that, no.  Do I think the birth child has a right to know what actual date and place they were born, absolutely.

Many birth parents long to find their birth child with the same emotional force and strong will as the adoptive parents want to keep their child with them, and in some cases hidden.

So much has changed over the years.  When I was looking for my birth child there was no such thing as an ‘open adoption’.  All adoptions where closed.

Too many still are.

They are birth parents out there that didn’t agree to any adoption, open or closed.  Their parents might have, their guardians might have, but they did not. Their baby was taken. To you I just want to say don’t give up.  It may take time, it may take a long time, but finding your birth child is worth every­thing you do to find them. I am proof.

Jan