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was painful for her."
About Sheila Ganz
| Acknowledgements | Essays |
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JODY grew up
knowing she was adopted, but she says, "I felt unsettled about not knowing where I
came from. Do I look like anybody?" In her early thirties, she found her
birthmother, DEE. Because of the shame and secrecy around her out-of-wedlock
pregnancy, DEE was shocked when JODY contacted her. After they got to
know each other DEE says, "I am really delighted to be part of her life now and to
have her be part of mine." 
PAT is JODY'S
adoptive mother, DON is her stepfather, who is supportive of PAT. PAT was worried at
first when JODY told her that she was searching for her birthmother. After JODY's
adoptive mother and birthmother met at her wedding, PAT says, "I was thinking, what
would be the harm, if we became friends?" And JODY tells
us that her search brought her closer to her adoptive mother, "Because she was
willing to go down that path me and be supportive, even though it 
GINGER, an adoptive mother,
tried for three years to start a family after she married. She says that when she
was waiting to adopt a child, "every hour of every day felt like an
eternity." Adopting her daughter was the happiest time in her life and she was
shocked when WHITNEY was diagnosed at age nine with "a feeling of
abandonment." WHITNEY tells us that when she was young, "My mom and I were
complete opposites and I never really felt that she understood where I was coming from and
vice versa." After some rocky teenage 
TOM, a
birthfather, says that he was told it was "selfish" of him to want to
keep his son, since he was 16 and his girlfriend, Rita, whom he loved, was 15 years
old. After the relinquishment he felt like "a jinx in her life" and his self-esteem plummeted. Nineteen years later, they reconnect and
later marry after finding their son. 
RON was raised an
only child. He had suspicions, but did not find out he was adopted until after his parents
died when he was 36. He says, "I had a dawning sense of anger and rage at my
adoptive parents for keeping this a secret, for lying to me my entire life. I also
started to feel very sad about it. Since they were dead… there was no
resolution to this." Two years 
DOLORES was an honor student
in college in 1964, when she got pregnant. Her mother wouldn’t let her bring
her baby home and so she relinquished her son for adoption. DOLORES later
married. After she gave birth to her second son and brought him home
DOLORES says she "cried… realizing what I had given up. What I had
lost." She finds her first son when he is 19 years old.
DEBBIE is Japanese American and transracially
adopted. She grew up feeling "a complete lack of empowerment" and that
fundamental choices were not hers to make. "If I’m just good enough, I
won’t get given away again. If you don’t have a real
identity and you’ve constructed a false identity, it’s a very fragile
thing." DEBBIE always wondered what it was like to be Japanese. It takes
having a child to give her the courage to search for her 
PAUL is Filipino American and
transracially adopted. His adoptive mother is Chinese, his adoptive father Irish. He
grew up believing he was half Chinese. Even though he finds his birthmother, he
says, "I feel like I’m living in this strange separated slice of
time. I’m having a hard time joining up my history and what comes before, the
family before and having a sense of moving beyond today into the future."
HAL and his wife had a biological
daughter, then decided to adopt a mixed race child. They love their son, but were
ill-prepared to raise an African American child. MARTIN is HAL’s adopted
son. MARTIN says, "We didn’t get along.... Had to do a lot of family
counseling when I was young. I was the identified problem." It wasn't
until HAL and his wife looked at it from a new perspective, "adoption was the central
issue that we hadn’t really 
SHEILA, the
filmmaker and a birthmother says, "From the day I signed the paper I wanted to find
my daughter and tell her I love her." Later on she says, "my arms ached to
hold her. I can remember one Halloween seeing kids in costumes and wondering what
she might be wearing." SHEILA never had other children. "How could I
have one and keep it, after giving one away?" She finds her daughter when she
is 19 years old.
ALICE, a birthmother, became pregnant
out-of-wedlock in 1922. She lived in an "infant asylum" until she gave
birth to her son. ALICE intended to return for her baby, once she made proper
arrangements. ALICE tells us, "…and when I wrote to the Sister that I was
coming for my baby, I immediately got a letter back that 
ALISON underwent
several years of infertility treatment until she and her husband decided to adopt.
They wanted it to be an open adoption, because ALISON knows what her six adopted cousins
are going through in closed adoptions. When asked if her adopted twin sons will be
confused, she replies, "How can they be confused when you are telling them the
truth." PHYLLIS did not have the means to keep her twin sons and so
chose ALISON and her husband to raise them. Relinquishing her sons was very
emotional for her. Phyllis says, "I began to visit the boys about twice a week
for the first year. That’s the only thing that saved me."
HELEN HILL narrates a brief history of adoption
from the Orphan Train Era, 1856-1929, to the sealing of adoption records during the
1930’s, to the practice of open adoptions initiated in the 1980’s, and the
current civil rights struggle for adult adoptees to obtain their original birth
certificate being fought in state legislatures. HELEN HILL, an adoptee was Chief
Petitioner for ballot Measure 58 in Oregon. This landmark legislation passed in
1998, giving adult adoptees in Oregon unconditional access to their original birth
certificate. 
© 2009 Sheila Ganz