Playing The Mystery of #4709 - Who Am I?
Submitted by Niels on Thu, 2009-08-06 01:06.
See also:
- Another country, not my own
- 40-YEAR SEPARATION OF MOM, SON ENDS WITH BIRTHDAY CALL TOLEDOAN WAS TAKEN AT BIRTH IN BABY SCAM
- The final cost of an international adoption
- A fight to change adoption law
- Utah couple won't give up proof of kids' identities
- Couple worries about $30k it paid adoption agency
- Jill Callison: Filling gap left by adoption
- For the sake of the child, or the adoption agency?
- American mother caught in Pakistani child trafficking nightmare
- Increasing the incentives
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This program on false and missing adoption records aired in South Korea June 13, 2009 on SBS. This program was circulated on the internet by Truth and Reconciliation for the Adoption Community of Korea (TRACK) with the permission of SBS. For more on TRACKs activities, please visit www.adoptionjustice.com
Part 1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmrNP1lgTsg
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mq_51jRYIY
Part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7PqIv5l43M
Part 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA6MDVlkl3o
Part 5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prTah8GK_2E
Part 6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxW9A0FZPhU
March 2011 Update: The video has been removed by the You Tube user, but another version of the story, featuring the same Korean adoptee (adopted through Holt) can be found here: Searching for Kim Sook Ju
The first part discusses documents and adoption records, and the possibiity of a missing sibling.
The second part discusses the determination of age, based on medical records, and the number of teeth.
Part three continues to discuss the age of an adopted child and how adoption agencies, like Holt, address search and reunion issues.
Part four discusses the unnatural disconnect adoptees experience post-adopton and during the search and reunion process, and the role an adoption agency has in an adoptee's sense of identity.
The final part, explores the reason behind aborted search and reunion stories: adoption agency "mistakes" and claims..
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My heart broke watching
My heart broke watching these videos. I look at my beautiful daughter and wonder about her beginnings and the people who kept her for4 weeks. She had two strokes at birth and was considered spastic, quadriplegic, mentally challenged up until a month before I applied to adopt her. Her reports said, "updated to mild cerebral palsy of the left side, only."
There is so much we are not told, so much we will never know. I only know that I love her.
What did I ever do to deserve this... Teddy
"I only know"
I learned through a blackened spot on a letter sent to my AP's what my first original name was. This information was never given to me through my altered birth certificate or from my AP's. I learned my name, (the name given to me by my mother who was living at the time of orphaning), by tilting the letter from an adoption agency to the light. I was able to read the indentations left by a typewriter, indentations that got covered by black magic marker.
When I was in my early 30's I learned everything my AP's told me about the circumstances surrounding my birth/adoption were wrong. Not true. What was told by my AP's and their families was NOT the same story already documented by those working for a shut-down adoption agency. I learned the "new and different version" through a social worker... a very kind and gentle woman who sat with me for three hours as I sobbed reading a few pages... pages known as my non-identifying information.
When I was in my mid 30's I lost my driver's license and had no way of proving my identity without my marriage certificate because the birth certificate I had was not official. My original one was in Newfoundland, and I did not have the other documents I needed to get them from the Canadian government.
When I was in my late 30's I did some more digging and found more documents... the sort of documents that told me it was time to stop digging because each new find was just going to kill more pieces of the me I thought I was... the me I used to be. [Enter now the self-induced head-injury, a year-long recovery, and the start of PPL.]
I now wonder if lost and hidden ("sealed"?) documented lies is a problem all international adoptees have to endure.
I only know I HATE what my adoption did to me.
I'm sorry...
I'm sure my daughter can say the same thing about "what her adoption did to her." I wish there were second chances for all adoptees to find their past and be able to find peace, but we both know that doesn't happen very often. What my daughter is struggling with now is just what a mother/daughter relationship is like. She calls me mommy... she needs a lot of attention: hugs and kisses and words of love. Building a relationship at the end of your childhood; trying to make up for the lost years... And when I hear your anger and feel your acceptance of it being too late... you humble me, Kerry, because it could have been that way for her, too. You make me face reality. You show me just how damaging adoption can be for a child.
I'm sorry if I triggered your pain, again; I didn't mean to. I could just see you pulling your hair and making a disgusted face while grunting your disapproval of me. And that's ok. Even though I am a survivor of incest and huge betrayals, at least I know who the hell I came from... and it isn't pretty. Just maybe not knowing could be a blessing in disguise?
What did I ever do to deserve this... Teddy
Knowing and not knowing
Please understand the difference between triggered response and general attitude... I reserve my disapproval and disagreement for those who insist there is nothing pathological about adoption. KNOWING how many lies are generated, just so a country can rid it's unwanted and earn more currency sickens me. KNOWING how many within the adoption industry do not care about the aftermath caused by corrupt adoptions repulses me. [Watch how an agency worker responds to the adoptee's search and recovery process at 2:35, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxW9A0FZPhU ] KNOWING how many have been hurt because of deception and deliberately hidden facts makes me want to scream like a banshee.
However, when I can feel the heartfelt words expressed by a woman who wants to do the right things for a child because she loves that child, it's not fury I feel... it's sadness and frustration because the simple fact is there are too many losses that should not be.
I wish all AP's took the feelings and the losses of their adopted children seriously. But they don't. In theory, adoptive parents are supposed to be much better than abusive/negligent first parents. How much "better" is the adoption experience if sexual abuse/incest is still taking place in the (pre-screened) home, if mom is passed-out from her prescription pills (for her depression or anxiety) and unable to do anything but sleep, or if no responsible adult is around to feed the kids and protect them from serious harm? How much better is the adoption experience if dad disciplines with a large leather belt, holding and "loving touch" looks and sounds like THIS, or "bed" is a cage or a wet basement floor? [Have people seriously taken the time to read what is happening under the guise of attachment therapy these days, and how many adoptees are being hurt or killed this way?!?!?]
While there are many adoptees saved from wretched living conditions, many are simply moved from bad to equally as bad or worse situations. Even more heart-breaking and upsetting is this: MANY children are taken/stolen from good and loving families and decent homes and sent to hell.... because that's how some adoption agencies operate.
When is deprivation and the rejection of a child EVER pretty?
We can only hope for better endings. We can only hope for improvements. For many adoptees, that "better", (that "improvement"), became/becomes far much worse, and that simple fact needs to be recognized by more than the sickened victims involved.