Dear Editor,
I am the birth brother of two adopted sisters. I read the article and I have to disagree with the content. While I do have to agree with the rights of birthmother's right to privacy, at the same time I need to say that they are not the whole story. These mothers you speak about as being victims of rape and so they need to be protected are not the majority and I do feel empathy for them all the same. It is commendable they choose adoption over abortion, however there are others in greater number who are not rape victim's who chose adoption as an option to a "bad" situation. As I read the article I got the impression that it was written as a ploy to gain sympathy from it's reader's by using something as sensitive as a victim of rape. I am not only a birth brother but I am the father of a teenage rape victim. I can totally identify with the pain and anguish and shame associated with rape. This issue of adoption should stand on it's own merit with an educated and balanced view of the problems and concerns without an emotional slant to it. All I got from the article was the author had in mind to get the reader as fired up as the stirred up birth mothers to protect them from their own past. We all make mistakes. We all grow up and mature and would not do some of the things we would have otherwise. We would go back and correct the past and make it right if we could. We can't.

My concerns are these. There are individuals that are searching that are not angry adoptees wanting to go on a crusade to uncover the past and to make someone pay. There are those of us out here on the Internet who are just wanting to know where we belong and to whom we belong to. A family is not always a group of people who are related by blood. It is those who care for you and who guide you and look out for you. Sometimes that is birth family and at times it is done by others who have a vast amount of love to give to another and doesn't have the ability to "produce" a child of their own. We give of ourselves as parents to our children, not out of what we can reap from them but because we have enough love to share with them. If a child is adopted and has two sets of parents, they are more fortunate than most of us. If at some point in time that child is in a situation that he/she is confronted with the possibilities of relationships with the birth parents and the adoptive parents, I see no need for either side of the triad issue to be hurt of fearful of the other. It is usually deemed an intrusion and seen as a waste of the time and efforts of the adopted family to raise this child if the biological parent just decides to enter the picture after all the work has been done. It is never a waste of time to love a child and to give them the guidance and direction you have to offer because it is always to the benefit of the child. I was told as a four year old and again as a six year old, that my sisters each had died at birth. I accepted my parents explanation and grieved the loss of each sister and went on to live my life and to grow up and to begin my own adult life. As I did I was told the truth. That being my sisters whom I had always thought of as dead, were in actuality just adopted out. They had a life and parents and no knowledge that I existed. I grieved for them and they had no idea I was their older brother. A brother who had anticipated their arrival and lived with the knowledge that I was never to have the privilege of seeing them. When I was told the truth it shattered my perception of what I had always believed. I believed that what your parents told you was the truth. I looked at things from a different perspective from that point on. I never saw my parents from the same advantage point as in the past. I wondered too, what else they had lied to me about. I could not seem to get over this monumental lie. It tore at the fabric of all I had believed in. I was not to ever be the same again.

I did not know how to look for them and I was told that the only reason I was being told was that they were becoming of age and if they somehow came to find my mother I was instructed by my mother to send them away. I had lost them to "death" once and if by some chance they became resurrected to me again I most certainly was not going to send them away. I waited another twenty years hoping they may come looking. They never did. I lost a brother to suicide nearly two years ago. I needed to learn if my sister's too had a sense of abandonment as our older brother had. I turned to the Internet for some assistance. I found some caring, loving and helping individuals to help me along. I did not find as the author of the article suggested a mob of angry adoptees hell-bent on parental annihilation. I found instead a group with much the same stories as my own. They consisted of yes, birth mothers and father and adoptees. I found too, that there were siblings and grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. All of us trying to share information to locate a broken past. I had a huge hole in my heart put there by people who I trusted and I thought were there to protect and love me but who gave me a childhood of lies. I was going to turn that around and these people helped me to do that and I am eternally grateful.

I have been reunited with one of my sisters. She had no idea I existed. She as well as her adopted parents were under the impression from the adoption agency and from non-identifing information that she was an only child and her parents were married and getting divorced. Not true. There is an even bigger story here than the one the author chose to do and that is how information about adoptions has been changed and the people involved are the lawyers and adoption agencies, some of which have had religious connection.

My sister had a great adopted family that loved her and gave her a safe and secure childhood and she grew up to be a beautiful and caring person and a mother herself of three great children and another one on the way.

My point of writing this is to inform your newspaper that not all those who are searching are the type the author spoke of and that we are a community of family members disconnected by adoption. The majority do not wish to interfere in the lives of those we want to find but to let them know we care and we are out here. That should have been the responsible thing your paper should have been concerned with not just a select few. Please share this thought with your readers and let them make an informed decision and not one based on the emotions tied to a victim of rape because it is obvious any one with a heart would side with a victim of a violent crime. This issue needs settled in minds as well as out hearts.

Sincerely Douglas Page
birthbrother of Kristine-found 1-3-99
still looking for Deborah A. Tschirhart (maiden name) 11-02-62.

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