This child of mine, this sweet brilliant child of mine says to me, “but you're an adult, why can’t you know now?”

A 5-year old can grasp the idea that an adult should have the right to know what hospital they were born in. However, many adults apparently cannot. The quote above is from a blog post in my friend Wraith's December 29 blog post entitled "Hospitals."

My good friend Wraith has spent a great deal of time, effort and energy the last few years searching for his birth family. Since he was born in a state that is very difficult to search in, he has mainly had to rely on the adoption agency to conduct the search for him. It has not worked out very well for him.

To say that the whole experience has been very dissappointing and frustrating would be a gross understatement. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the agency handled the whole search very poorly. Eventually, they closed the file and would not even tell him the name of the hospital where he was born.

He is a resourceful and bright young man, and is fairly certain that he has figured out the name of the hospital, but he cannot be certain. Shortly after closing his file, he received a letter from the agency. It began by saying that they hoped that his reunion was going well and then asked for a donation.

Before closing his file, the agency claimed to have found his birth mother, but said she refused contact. They said they asked her for medical records, but none were ever produced. Although they found other birth family members, the agency would not release any information about them and closed the file.

Wraith has warm and supportive adoptive parents. Knowing that his search is important to him, they even made a trip to the agency seeking their assistance. Their pleas fell on deaf ears just as his had, and their visit to the agency accomplished nothing.

After failing miserably to do little more than gladly accept his money for his non-identifying information and a search, then the agency messed up one last time. Their final blow was to send him that letter hoping that he was enjoying his non-existent reunion and requesting a donation for their so-called "help."

If nothing else changes in adoption in 2007, I hope at least adult adoptees will not continue to be treated as petulent children when they want to know some basic information about themselves.