Are you adopted? If so, you should easily relate to my story of adoption. Whether justified or not, there always has been and always will be a social stigma that is attached to you as an adopted child. When people bring your name up in conversation, especially with someone that may not know you; they may say something like ‘he is not their real child, he was adopted’. And as the parent of  an adopted child, you can only wonder what kind of genes this child has brought into this new relationship in the home.

Long after I located my biological family a television show on TLC called Long Lost Families became popular. As I have watched countless episodes over the years I clearly see how my adoption journey is quite reminiscent of theirs in so many ways.

I can speak to my experience when I tell you that I could never remove myself from the fact that I have never felt that I fit in or was fully accepted. I started out several steps behind everyone else in lifes learning experiences and felt that I always had to play catch-up before I could ever excel at anything. Even after learning the back story of my adoption and communicating in one manner or another with every member of my biological family over the course of many years, I have always felt that I was only part of  the patchwork of my adoptive family. As my story unfolds you will witness the depth of my experience.

I was seven years old when I was brought into my new home and had to remain in that home for 1 full year before the formal adoption could take place.  In my home state of Iowa that was the law regarding adoptions in the 1960’s. Even then, the attorney that filed the paperwork in my case failed to file an amended birth certificate; so there remains a gap in the process that has had a lifelong, negative impact on my life.  I cannot travel internationally because my birth certificate and my legally acquired name at adoption cannot be reconciled. I have a copy of my original birth certificate from the state of California and nothing has been redacted as it should have been. I have hired legal council over the years and they were also unable to repair the breach that was caused by the mishandling of the adoption paperwork.

This site is dynamic; I will periodically update this site by adding new information, sometimes in the form of new PAGES or POSTS. Update status dates will be noted along the left-hand sidebar for easy reference. I am constantly reviewing the documentation and making minor modifications when I see something that I believe needs to be tweaked for easier readability or needs more clarity.