Im adopted, live in ohio and am told its a closed case:?

Question

how can I find my mother? Im 33 years old.my adoptive parents know nothing

Answer 1

There is a difference between closed and sealed.

Adoptions a long time ago were all sealed, meaning the mother never knew about the adoptive parents and the adoptive parents knew nothing about the birth mother. Sealed adoptions need to have a judge 'open' them.

Closed adoption is somewhat the same thing but no judge needs to get involved. The records are open to the adoptive child when that child turns 18.

You parents would have had to go through a lawyer or an adoption agency. Ask them how they adopted you. You can start from there.

Good luck

Answer 2

I'm an adoptive mother (just a note).

At the time you were adopted adoptions were very secretive. Your parents are probably being honest when they say they know nothing. They do, however, know the agency; and that agency should be able to provide the information you want. Of course, since you "were told" it was a closed case, I'm assuming the agency told you that when you approached them. There is a difference, though, between a "closed" case and a "sealed" case.

My son's birth certificate was changed to show his adoptive parents' names on it, but the city in which he was born remains on the birth certificate. If you could find the city in which you were born you may be able to guess about the hospital in which you were born.

I was able to request from the adoption people delivery records for my son because I thought he had a right to at least know that much. (I have never been a big fan of the re-union thing or of adopted children feeling they have two sets of parents; but I wanted to provide my son with medical-related information, the time of his birth, his birth weight, etc.) I was able to obtain the delivery information with the biological mother's name blackened out.

I would think some of the adoption search agencies/sites may at least take your name in case the biological mother has decided to search for you. Maybe you could ask the agency to contact her in confidence and ask her if she wants a re-union. (That's how my son's meeting with his biological people was set up. The biological mother contacted the agency, which wrote to my son.)

An attorney would be able to tell you if Ohio has changed any laws with regard to adoptees rights to various information. Maybe an attorney would also know whether it would be possible to file a motion to have the records unsealed if there is legitimate reason (this is pure guess on my part; I have no idea if it would even be a possibility).

Something to try to look into would be this: While your biological mother may have chosen to have the records sealed when you were adopted, there's a chance it wasn't her choice or preference. If that's the case, there's the chance she would want to "work around" the sealed records as much as you do.

Is there any chance you were adopted through the State of Ohio's protective services agency? Sometimes those adoptees are able to get a little more support.

I'm sure that you realize your biological mother may have believed the best thing was to let you be 100% the child of your adoptive parents, and maybe she believed that attempting to contact you would be a negative thing. There's a chance she'd like to meet you but doesn't know if it would be bad for you.

Finally, if you haven't done much studying up on how nurturing in the first three years of life affects the development of the brain of a child go to www.zerotothree.org and read about that. So much about who you are comes from your adoptive parents. I know that may not be enough for you to know, but I think its really important for adopted people to understand. The site to which I referred talks about the building of brain connections during the first three years of life and how that can even affect things such as a person's immune system.

My son had a pretty much disastrous reunion with his biological relatives, and he went through quite a bit of turmoil for a couple of years; but ultimately I think it made him have a better understanding of where he truly belongs and fits.

I'm not trying to second-guess your right to want to find your biological mother. I'm not an adopted person. Just in case you don't find her right away, though, maybe just a couple of thoughts:

I was raised by biological parents, and for some reason I know very little about any ancestors beyond them. I have never seen pictures of my grandmothers, who both died young. There are last names of certain people I never learned. My point is that very often biological kids have to accept living without certain information too.

The other point is this: I have two biological kids and one adopted one. When they were little, and the issue of what nationality they were would come up I had to think of how to answer that. My biological kids have quite a mix of nationalities in their ancestry, and my adopted son has a completely different ethnicity. I would tell them that all three of them (and I) were Americans - "melting pot babies". I'd tell them how America is about the melting pot, and they were all perfect examples of "melting pot babies".

When it came to the culture my kids were raised in, I've always believed that any hints of my ancestor's nationalities that could have been passed along and incorporated into my very American lifestyle made up the type of American culture found in my children's home life. I would tell them all three of them that since they were raised in whatever "culture" was mine that was their culture too. I told all three that their grandfather was a veteran; because I was the mother to all three kids, and he was my father (their grandfather).

My point is that adopted and biological children share so much in common, I hope if it turns out you cannot find your biological mother you will be able to keep that in perspective.

Answer 3

Maybe it's a closed case because your mother died or because she never agreed to meet you because sometimes a biological parents choose rather or not to meet their kids at age 18 or older.
I think you need to hire a private investigator because they can find information for you depending on the info you know about yourself.